Using Content Marketing to Improve Your Business Processes

Do you want to be found and noticed online?

Then creating content marketing for your business, your website, your social media, and your SEO is essential.

The more quality content you create, the better.

We can say from first-hand experience that building up a bank of content really does help your business grow.

Content brings in leads and enquiries, it boosts your social media and SEO efforts, and it’s the core of everything we do at Spaghetti Agency for ourselves and our clients.

But there’s a problem with content marketing.

There’s a problem that I see people talk about. And that problem is… TIME!

Content marketing takes time to create, and it takes time before it starts to benefit your marketing, business, SEO, social and more.

Using Content Marketing to Improve Your Business Processes

It. All. Takes. Time.

The main problem with this?

When things take time, they generally get less focus over time as the results aren’t there to cheer you on and keep you motivated. Like any diet or health plan, the initial period is all give, give, give – with no immediate return.

And we all prefer instant success, don’t we?

So how do you get around that?

How do you get some upfront benefits when committing to regularly creating content?

Well… you should use content marketing as part of your processes. That way, content marketing gets to work for you and benefits you and your clients/customers right away while the long-term benefits bubble away in the background.

What do I mean when I say, “use content marketing as part of your processes”? Well… allow me to explain…

Build the content once. Use it over and over again

Like any marketing, you should aim to create one large piece of content (like a blog or video) and then repurpose it into smaller pieces of content or maybe just content ideal for different platforms (images for Instagram, video for LinkedIn, articles for email).

Making content work harder for you is important, so building it into your processes forces this to happen. This offers a tonne of value to people in your funnel and makes your content creating life easier, too.

Content marketing: Answering stupid questions

One of the strategies for your content marketing should be to focus on your ideal audience and what it is they need help with.

• What are they struggling with?
• How can you help them?

Simply answering these questions for them – with helpful and engaging content – will give so much value to them (and to you!).

Answering what I call ‘stupid questions’ is a great content marketing strategy for many reasons:

1. You’re bound to be asked these questions a lot so building content means sharing a link on email or on social, not constantly answering it from scratch.
2. If your audience are always asking it, then people will be Googling it. Answering it (with the right search terms and some good on-page SEO) will help you rank on Google and drive more traffic.
3. You’ll attract the right people. When you create content that solves a common problem for your ideal audience it not only builds rapport and trust, but it also shows that you understand what they struggle with.

Content based on stupid questions is really powerful. Need some ideas? Head over to our blog on blogging right here.

Content marketing: Part of the sales funnel

When you’re trying to build sales, you’ll know all too well that a strong sales funnel is important. Getting people to notice you and then take some steps towards building trust and then making enquiries is the lifeblood of most businesses.

When someone finds you online:

• How do they start interacting with you?
• What’s the freebie?
• Do you have a lead magnet?
• What about a series of videos they can sign up to?

Content marketing can be created for your blog, social media, emails, YouTube, and more… and then you can slot it into your marketing and sales funnel.

Why leave it on your blog when you could add it to a series of emails or posts that new or interested people can consume after interacting with you?

Here are some ideas for you:

• Create a series of emails following your onboarding email after someone downloads your eBook.
• Build a bank of videos (from ‘stupid questions’) and then offer them as a freebie to people who join your programme or list.
• Create a series of blogs around a certain area or topic in your business and then put them all together into an eBook and send it to prospects who you’re arranging meetings and proposals with.
• Create some hidden pages on your website with valuable content that you send to people who join your business. Send them a link over the next few weeks to keep them engaged with you.
• Use three to four simple ideas that help your ideal clients and share them in DMs with new connections on LinkedIn.
• Create three to four blogs on the main things that you know your audience need help with, chop them up into 15-20 or more shorter posts and share them on your LinkedIn over the course of a few weeks.
• Do the above and then share them into your own Facebook or LinkedIn groups.
• You could also use the above for the basis of a podcast show.
• And then… take those 15-20 ideas and create Facebook and LinkedIn live content and post daily, weekly videos.

I always start with the big content pieces (blogs/articles/lead magnets/eBooks) and then chop them down into bitesize pieces of content that you can drop into your automated emails, messages, and social media.

Using a tool like Keap or Hubspot makes all this super simple, too.

Putting the content on your website helps your SEO in the long run and putting it into your funnel boosts your leads and sales in the short term. Double whammy!

Content marketing: Ideal for added extras to your clients

Onboarding clients can be a complicated affair and can be time-consuming, too. Having some pre-built content is ideal if you’re looking to ‘wine and dine’ your new prospect while you tick boxes, dot the i’s, and cross the t’s.

Make sure you have some content that your clients – the people who have already said YES – get to see.

We add all our new clients to our regular email list and make sure we send them a gift when they join. So many of our clients comment on our latest blog or news from the Friday Digital Roundup that we know it’s being seen, but more importantly – it’s making an impact.

Content marketing: Making Paid ads better

You can also build a series of posts for your social media PPC and Google Display Ads that give value and build trust, too. Pushing out useful content, snippets of tips and advice, ‘how to’s’ and case studies to paid ads to people who’ve engaged with you is very powerful.

Using remarketing via Facebook and Google Ads can help you work on those who are showing an interest. They might simply download something or visit an important page on your website, or maybe they enquire on your website.

What next?

Running some remarketing ads full of value will grow a stronger connection with them (even if they don’t actually read it all) in between connecting and meeting with you works and it’s often very cost-effective marketing.

Build the content once. Use it over and over again

Making content work harder for you is important, so building it into your processes forces this to happen. This offers a tonne of value to people in your funnel and makes your content creating life easier, too.

What do you think? how could you use content marketing AS PART OF of your processes? Let me know in the comments…

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