Content is king, so they say but it's sure as heck not going anywhere unless you market it. Content marketing is one of the hottest topics in marketing these days but not everyone is getting it right.
Content marketing is all about inbound traffic. Done well, content marketing can attract great clients and seamlessly ease them into your business in a way that feels natural, generous and helpful. Done incorrectly, content marketing can be a massive waste of time and resources. You can spend hours on a piece of content that nobody consumes and you're left wondering if this "content marketing thing" works at all.
But content marketing does work! You wouldn't see top marketers use it every day if that wasn't the case.
The trick to content marketing is understanding how people think and behave. It's all about human psychology.
In this week's episode, I invite author and content marketing expert Kenda McDonald to talk on the subject. Kenda was a fun guest with lots to say on the subject.
We dive deep into the topic as we cover:
Content marketing and the lifecycle marketing framework
"Common versions of marketing automation are broken with the whole funnel concept. It doesn't really work. We need to be focussing more on the customer journey." Kenda McDonald
Click to Tweet
The Lifecycle Marketing Framework is about the Customer Journey. It helps us understand where people are in the buying cycle and what content you should be serving up.
By understanding this fully you'll know how to not only increase the quality and rate of lead generation in your business, but you'll also increase your lifetime customer value.
Kenda breaks it down into four distinct stages:
1
Attract - Everything you do to gain your buy'ers attention at lead them up to the point of sale.2
Engage - This is the part many marketers and small businesses miss out. It's what you do to add value and educate your prospects.3
Sell - There's nothing complicated here. It's what you do get the sale and then close the sale.
4
Wow - This is another part often ommitted from many entrepreneur's maketing plan. It's what you do to delight your customers, keep the engaged with you and prepare them for upsells, cross-sells, testimonials and referrals.
Note: Some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning I get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.