If you are following my proposed plan (from last week's Marketing Monday post), then last week you cleaned up your mailing list and chose a few marketing tools for this Fall.
This week calls for determining your "content strategy." Because with all the social media and publishing platforms available to market your business, we have all essentially become "publishers," creating marketing "content" that will convert prospects into clients.
But where does that "content" come from? That's what everyone's asking these days.
For PhotoShelter's new ebook, the Freelancer's Online Marketing Blueprint, I outlined a 3-step process to help creative professionals figure out their "content."
Read on for the highlights, but if you want the entire 53-page ebook of online marketing tips (no charge!), download it here.
Step 1: Define your point of view.
It’s up to you to design the space in which you want to be perceived as an expert, but not until you know who you’re talking to: that’s your target market. So if you haven’t narrowed your focus, now is the time.
Step 2: Define your content.
Your point of view becomes the jumping off point for all your content. What do you know that your prospects and clients need to know? What questions do you answer over and over? Don’t worry about being brilliant. Be specific instead.
Step 3: Choose your tools
Which marketing tools are most effective at reaching your market? Email newsletters and eblasts? Blogs, articles, white papers, webinars or live presentations? Do your ideal prospects spend more time on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? Are they already on Google+? Choose your social media tools based not on fads or trends but because that’s where you are most likely to find and reach your best prospects.
Do you have a "content strategy?" If so, please share it in the comments, so others who aren't sure what theirs should be can get an idea.
Hi Ilise,
Good article and question.
I think it's one many freelancing web designers don't have great answers to - leading to struggle.
In my web design business ...
1. Point of view - websites for professional coaches
2. Content - the same, articles on web marketing, client attraction, wordpress
3. Tools - I blog and chat via online discussions, but I know that coaches love (so i hear) teleclasses, which to me seem like a lot of work and planning, timing. So at current I'm not doing that. Weighing personal choices and effective strategies.
Thanks for the links to the freebies too.
Kenn,
http://www.GetWebDesignClients.com