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Defining Content Marketing

let's spend the last half hour of this segment and define what content market is for you guys professional photographers we've talked a lot about examples from other other companies and we've talked a lot about why you need it let's get into what it really looks like in brass tacks for you guys just put together a definition that'll build out the framework for what you need to be doing content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action and this is according to content market institute dot com that I didn't make this up I think it's the best definition I've ever seen of content marketing it's a mouthful don't run I took me thirty seconds to read it we're gonna break it down though because this really creates the five laws of content marketing for us content marketing is about doing the fiv...

e tenants that aaron this and if you can build content that does the five things that are listed good to go okay so don't worry we'll be circling back on this definition quite a bit so you can get it all written down we're gonna have it up a bunch but let's break down what is content marketing to photographers so we've looked at content marketing toe all sorts of companies but what is it to a professional photographer so a professional photographer content market is about using your images and everything that is behind those images the stories the knowledge the advice all the expertise you have behind all the images it's using those images and all that other stuff to help your prospects to help your leads help your customers I'm going to use the word customer to kind of be ubiquitous to refer to somebody who's maybe not yet your customers are going to be your customer and somebody is your customer and something that already was your customer because once a customer always a customer that's how I feel you know if you can make someone a customer but continue to have them feel as though they're party or brand that's the way to do it so when I say customer for the next three days I'm really referring to that whole stage prior to being a customer while their customer and then post customer but still still a customer really in my opinion on content marketing the photographer's about using those images and here's the thing you guys the images become the tool for you to share your brand message the story's become the tool for you to share your brand message that's the important thing make an example of what I'm talking about I think really help solidify so again going back to dating everyone I was dating sarah we would the first week before we want a date I was on the phone with her every night talking and stuff and I don't know if she did it on purpose but she I think she really was busy but like I asked her out and took a week for us to go on a date and so that week I could not wait to talk to her but I didn't want to be the creepy guy right you know you can't come on too strong so so I could come up with an excuse to call her that didn't make it look like I was just calling around the blue and so I come up with all sorts of stupid excuses but they always worked and they really got to the point of because every time I called we had a great conversation and so in the end it didn't really matter what kind of excuse I needed it worked out great um but I needed an initial excuse to call her while you're establishing trust you need that excuse excuse to reach out and to get in front of people to bombard them and content your images and the stories behind them the knowledge and the advice you have behind those images become your excuse to continually promote and talk about your brand and after a while you won't need an excuse the time they're a customer of yours and they've gone to the whole process you don't need has been excuses but in the beginning you might need an excuse or two to get in front of we have that excuse because we have beautiful images and even better we have stories behind them and we have expertise behind them that they're craving and so what it is for photographers it's using your images and all that goes into them to share love and market your business so why is that perfect for photographers well let's talk about that there's a couple reasons the number one reason is because you produce content for a living and pretty much any other company around the world outside of a ta gra fi if they want to deploy content marketing they have to go figure out how to create the content that takes a lot of time a lot of energy they've got to become experts in something they've got a really flush this out photographers you guys create content that people love just by what you do for a living so it's a lot easier for you guys to employ content marketing than it is for most businesses for example she done it we want to go out and put out that that guide that I just posted up there we have to go out and figure out how to put thirty pages of awesome content together that takes a long time and that's hard you guys already just shot a great wait at the hotel del coronado and there were a lot of a lot of things that make you an expert about shoot the hotel del coronado there's a lot of other people out there want to know about you just shot a great portrait session out in the hills of oregon and you understand the best locations to shoot at for senior portrait sessions in the hills of working that's something a lot of people want you just got done shooting a barn wedding and barn weddings are really tough to shoot and it's also really tough to know how to design it causes such a blank canvas you're an expert at that and people want that advice you just got done shooting a family portrait session of the beach how do you wrangle three kids to actually get good images with the beach and all the things the beach has the sand the waves the wind how the pictures come out looking so good you know how to do that you just got done doing a photo a stylized photo shoot with a stylized fashion shoot with someone in a moving car and it looks amazing and it changed the way that people are looking at that type of stylized shoot you know how to do that people want to know about that you just shot a wedding that had twenty five person family formals