Content Marketing

Building trust is the ultimate goal of content marketing. Here’s how to move up the “payment scale,” from attention to advocacy to earning—and keeping—a loyal customer.

Just like in traditional selling, you can’t just march in unannounced and ask for the sale. You have to do the work and prove yourself first. Content marketing is no different.

Building an audience is difficult, which is why it’s so valuable. Organic growth takes time, but if you are willing to do the work, you can create perhaps your most valuable business asset.

Do we really want people to stop innovating? Because that’s the sentiment in the phrase, “what the world doesn’t need.” Even if you’re not an early adopter, you can get behind innovators who are making the world a better place.

Saying that you’ve tried everything is a form of giving up. But while there are always more things to try, how do you know when to stop? Is the project truly over, or is success right around the corner?

Kickstarter can be a great strategy. But there are a lot of myths about crowdfunding, which is why most campaigns fail. On today’s episode, Bruce Myren shares his strategy and experiences in successfully funding his own project with Kickstarter.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, even the great ones. It’s the execution that counts. So, if you’ve got a great idea, get going. Start building, start creating, start testing. Start solving problems. There’s nothing in your way.

What’s the ROI of content marketing? Measuring awareness is easy, but measuring trust is not. Awareness alone won’t do it for you though, and your message won’t travel without trust. So if content marketing is going to work for you, don’t start with the ROI question.

Make a promise to your audience. Then consistently deliver on that promise. That’s content marketing, in a nutshell. Building authority, credibility, and most importantly, earning the right to ask for the sale down the road.

Content strategy can make you a lot more efficient if you treat your content as a business asset. With a little strategic planning up front, your content can be a renewable resource—an investment rather than a cost.

For content marketing to be effective, you need two things: 1) a strategy; and 2) a set of tactics to execute the strategy. Here’s how to make sure that they are working together in service of your business goals.

Any content strategy involves three types of content. The first two are about you and your business, but the third one is your true upside, because it’s about a relationship between you and your customer. The trick is to get all three types of content working together towards your business goals.