I am so frustrated with social media marketers.
They think that Facebook is the only marketing channel, Snapchat is brand attention nirvana and spending money on influencers with 10,000 followers on Instagram is a good investment.
Most people want quick wins and so the Facebook advertising tactics to amplify their brand and get attention are invested in. Nothing wrong with that.
But if that is all your investing in it is short sighted and stupid.
What is often forgotten is the long game.
Many marketing managers are trying to keep their CEO’s happy and not telling them what they need to know.
1. Content is everything
The boss sat me down and told me something I didn’t want to hear.
It was one of those conversations.
It meant doing something every day I hated. Being rejected. But he wanted my commitment to the task.
It was key to business growth.
So every day I committed to spending 2 hours cold calling targeted businesses. Our potential customers.
The first goal was the appointment. Every day I strapped myself in and made those calls. I hated it.
But it worked. Business thrived.
A few years later I started my own business and the same discipline was applied.
We grew the business to $2 million in sales in just 2 years.
But that was then
And now it’s the future. And cold calling isn’t working so well. Caller ID and other tech is
And I was wanting to start a new business.
Then I discovered a book with the title ” The New Rules of Marketing and PR”
It was a revelation
It introduced the concept of creating content and publishing it online. Of attracting leads and sales through blog posts, videos and podcasts.
The term then was inbound marketing. Now it’s known as content marketing.
So I started a digital publishing experiment that followed his advice.
Then it happened
The world….. and customers showed up.
Thank you David Meerman-Scott.
So that’s the story, but what are the facts about content marketing?
Some content marketing facts
According to Hubspot here are some cold hard numbers about content marketing.
- B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month.
- B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month.
- Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 4.5X more leads than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts.
One more fact.
This blog has attracted over 25 million visitors to date and all on the back of years of content marketing that works.
2. Your email list is essential
It was an event in Chicago that I had one of those moments.
I had mastered the art of content marketing and was getting a ton of traffic and I was listening to some hard core digital marketers. You know….the ones that test, measure and tweak every stage of the sales funnel.
I started to realize that I hadn’t invested enough time and attention to making sure the traffic converts with Germanic engineering efficiency. I had become a content creator and traffic watcher junkie and not a traffic converting ninja.
So….I had a problem
And then I had an “aha” moment.
I didn’t have a traffic problem but a conversion problem. I needed to focus on converting traffic and trust into leads and sales. The number one marketing tactic to achieve that is building your email list and using it well.
Some email facts
According to data from Campaign Monitor,
3. Search engines need your investment
In a world where Facebook wants to charge you money to get any attention or traction the need for great organic and earned marketing is more important than ever.
That reality became apparent when I discovered an insightful and relevant post on the importance of search engines from Search Engine Land and discovered a mind blowing fact.
An SEO fact
The hard fact “SEO produces 300% more traffic for content sites than social media“.
As websites have evolved most brands have become publishers. That is a content site.
But there is a problem with SEO
It takes time and it’s effort can take many months and even years to show results.
But don’t let that stop you investing in one of the most important traffic generation projects that will just keep giving for years.
An the smart digital brands that know about it’s importance and have discovered it’s digital marketing magic include Buffer and Canva.
So…what do you need to tell the CEO?
The smart savvy marketers have realised that these three realities are needed to produce marketing that keeps giving and makes money.
An ongoing investment in sustainable digital asset brand building with a real ROI.
It is not a quick fix.
Building a successful business in a digital world needs you to play a long game.