people with big families don't know how to get candid fun looking family foremost you do you can share about it you guys all have content lined up ready to go that you're an expert in all it needs is sharing and it needs talk about with a defined message lot of the companies don't have that let's talk about some examples of companies that could be doing content marking that aren't so I fly a lot of travel a lot for work and whatnot and I fly I fly mostly on american airlines I'm not advocating for american airlines I'm not really advocating for any airline right now but we'll save that conversation for a different day but let's look at american airlines american airlines they know a lot about me when I book a flight they know where I'm going they know when I'm going they know how long I'm going they know a lot about me they could really do a great job with content marketing imagine if american airlines when I booked a flight to cancun mexico I want to can't come in a couple months ago for some prison work stuff and I was there for a couple of days imagine if they could see jared's going to cancun mexico we'll shoot we fly to cancun all the time our flight attendants and our pilots stay there all the time we have several airport hubs there we have a lounge there we know a lot about cancun we should share ideas with jared about ways to get a better trip for into cancun what if we asked him when he booked his flight if he's going for business or for pleasure and then he's going for business we could share with them great cocktail bars in cancun to take clients he's going for pleasure what if we could share with him the best beaches that cancun has to offer think of how american airlines could could employ content marketing let's talk about all the different things that you guys could be doing to deploy content marketing we talked and we went down the down the road it's not hard to think of all the ideas once you have your mind kind of opened up to it all the ways you can use content member the point of this is not just to market its toe actually create a trust relationship is to actually make an impact it's not making an impact it doesn't matter blogging just a blogger marking just a market if it's not making an impact it doesn't matter and that's why it's so important we understand our target market so well if we don't understand our target market so well then it's going to very hard to make an impact it's going to very hard to attract attraction takes a lot of work and if you don't know that market really well you're not gonna track them you're just gonna be more noise and the one thing the world does not need more of is noise because all this time like a lot of work it is a lot of work it is a lot of work I'm not going to sugarcoat it is a lot of work and that's why that third point I was making about how you have to focus on shooting and marking your business is probably ringing more and more true now this stuff takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of thought you know I always like to joke about it but I don't blame photographers for get in a bed and not a selling marketing it's really hard it's like okay it's monday morning here we are money more it was you know a couple hours into our day here on monday morning got my cup of coffee just finished breakfast okay let's let's go work okay I can market my business what does that mean what I do where do I start you know no one wants to network a ten am I could block but what am I really doing with that or I could just go answer emails I have to do that too I get a little easier I'll just go answer emails I could mark it now or I could edit my photos it's easier to just get my photos I could marketing it's hard it's hard because it takes a lot of thought we have to actually think about what we're doing and have a strategy and a plan a purpose I get it it really isn't it does it's going to take a lot of work I'm not trying to sugarcoat it on dso you need to understand the tenants of what goes into content marketing so you can make it and we'll go through that by the way we're gonna go through how to make it as simple as possible but I don't want you to just be overloaded with all the things you have to do there's ways of set up systems to make it a lot simpler let's go through a good example of good content marking that a company is doing I think that how many of you have heard of the app called trip it trip it is it's like a travel app on guy was introduced to it actually by jeff younger and younger will be joining us on day three and jeff just tripping now here's an ad here's a here's a nap that is a company really that is killing it in content marketing in my opinion actually the opportunity last year to meet a bunch of people in the market marketing team and I was like I was like meeting a celebrity and they were a little bit like taking it back there like this is I don't think anybody's ever been so excited to meet the c m o of a company before and I'm like well celebrity status goes you're up there for me so trip it is absolutely fantastic because they have figured out how to create trust me trip it is an app that when I book a flight when I book a hotel when I book rental car when I book anything I had to do when I get the email confirmation is it forward to plans a trip it dot com it knows my email and it organizes all of my travel trips into different trips for me and I can access it from my phone and just have everything right there in front of me and so I can bring up my trip seattle creative live and I can say oh plane flights got the confirmation number got the timing got everything up next check into my hotel it's got the hotel information confirmation it's all right there for me great nap it's free I downloaded it I used it I loved it then they came out with trip it pro now because they had made my life so easy because they had solved problems that I hadn't even really known that I had I was apt to try favorite pro they said hey we launched this new service culture but pro I bought it without even knowing what it did because I believe in the company and I trusted them they solve problems to me this is a great example of content market its finest when you solve problems for your customers before they even know they happen you create