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Content Marketing

Content marketing is always about your ideal customer, but it has an underlying job to d'oh content marketing also needs to perform these six marketing tasks everything you write online facebook status anything you write block post is is there tio reach, engage established trust convert and follow up with your customer your content marketing is the main ingredient of a working sales funnel you'll use it in each stage but more importantly your content marketing is in place to address these three points that are holding your customer back the your content marketing will speak to their interests and it will allow them to recognize your worth and your products value as you continue to connect and engage with them you're not writing a term paper like I said a lot of people are well versed in this type of writing it doesn't come naturally so when we think about writing we think about the writing we learned in high school it's not like that again it's conversational and it's like big news tha...

t you can hardly wait to tell a friend it's very it's exciting and it comes from a place of service business service customer service so it's emotional and exciting and well it doesn't come naturally to most that's what we're looking we're looking to help you do we're going to have these formulas and templates to help you create that to write well to your potential customers you want to ask how is your ideal customer feeling day by day like what's their personality like are they bubbly or are they serious or are they laid back? What kind of like mood would you approach them? And you know how you have different friends that some are very serious and some are bubbly that's kind of something that you want to know about your ideal customer? Are they very peppy or arguing? They cut straight to the point what their lifestyle like and speaking of their lifestyle what's the difference between where they are and where they want to be? Are they self improvers? Are they are they they chasing big goals, that kind of thing and what makes them feel stuck, unsure, confused, especially that follows and falls into your nation an area of expertise it goes off the challenge, it branches off the challenge a little bit that they're facing. And when you know all of this about your ideal customer, you can start to approach them in a more comfortable way just like when you know a friend and you know exactly you can read her moods, you'll start to approach your customers and a very much more comfortable way you can address their interests and obstacles in a conversational manner this is the formula for effective content marketing problem agitate solved this formula is all you need to know whenever you're writing content marketing online and I want to show you how it works so the first thing you do is you start by identifying the problem or challenge as we've done today that your ideal customers facing then you agitate that problem in conversation and what that means is you get into that problem and you get into that conversation with your customer and you really roll around in that problem with them and you're agitating it finally you show your potential customer what you know and then solve the problem for them so one of the biggest mistakes everybody makes in content marketing is swooping in with the solution here is the advice that you need and when you know a problem you want to solve it if you know your ideal customers challenge you want just go ahead and solve it so why waste time rolling around in it? Why do that to your customer and it feels when I present that I'm sure doesn't sound like the best idea however identifying the problems that your customers have helps to establish trust and when you agitate the problem it makes them feel heard and understood so imagine you sit down with a friend who's having relationship problems and they're good at relationship problems that have the same relationship problem all the time and you feel familiar enough with the story that you meet her for coffee you sit down and you just cut straight to the advice I know you're going to tell me dump it, right it's like it's aggressive? So would your friend feel heard and understood? Absolutely not, she won't feel like you're a very good friend, so content, marketing and copy reading are very conversational forms of writing you're very much speaking to someone through the words that you use, so your friend with the relationship problems wants to talk to you. First, she would tune you out immediately if you started spewing unsolicited advice, even if you completely understood her problems she's going to feel as if you don't hear her or understand er at all, you see that you see that that point so that's exactly why you need to address the problem before you write anything else you can't have a back and forth with your ideal customer you're on online, but you can right out what they're going through. If you're anything like I, I wass you might think you might be thinking I get the problem, I get the solve, but I'm not here to agitate my customers. I do not want to agitate or upset my cut summers and I thought that until I tried it and I'm going to show you how it plays out on a block in a minute, but first you can even use the problem agitate, solve solution in a short social media status so if you remember the daisy shared a picture on facebook of a collection of prints on display at an art show, my problem wass I needed that collection, but I couldn't make the show, she wrote can't make it to the show to see these illustrations in person that agitates my problem. I have a problem, I could make it to your show, you said you can't make it here then, she said. Sign up for email updates and enjoy ten percent she showed me an image that created is a desire, then she identified that problem, agitated it and solved it in like a three to two to three sentence facebook post with an image, so I pulled a clipping from my blood. I know this I'm not meaning for you don't have to read all this, but I wanted to show you actual text from one of my marketing hacks for creatives that I just mentioned before, and this particular article is about how to find new customers for your online storefront so that's, a very common problem for creatives everywhere and who wouldn't want to know how to find more ideal customers for your your storefront? I know this about creatives, and I know this about my ideal customers, so I'm gonna walk you through this post to show you how I used the problem agitate saul formula so it starts with an all too common nuvi mistake. I already mentioned it. If you build it, they will come that's what we think if I list that online, the entire internet is going to see it that's how we all started that's what we thought one day, so that statement I I pulled that up top, and that statement is going to hit home with every entrepreneur at whatever stage that they're at. They'll remember it as a newbie or they are