Introduction to Content Creation for Brands and Ecommerce

I’m sure you have been told that you need to be creating content and marketing it to grow your brand. The problem is most don’t understand the value and try to tackle their content with no real plan at all. Without understanding the potential benefits, starting with a clear goal and specific strategy, results will be fleeting or non-existent at best.

Content Marketing is a strategic approach centered on producing and circulating high-value, relevant, and uniform content to appeal to and attract a specific, targeted audience — and, ultimately, create a trustworthy brand to drive predetermined actions and conversions.

Today, the standard consumer is less prone to buy your product impulsively. There needs to be useful content and knowledge distributed to aid their decision-making and solve their problems.

In the past marketing was a one and done routine.  I've never met you before but here is my product lets close the sale.   That can be compared to meeting someone for the first time while standing in line at McDonald's and moving in together after lunch.  It just doesn't work like that anymore and we have the Internet and mobile devices to thank for that.

Neilson's Global Advertising Report surveyed 30 thousand people around the world and they trust ads, specifically text ads and on mobile devices the least.  That means the Amazon seller putting all of his marketing into PPC isn't helping grow his brand because people inherently do not trust advertisers  

With content marketing, instead of pitching your product or service, you are providing relevant content that your audience needs to solve problems and issues they face.  It is a long term strategy that focuses on building trust and relationships with your audience.  

This workshop will teach you why content is relevant to your sustained success, how to create a solid plan that produces results, and how to do so without wasting a ton of time.

What Will Content Marketing Accomplish?

Effective Content Marketing accomplishes:

Purpose - Your content should have a purpose to inform, educate, entertain, and engage with your audience. Your content should provide them with value that they want to consume relating directly to your product, service or goals.

Content is nothing without purpose. The Content Marketing Institute found that 78% of consumers prefer to get to know a brand through articles as opposed to ads. Over 70% believe that brands providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them.

This gives a savvy, marketer reason to focus on effectively using content marketing to build relationships and solidify branding and messaging.  Research by Group M found that 86% of buyers begin their customer journey with non-branded search queries.  They also found that 85% of users ignore paid ads and focus on organic search results.

Effective content marketing in the 21st century means entering the buyer journey earlier in the process.   We do that to establish brand identity and build value and recognition as an authority in the niche.

Typically the conversation is about the business and what is important to it.  Marketing no longer works that way effectively.  Make your awareness content about what is important to your audience.  Help them solve issues or problems that they are experiencing.  This is very effective for establishing trust while making them aware that you r company exists.

Credibility - Strategic sharing of the right content enables us to establish social proof, build out brand awareness, data, facts about your offer and possibly gain testimonials and reviews.   You are entering the prospective buyers thought process earlier in the buyer journey.

When someone goes to the store to buy something they’ve never purchased before the first thing they do is look for brands they recognize and trust. It is to your advantage to get yourself and your product established earlier in the buyer journey to build that credibility.  

Your goal is to be that brand they are familiar with when deciding which one to pick in the store. Consumers do not like to be sold.  They shy away from all of the ads.  Don't you?  Your audience wants content from you.

Long Term Benefits - Sometimes, people state that they don’t have the budget to do content marketing. Or they cannot afford the different processes involved with getting in front of the buyer earlier in the process.

The truth is you don’t have the budget not to be doing content.   A recent study by Demand Metric found that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates 3x the leads.

The overall and long-term value of content marketing lowers the cost of acquisition because you are spending less on time-of-sale marketing. Instead, you are encountering your potential buyer more often through low-cost, no-cost, and soft sell interactions. 

When they decide to move on something they have never purchased, you are already in the decision-making process and not trying to buy your way into the list of never before heard of brands. 

The evergreen nature of the content means you will reap these benefits over and over into the future. The expense of time and effort to do this effectively will drive list growth, sales, and trust far into the future.

Always remember the lifetime value of a list member is ten times the value of the initial purchase. Content marketing builds your list.

Content Marketing For Brands & Ecommerce Workshop

The purpose of this workshop is to provide you with a reliable process and road map for Content Marketing & Management. We fully understand how overwhelming it can seem.

You will have a stable system to easily produce quality, search engine optimized content that speaks to issues your audience is facing. We will demonstrate simple ways to re-purpose and reformat the same content to appeal to potential buyers at multiple stages of the buyer journey.  

No content strategy is complete without first understanding your audience, their needs and their struggles. Defining goals congruent with your business objectives is key to aligning your content strategy so that it produces results.  

Mapping out the buyer journey to define pain points and opportunities for your brand to interact with your audience is imperative to develop trust and authority.  Mapping your content to the buyer journey and presenting it in a format that fits the buyer at that stage establishes that trust, builds authority and broadens brand awareness. 

Once you have a plan, you will produce content that can be used to interact with them at different stages. This gives you the opportunity to enter the buyers discovery and decision making process at multiple points in their journey.  

Utilize the worksheets provided and use your business as your examples.   When the workshop is complete you will have buyer personas, a content plan, a buyers journey, mapped content ideas and a system to put in place

Goals

Our goal always is to provide you with the methods to create powerful tools out of what were unbearable tasks. Two factors of the Mission Statement for Ecommerce Optimizer is always teach you the process while giving the tools to manage it effectively through others while automating and streamlining as much as possible.

That means anyone following this system already has next month finished, and scheduled for distribution. This frees up yourself and staff to engage your audience throughout the month. You will never freak out looking at a blank screen wondering what you are going to write about for tomorrow.

You will complete this workshop with a solid plan forward to implement an effective content marketing system that maximizes the potential, extends your authority, and simplifies the entire process. You will learn how to create a solid plan that produces measurable results. Most important of all, you will understand how to do so without wasting a ton of time.

We have a great deal to review, so let's begin...

Assignment:

Read the Business Plan and Buyer Persona article posted below to familiarize yourself with buyer personas for the next lesson.  Also included is a link to our Buyer Persona Workshop which is an extensive deep dive similar to this workshop.  You dont have time for that now, but if you really are stuck with your personas, you can take that workshop at another time!