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5 prompts to inspire your content marketing (to engage your audience and make more sales)
Creating content for your marketing strategy is a never-ending process. That’s essentially the name of the game! Continue to show up, continue to serve, continue to add value to your audience, and you’ll see tangible results over time in the form of sales and community growth.
Knowing that content curation is beneficial and showing up across platforms, though, are two very different things.
If you’re struggling to know what to post, content prompts can help to fuel new ideas and inspiration around telling your story, providing value, and sharing your offers to better engage your audience.
What kind of support can you get for marketing your small business? An introduction to outsourcing marketing
Oftentimes there is frustration or aversion when it comes to marketing because entrepreneurs have fallen into marketing because they want a business, not because they enjoy marketing or have marketing expertise. And while I love to help “accidental marketers” find joy in marketing by making it easier for them, I also know that sometimes the best thing to do for your business is to outsource the tasks that are draining your time and energy.
When you allow yourself to let go of some of these tasks, you can instead focus on the activities that are within your zone of genius; working more “on” the business, instead of “in” it. Here are a few of the most common options for outsourcing marketing work.
Your data is the best source for data-driven decisions
You know how big I am on planning when it comes to marketing, but the other recommendation I like to talk about a lot is making decisions that are backed by data. When building out a strategic marketing plan, data is going to be key in informing your decisions in a way that will allow you to reach your bigger business goals.
Abiding by data is harder to do when you're new to business, but you can set yourself up to collect data from day one. And, as the data about your activity grows, you'll have insights you can use that are infinitely more reliable than all the third-party data in the world.
When was the last time you asked your audience to buy?
It pains me whenever I hear, "I haven't had any sales,” from a business owner, because I have to follow it up by asking how much promotion they’ve done. All too often, the answer is "not much" or "I haven't." Every piece of content you share should have some sort of action associated with it based on the goals you have for your business.
If your current content plan doesn't include regular reminders that they can buy from you, it's time to add those in! Because you don’t want to be spending time on marketing that doesn't lead to sales.
Business owners are creatives: Use that creativity for marketing
I talk to business owners all the time who struggle with the idea of creating content around their business. I maintain that most business owners have a strong tendency to be creative. Starting, building, and maintaining a business is in itself an act of constant creativity in response to all kinds of variables that come at you. So, begin to look at how you can harness your creative genius (in whatever form it comes) for marketing.
How to start creating systems and processes for your business
What do the workflows in your business look like? If you’re like many small business owners, the structures you have in place to manage your tasks are vague or nonexistent. I get it. When it’s just you running your business it can seem like a waste of time and money to invest in automation or document your processes when you can do everything on your own, with each step (somewhat) organized in your mind.
Here's why building systems and processes is worth the effort
Creating systems and processes in your business may seem daunting, but it’s well worth the time and effort. With the right systems and processes in place, you can drastically cut down on the amount of time and energy exerted over many of these tasks, meaning more efficiency, time freedom and profitability down the line.
Setting up these structures may take more time up-front but the investment will pay you back enormously in the long-run, as long as you’re intentional and diligent about documenting, adhering to, and regularly reevaluating the guidelines you create.
Benefits of being a podcast guest (and what to do before you book)
Podcasting can offer incredible opportunities for small business owners looking to develop more authentic relationships with their current audience and get in front of new audiences. It’s a low-cost medium with millions of engaged listeners, and is predicted to continue to grow.
Even if you don’t have the capacity to start your own podcast, you can still take advantage of these opportunities by being a guest, as long as the show is aligned with your business and exposure goals.
How to find research that supports your content
When you think of citing your research do you get flashbacks of your high school or university days, and the frustration you felt when having to properly cite sources in your academic papers?
Well, I’m sorry to break it to you but unfortunately, if you’re creating content for your company, those days aren’t quite behind you (though the explosion of the internet has made things a lot easier).
Even for content on sales pages or blogs, citing sources is incredibly beneficial for you and your brand -- and will likely result in more sales down the road.
Demystifying Marketing: 4 Steps to Take for More Growth in Your Business
I see the same mistakes made again and again when it comes to marketing: misunderstandings about the intention behind marketing, confusion about the tools you should be using, and misconceptions about how to start and where to focus your time.
You'll get much more out of your efforts if you understand the true power of marketing to help build momentum and growth in your business.
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