By: Sharon MacLean
This post is an introduction to the topic of our July 9, 2019 Webinar. Learn more and join us!
Let’s face it. Sales and marketing strategies have encountered massive disruption for you and your clients over the last decade. What’s emerged is a new culture for growing business where you can think of content as currency.
Here are 4 methods you can take to the bank:
- Identify your prospects known today as Personas;
- Make the first contact with those Personas – in the socially correct way;
- Establish a less intrusive point of first contact through content creation;
- Nurture existing sales relationships to avoid asking, "Are you ready to buy my services today?" over and over again.
Consider the following stats from the Content Marketing Institute about today’s prospective buyers:
- 92% start with an information search;
- 53% find that going online and researching is superior interaction;
- 75% depend on social networks to learn about different vendors;
- 90% won’t take a cold call.
You probably already know all this. The more pressing question is this: what type of content is best to create – and why?
I often see panic on the faces of consultants when it comes to discussing the need for publishing a regular blog or producing weekly videos or creating an e-book for social selling. Creating content to build your brand is a formidable task for some.
There’s also this cheeky statement recently presented to delegates at the Brand Marketing Summit hosted by Incite Communications and Marketing: ‘"Marketing is Dead: Engagement is Alive."
Say what?
Zsofi Kulcsar of National Geographic replied: "We now get bombarded with so much content that anything not immediately relevant, authentic or interesting gets quickly ignored or pushed aside."
Today, clients want brands to meet them on the platforms they prefer to engage. In the B2B world, I like the combination of LinkedIn, Twitter, and email.
Yet, you first need to know that three months in the content marketing world is more like three days in the real world. Content is an investment, one that you'll see benefits after you stick regularly with the strategy.
Here’s the big mistakes I see all the time. Messages incorrectly matched with the identified Personas...wrong social channels...lack of content for sales and marketing funnels.
So, I came up with 5 recommendations to help the process:
- Understand the problems that your clients are keen to solve;
- Make a list of your most requested products/services and define their benefits - not their features;
- Determine your story angles;
- Build an editorial calendar;
- Amplify your story in social media.
What came back to me was this most frequently asked question: "What types of content are you talking about?"
So, I built an e-book with 19 Content Strategies for Consultants. You’ll get a copy through the seminar on July 9th.
Management Consultants must move beyond the creation of content and "liking" a post to engagement where results are achieved. And these initiatives need higher-level game plans to:
- Distinguish your brand to remain competitive;
- Analyze what others are doing in similar spaces;
- Launch irresistible content developed with marketing in mind from the beginning.
In our upcoming CMC-Canada July 9 webinar, you will learn:
- How to build a Social Foundation
- Ideas for Content Strategies
- Why the Sales Funnel is integral to your strategy
About the Author— Sharon MacLean 
Entrepreneurship, Magazine Publishing, and Social Marketing are the threads that weave throughout my career. They reflect my professional life driven largely by purpose and relationships — most recently through WorldGate Media and Boards of Directors for TechInvest Alberta, Alberta Council of Technologies, RoadShowz/StreetSeenz, and GroYourBiz.
Yet, it was through starting up and running Edmontonians magazine for 21 years where a reputation for community engagement flourished. In some ways, I see the magazine that covered leaders of commerce and the community as a predecessor to social media!
My world changed dramatically in 2010 given the disruption of traditional media which led to the sale of the magazine…and my launch into new media.
The disruption opened doors for an investor start-up in online wellness with an international team. Experience with journalism media and community publishing incubated an understanding of content creation, distribution, and network platforms.
Every skill acquired during the foundational years has been leveraged to serve my passion for professional communications in the digital age.
Social enterprise fired up all my neurons and stretched my resilience. I now help professionals and business owners flourish using traditional and modern forms of communications marketing. Learn more.