trust I bought trip it pro on trust along wasn't expensive wasn't a big deal but I trusted them and then I was blown away by what they didn't trip it pro so interpret pro there's two really cool things that they do first off they send me what they call a connection summary so when I land in say chicago I'm going from san diego to chicago to boston they send me a connection summary and that connection summary it says you just landed at gate thirty one in terminal h you need to get to gate forty two in terminal j you have twenty seven minutes to get there here's a map for you here is also in the map restaurants that you can go to here's also etcetera etcetera etcetera how easy that is instead of kind of getting off the plane in going okay what terminal my ad and you know what it's in my in box five minutes before I land if I'm late they know I'm late because I have my trip fight they don't they wait to send it to me until I actually land do you want to know how much I feel loved on when I land and I open my phone up and right there connection summary and I know exactly what I need to dio it'll highlight it red if it's kind of danger area not enough time and then I got the email from trip it one day that blew me out of the water it said urgent or something like that and I opened it and it said your trip is eligible for a fair refund what so I go when I read a little more we've been tracking your your flight that you're taking in two months teo seattle and we noticed that there was a drop in fair and because of the type of fair you booked you're eligible to save one hundred sixteen dollars call this number and say this exact thing like what all right fine so I call the number I'm driving and within three rings somebody from alaska airlines picks up and I said oh my gosh hi my name is jared bahman and I booked a flight under confirmation number blah blah blah and I noticed that you have a trip fare reduction of one hundred sixteen dollars and I'm calling to get my refund oh hold on mr bowman sure thing I see that's exactly right I'll gladdened process that and refund your send you a travel voucher that is an example of solving problems in a way that I didn't even know that I had I didn't know that was possible blew me out of the water and so now I've become a big fan of trip it and now I talk about them all the time wait a second is not exactly want to do about our businesses we want to create stories for them to go out in the world and share that's exactly what I am able to do now with trip it think about what problems to your customers have that we don't even know they're having what problems can you solve how can you use your images to tell stories to provide expertise to intersect into their lives in a way that you can solve their problem you khun build trust trust is today's currency you know all their problems if your wedding photographer they have a problem with so many things picking a color scheme for their wedding planning a honeymoon location timing on the wedding day what other vendors to pick where to do their engagement session with wedding photography and really all forms of photography content market is perfect for a couple of reasons already talked about the biggest one but it's perfect in a couple of other areas so number one if you're a wedding photographer couples are engaging you I had a crazy stressful emotional pivotal time in their life and their need for help is sky high while lesser it's still the same for most areas of photography the fact that they're engaging in a crazy stressful time their life means their need for help is so much higher than it normally is which means there's so much more receptive to your help it's kind of like an acute content marketing scenario because they need to help so much more right now that there's so much more willing to receive and appreciate it number two here is one thing we know about people in general couples are willing to pay a higher price for a wedding photographer they're drawn to that they believe in and that they love couples are willing to pay a higher price for a wedding photographer that they're drawn to that they believe in and that they love and content marketing allows you to create a brand that people believe in and love there's trust when you do things for me that I didn't need I didn't think I needed that I didn't expect that came out of the blue there's trust when you talk in a way that I feel like you're talking just to me one on one there's trust is establish that trust allows you to charge the kind of rates that you need to charge to stay in business is a professional in today's environment and lastly content is easy to come by because the very job that photographer get hired to do is to create content these are the three reasons why content marketing makes so much sense into days environment in general but the photographers is a hole because it allows you to use something you're already producing to create a level of intimacy and share your brand and then that causes your target market your customer toe lean in tow love you and to pay for you it allows them to self actualize you say yes I want to be a part of what you're doing it allows them to not only just be a part of what you're doing but go out and share that story to the entire world they want other people to jump onboard to jump into that boat and experience what they got to experience and so content allows you to do that in a genuine authentic way that's really it israel that's the thing you're knows there's nothing fake behind it if you build an authentic message then you get to create that love affair with your business with the content and more importantly the stories and the expertise that flushes out behind it trust is today's currency and that we've been building towards solve their problems and you create trust if you solve problems for people if you help them out if you are beneficial if you give before you ever take you create trust trust is the new currency trust is the new currency in today's environment and so you have to be building trust in all the different areas that you can and all the different ways that you can give before you ever ask in return give give give genuinely give genuinely give and don't ask in return until you've given a significant amount