Teach and Sell

Drive more traffic to your website through education-based marketing
Teach and Sell

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Over the years I've tried many different ways to drive traffic to my websites. I've employed search engine marketing, pay-per-click traffic, paid banner ads, viral video marketing ... and a host of other methods. Each worked well to a certain extent.

But the best way I've found to steer traffic to my websites is education-based marketing, otherwise known as content marketing. Content marketing is a method of marketing that uses education as a tool for attracting the attention and interest of potential customers.

These educational tools can be in the form of articles, special reports, audio programs, webinars, PowerPoint presentations, online videos, podcasts, blogs, email courses and eBooks. When potential customers find and consume these educational tools, some very special things can happen.

1. They develop a trust and respect for your expertise.

2. They discover how and where to connect with you.

3. In most cases, you acquire their contact information.

4. They begin to follow you as an expert.

5. They are pre-sold on your products or services.

What kind of content do you use?

People have problems and they are always looking for solutions to those problems. So if you want people to find you and consume your information, talk about solutions to problems. I've always believed that every industry has really bad, ugly, smelly problems and those problems never change. They were problems 20 years ago and they're still problems today.

Start creating content that solves those problems. For example, if you sell septic system maintenance, create content that addresses the biggest problems in septic service maintenance. The person who is interested in consuming your content will be your best prospect.

How do you create content?

All great content starts with a great outline or mind map. For example, if I were writing an article, here's a simple formula I would use to
create content:

Step 1 - Call out to whom you're writing to.

Step 2 - Define the problem.

Step 3 - Explain the consequences of the problem.

Step 4 - Explain the consequences of not solving the problem.

Step 5 - Give the solution.

Step 6 - Tell how the solution solves the problem.

Step 7 - Tell why the solution is unique.

Step 8 - Give an actual example of how someone was suffering from
the problem.

Step 9 - Tell how your solution helped solve the problem for the person.

Step 10 - Tell how that person is enjoying the results of your solution today.

Step 11 - Explain how anyone in the same situation can achieve the same results.

Step 12 - Explain how people can find out more about your solution.

Notice how this outline almost reads like a story. The best content tells a story. Stories engage your prospects and touch their emotions. When you can touch a person's emotions, they'll be more likely to act on your call
to action.

Repurposing your content for maximum exposure.

The way McDonald's got so big is by opening up lots of restaurants that sell the same hamburgers. The same goes for your content. If you want to get known, you have to create good content and then get that content consumed in as many places as possible.

For example, let's suppose you perform real estate inspections of onsite systems, and you created an article covering the most common issues found in such inspections and how you would address them. Here are five ways to repurpose that article:

After (1) submitting that article to blogs in your community, you might (2) record an audio version of it and submit it as a podcast to iTunes. Then you might (3) create a quick PowerPoint presentation and record a video of it and submit it to all the video sharing sites. You also can take that PowerPoint and (4) submit it to several slide sharing sites. The next step might be to (5) create a PDF version with a large title page and call it a special report and submit it to eBook download directories.

Now what was just one article has turned into multiple educational tools that are watched, downloaded and listened to by potential customers.

Never forget to post your content to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If it's a really good piece of content, people will start sharing it with their followers on social media. In fact, social media is the top way to make your content go viral.

Give it a try.

The Internet has made content marketing one of the best ways to get a return on your promotional investment. I honestly believe every business should be, at least partially, promoting their product or service using content marketing. If you're not, you're missing the boat because more and more consumers are going online to research products and services before they buy. You need to get in front of your potential customers and capture their attention before someone else does.



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