newbie, and they understand that completely. It talks about how hard it is to get traffic, not on ly traffic, but high quality, ideal customer kind of traffic, and then it mentions the conversion rate two to three percent that's a very low conversion rate in bold I write, the strategies I share here are always geared toward making actual sales that's a very true about me and my work, and I was addressing the problem, and I use that opportunity to make a bold statement and take authority in this situation. I know what I'm talking about, and I do help creatives make more sales. That was the first section, so now we're gonna cut teo, I am writing this block post to address many different people in many different situations I cannot sit down with each each client or each reader that's reading this and listen to their hardships I cannot do it this is not a back enforce relationship I'm not sitting at lunch with my friend so now what I have to dio is get in there and roll around with the problem with the readers this section lets the reader know that I hear and understand them your work is feeling all for not you're working every day you're not making any sales you're not feeling like anybody's buying or listening and it's feeling all for not I say who has time to make products and figure out how to market them? Oh my gosh I've heard that a million times and I'm sure you all have to who has time who has time to make products and then learn how to market that it's a big job and it's a very common complaint the point of this segment is to make my reader is not to make my reader feel bad it's quite the opposite when someone relates to your problem it is a breath of fresh air isn't it it's such a relief to feel like you get me it's a welcome exchange of energy because you get me you hear me you know me the next segment solved the prop solves the problem for the reader when this formula comes to life you can see how conversational writing takes action and serves the ideal customer without at all upsetting the reader but relating to her so agitation in there just in case anybody had any doubts or hesitation is about that actually makes the reader feel like a breath of fresh air you get me, you understand my problem? This formula should shape most of your content, marketing it not on ly bills, engagement and trust, but it also helps establish yourself as the go to authority in your nish you asked me a question about that earlier when you meet your customer where they're at identify the challenges that they're facing, say something to agitate it show the customer that you know where they're coming from and then solve the problem that establishes authority like nothing else can. So I showed you how this translates into different formats blogged post facebook status so it's a great formula it's also a great formula for a email that you're selling if you're selling a service or a sales page, this is an excellent if you don't have a product listening and that's, not where your what your port of sale, or where your product or service is going to go. This is an excellent format and formula to follow for a sales page. All right, so before I go on, do we have any questions about problem agitate solved in content marketing? This only applies to content marketing, but not to the copyright side I wouldn't do this in like a product listing for example no because when your customer comes to the product listening that's a much more direct were lower in the sales funnel they know you they want your brand even if they just met you they decided they wanted to your product so we back out and start talking about problem and agitate we're backing way out of the sails conversation product list sting is going to be this is free it has its own formula and template to but remember it's this is for you this is for you this trio and there's no question about it so you don't need to put in problem agitated they already know why they're there at that point just a question from linda b what if you don't want to keep offering customers discounts? What if you the an issue with that in your business no that's okay if you don't want to offer your your customers discounts I mean I like that method I like it a lot because I really like when people offer me discounts when I'm a buyer again you be your own case study because you have to figure out a reason for your buyer to buy now so if you don't want to offer discounts maybe don't like discounts maybe when you are paying customer you don't care about this counts then ask yourself what does motivate you to buy and look at it from that perspective and because we need a reason to buy now, and mike promotions and discounts and limited time offers are my favorite things. You know? Um, another question that came in from mbw, who says, I'm a bit stuck, I sell a nice to have. I don't know how to describe what problem it solves for the customer because it's a splurge on this product she sells a what she called it just nice to have because it's not something this is maybe it's, a luxury item, maybe it's and having trouble figuring out what the problem is that that she's solving and agitating around she so she would probably fit back into that comfort. And again there see, we had four examples of comfort there's, all different reasons of what that that challenge was based on, even if we were selling similar things. So she's going back to that daisy has a nice tohave item. It's not a dire need for you haven't aren't pretty in your wall, but she showed me something. She showed me a situation. She showed me an art gallery on the wall. And I wanted to be there to check out that are in person and that was a problem I was having and then she agitated by say oh you can't be here okay well that's ok here's the here's something that I can offer you instead so you would do that's how we all have to do it with the comfort items because we're never going tio most of us I can't think of any examples of where the products we make are dire need like I have to have it so there's no quite a no brainer that I'm going to buy it and I guess another thing with this have to do a content marketing would this be more like facebook posts and blogged posts? I'm trying to think in a like instagram context why I'm a big instagram person like if I had a posted a picture of one of my pieces on like how would I what would the problem be for my certainly you don't own this right like well but I use it there I mean it doesn't have to go everywhere you're going to use it to peak their interests you're always going to think why is this instagram picture relevant to them so whatever the reason that's going to be a lot of different reasons especially it's a instagram is like a quick share quick feed kind of place same thing on twitter of twitter's your main thing so what? Relevant to them. And if you can turn into a problem, agitate salt. Where becomes a little bit more of a story and a little bit more identifying with their whatever they're going through and serving them in some way.