With the Internet, reaching potential customers has become easier than ever before. Search engines, social media, podcasts, and video gives you access to a massive market of consumers and a vast professional network.
 
One of the best long-term methods to reach your market is through publishing content online. Content published online builds your authority, brand awareness, and sales.
 
By reaching communities through content, your business can create brand advocates who will purchase your products and services for years, as well as recommend your products to their friends and family. They might learn from your blog or social media content, share your products and services to their followers, or make a purchase when you announce a new launch.
 
Content can be posted on your website or repurposed across platforms. It can be sent directly to your audience’s email inboxes. If they subscribe to your podcast, they can receive notifications every time you release a new episode.
 
The right content helps your business get:

• Increased exposure
• Stronger brand awareness
• Visibility and authority

 
Content is the versatile engine to run the online marketing of your business.
 
Here’s what you need to know when publishing content online:

1. Lead with value. Giving value (free information, advice, tips) builds the credibility of your business and keeps your company at the front of consumer’s minds.
   
   
2. Map the customer journey. Content marketing is storytelling that brings customers through different stages:

 

• Awareness. This is the stage when potential customers learn about you and your business. Lead customers from this “Awareness” stage to the next stage with a call-to-action to subscribe to your newsletter.  At this stage, the content can be:
  
  
  • Tutorial (from search like Google or Pinterest)
  • Viral post (something people will share or retweet)
  • Expert content or analysis reports
    
    
• Consideration. At this stage, potential customers already know about you and would consider buying from you. They are already in your circle. Content can be half educational and half promotional. You’ll reach customers at this stage via content such as newsletters, case studies, and podcasts.
  
  
• Decision. At the decision stage, customers trust your business and are considering making a purchase from you. Content here isn’t to educate or build brand awareness. It’s to address the benefits of your products or services. At this stage, the call-to-action leads the customer to either make a purchase or start a free trial.
  
  

1. Create a strategy. A strategy is essential to ensuring your team reaches your goals.
   
   

• What is your goal when publishing content?
• What is the monetization plan?
• How are you going to achieve your goals?
• For every platform, set an audience intent. Does your audience look at Pinterest for inspiration? Instagram for tutorials?
  
  

1. Interact with your community. Use content as a way to interact with and engage your community! Make them feel like they are part of something
   Create content that gets them involved with what you stand for. Post community-generated content.
   
   
2. Become a category leader. You can also use content to distinguish your business in your industry. How is your business different from the rest, and how can you create content that reflects that?
   
   
3. Have a brand style guide that covers brand voice and tone. A brand style guide ensures that your team stays consistent when you publish. It can also be a frame of reference when you’re thinking about content ideas to publish.

 
When you are educational and helpful, customers move through the customer journey. When you go beyond publishing content about your products, customers start to see you as a part of their everyday lives beyond your products or services.
 
Social media gives us access to a massive market. When you know how to use this to your advantage effectively, you can build a timeless brand awareness that goes beyond the products or services you sell today. It truly is a powerful tool for both career and business advancement.
 
If you are looking to build a solid strategy for your personal or professional brand to stand out as leader in your industry, contact us!

https://bit.ly/3X2Rj96
 

Most clients that come to us who want to start, or grow, a business come with a pile of personal goals and wants of how they wish things in their business should be. When asked about their Customer Avatar, many of them stare at me with a blank expression or confused look on their face. This tells me almost immediately where the problem lies, and where our work will begin. You see, creating a comprehensive Customer Avatar is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your business. It not only speeds up revenue almost immediately, but it also saves a lot of wasted time on marketing strategies that are worthless if they’re not being targeted to your ideal client/customer effectively. 
If you don’t know what a Customer Avatar is, and why it is extremely important, you’re not alone. In fact, most business owners struggle with this piece of the marketing puzzle.
Here’s what a customer avatar is:

• A key component of your overall marketing strategy
• A fictional client with clear and specific wants, needs, values, principles, pain points, etc.
• A profile of a person who fits your target audience description
• A clear, detailed outline based on research

Many business owners and entrepreneurs like to jump right in and start building ads, writing copy, creating landing pages, and doing all that other fun marketing stuff…BUT if they don’t have their customer avatars completed, they are wasting their time, energy, and money. This is because if they don’t know who their customer is or what they want, then how can they effectively market to them? Therefore, a detailed customer avatar is one of the main factors to achieve business success, but how do you create one?
The first step is to list out their demographic and psychographic traits. Write down as much information as you can be based on what you know about your customer so far. If you don’t know much about your customer, then you need to interview them and ask them questions to come up with a comprehensive profile.
Next, give them a name that you will recognize and remember so when you are creating content for this avatar you will be able to pull up their profile easily.
Next, write a story as your customer avatar. Pretend you are them. What did they do before your service/product? What are they thinking while using your service/product? What are they trying to accomplish through your service/product? What do they do after using your service/product? When will they come back to your service/product? Etc.
The point is to force yourself to think through your marketing and advertising pathways and methods of retaining customers. This will help you to see how you may not have been communicating to your ideal client effectively and will assist you to create better strategies to help build trust with your customers and increase business revenue.
Once you develop strong customer avatars, you will be on your way to establishing repeat loyal customers and a solid and successful business. If you need help developing comprehensive customer avatars for your business, we can help!

​ Contact us for a free consultation! 


https://bit.ly/3qlZpwh

Social media platforms have quickly grown to be a primary resource for businesses to market and grow their businesses online. When used effectively, social media can provide an economical and effective way to increase your revenue. Use these tips to connect with your ideal clients and customers through social media and increase your profits:
Have a solid social media strategy and market to your customers on their preferred platform.

• Consider how social media can be integrated into your current marketing strategy.
• Effective marketing requires a plan and commitment to see real results.
• Avoid just signing up for a Facebook and Twitter account and posting or tweeting without a plan in place.
• Ensure you know your target audience so you can market to your customers effectively.

• Track down where your customers congregate online and market to them directly.
• There are many communities within the various social media sites. Find out exactly which ones your customers prefer: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

Consider the various ways you can build your business with social media.

• There are many ways to leverage the attention of your customers through social media.
• You could create marketing strategies to find new customers.
• You could also handle customer concerns publicly to show how responsive your company can be to customer service issues.
• Announcing sales or special events through social media is also a great idea for customer retention.

Be consistent and timely.

• Respond to any inquiries that result from your social media marketing and spend time online engaging with your audience each day.
• Avoid letting several days go by without being involved or seen online. Otherwise, people are likely to forget you.
• Remember that it takes an average of seven times of seeing something to remember it, so don’t worry about “over-doing it.” Keep posting!

Be as human as possible.

• With social media, it’s generally better to have a picture of your face, rather than just the company logo.
• People are far more likely to connect with a person than a faceless company. Try to be personal and authentic.
• Even if your company is more than just one person, do your best to share pictures of yourself and your team often so your audience feels like they know who you are, as this builds trust.

Track your results.

• Always track your results.
• If Twitter isn’t working, drop it, but you’ll never know whether a specific social medium is working unless you track your results.

Social media is relatively new, but you can easily take advantage of these new marketing opportunities and promote your business in many ways. Having a solid strategy is key, and implementing it often is the path to business success. If you need assistance with developing a winning strategy to market your business on social media platforms, contact us! Our team would be happy to help your business stand out and grow online! 

https://bit.ly/3qlZpwh
​