Podcast Summary
Five Phases of Building a Successful Content Marketing Machine: Consistently create and post content, expand to all platforms, maximize volume, and focus on either lead gen or brand awareness.
While measurable things are important in business, intangible aspects should not be overlooked, especially when it comes to content marketing. Alex Schmozzi, the owner of acquisition.com, shares his experience and the five phases of building a successful content marketing machine. First, create content and post it. Second, post consistently and create a calendar. Third, expand to all platforms and post reliably. Fourth, maximize the volume of content on each platform. Lastly, focus on either lead generation or brand awareness as your primary objective. Starting with phase 1, simply make and post content. In phase 2, be consistent and establish a posting schedule. In phase 3, expand to all platforms and post reliably. In phase 4, maximize the volume of content on each platform. Lastly, in phase 5, focus on your primary objective - lead generation or brand awareness. Remember, the goal is to make money and grow your business, so use this information to your advantage. Consistently posting content and maximizing its reach on various platforms can lead to significant growth.
Maximizing organic content for business growth: Consistently post quality content across platforms to nurture leads and balance with other customer acquisition strategies.
Creating and maximizing organic content across various platforms is a crucial aspect of business growth, particularly for acquiring customers. This process involves five distinct phases: posting something (phase 1), posting consistently (phase 2), expanding to all platforms (phase 3), maximizing reach (phase 4), and creating and innovating (phase 5). For small business owners, the primary focus should be on acquiring customers through other means like manual outreach, affiliates, or paid ads. Organic content's role is to nurture leads rather than generate them. The key to successful organic content is maintaining a consistent volume and ensuring that recent posts are of good quality. Remember, "no such thing as too long, only too boring," and "quality quantity wins over quality." However, it takes time and effort to produce quality content, so it's essential to balance organic marketing with other customer acquisition strategies.
Provide valuable content to build trust and increase sales: Creating and sharing valuable content builds trust, supports sales, and informs advertising efforts.
Creating valuable content is an essential part of a successful business strategy, benefiting both the sales and marketing teams. By providing potential customers with informative and engaging content, businesses can build trust and increase the perceived likelihood of achieving their desired outcome if a purchase is made. This content can also serve as a valuable resource for sales teams, answering frequently asked questions and providing effective hooks for closing deals. Additionally, analyzing the performance of organic content can inform paid advertising and outreach efforts, allowing businesses to optimize their messaging and maximize the impact of their existing content. Overall, investing in a consistent content marketing strategy can lead to significant benefits, from lead nurturing and sales support to insights for targeted advertising and outreach.
Effectively using content marketing for lead generation: Create high-quality content, learn platform requirements, and progressively shift focus from testing and lead nurturing to generating new customers through optimized content.
To effectively use content marketing for lead generation, you need to consistently create and distribute content across various platforms while learning the unique packaging requirements for each. This process takes time and effort, but the ultimate goal is to create high-quality content that attracts new audiences and keeps them engaged on the platform, ultimately generating new leads and growing your business. In the earlier stages, focus on creating content and learning the platforms (Phase 1 and 2). As you progress, maximize your reach on each platform (Phase 3), and eventually, actively create and optimize content to generate new leads (Phase 4 and 5). Remember, the objective shifts from testing and lead nurturing in the earlier stages to generating new customers through high-quality content in the later stages.
Provide value consistently while occasionally including calls to action: Invest time in creating valuable content to attract an audience and potentially convert them into customers
Creating valuable content can help attract an audience and potentially lead to business growth, but it's important to maintain a balance between giving and taking. This means providing value consistently while occasionally including calls to action to convert followers into customers. From a cost perspective, using content as a lead generation strategy requires a long-term investment of time and potentially resources to create, edit, and distribute content effectively. It's important to set realistic expectations and be patient for results, as fame can be an efficient business model but it takes time. In the beginning, it may be necessary to hire help to scale content creation and distribution. Overall, the more value you provide, the more you'll grow your audience and business.
Quality of audience matters as much as numbers: Focus on creating high-quality content for a niche audience, aligning with brand values, and becoming an authority in a specific area for maximum impact.
While it's important to focus on quantitative metrics like views, clicks, and subscribers when building a social media presence, it's equally important to consider the quality of your audience and the alignment with your brand values and messages. Vendors, who are often data-driven, may push for viral content, but it's crucial to resist this temptation if it doesn't resonate with your brand or audience. Additionally, the cost of creating high-quality content organically can be significant, but the potential return on investment, in terms of equivalent ad spend, can be substantial if you're an expert in your field. Therefore, it's essential to define the problem you solve narrowly and become an authority in that specific area to maximize your impact.
Provide authentic and valuable content to stand out: Focus on unique value proposition, compete against fewer rivals, and prove expertise through authentic content for slow and steady growth.
The quality of your free content is crucial in gaining and retaining people's attention. It's not just about having the lowest price, but also solving their pain points and providing value that makes their lives better. The biggest cost isn't just the price, but the opportunity cost of their time. To stand out, focus on your unique value proposition and compete against fewer rivals. Slow and steady growth through authentic and valuable content is key. Don't fake it till you make it; instead, prove it so you don't lose it. The evidence of your expertise is more valuable than hype or chest-thumping.
Establishing credibility through evidence and doing: Consistently deliver valuable content and stack up evidence to prove expertise, whether starting out or scaling content marketing
Building a strong foundation of evidence and focusing on the "doing" is crucial for establishing credibility and resilience in the face of criticism or negative feedback, especially in content marketing. This means consistently delivering valuable content and stacking up evidence to prove your expertise. For small business owners, the initial stages involve creating and sharing valuable content to establish legitimacy. For those looking to scale content marketing as a lead generation machine, investing in vendors and eventually bringing employees in-house is necessary. Ultimately, having a solid foundation of evidence and a focus on delivering value will help you weather the challenges of content marketing and build a successful business.
