Most entrepreneurs aren’t marketing experts. And they can easily get weighed down with the extensive advice found online telling them that they have to follow the latest ‘trend’ in order to be relevant. But most entrepreneurs simply need to focus on the basics when it comes to developing a digital marketing strategy and plan. At a presentation for Dallas Startup Week today, Brad Koetell talked about this very topic.
Brad Koettel gives timely digital marketing advice during Dallas Startup Week.
One of the most effective digital content marketing strategies is to develop a blog. This will not only ultimately draw people to your website when they are searching on Google or Bing for relevant information that relates to your products or services, but it will also provide you with ‘hooks’ that you can use on social media to draw them to your brand as well.
As with marketing as a whole, there is an art and science to building a blog for your brand. A great resource for determining effective blog topics is the search insights you can get from Google's auto suggest results. As I'm sure you've noticed when you start typing a question or statement into Google, it uses artificial intelligence to start suggesting potential completions for the question or statement. This gives you a window into the motivations of your target audience's search queries. A free visualization tool that uses this approach can be found at AnswerthePublic.com.
So, let’s take a look at some examples. If you were thinking of developing a blog for a specialty retailer such as a premium linens store, you might look at relevant topics by answering simple questions like:
What duvet size is right for my bed?
What’s your bedroom design style?
How to care for your linens?
What’s the difference between a duvet and a comforter?
What sheets will keep me cool during the summer?
You can also take a topic such as sleep aides and do something like:
What will really improve your sleep?
What will give you a good night’s sleep?
What is the best sleep aide to take on a trip?
Or a topic such as beautifying your bedroom:
What’s your bedroom design style?
Choosing the right color for your bedroom
Creating the most romantic bedroom
As I'm sure you know from a lot of the 'click bait' that you see out there, lists are very popular. But they are used as click bait because they work. Studies have actually shown that lists with odd numbers (top 5 bedroom colors for 2019, 7 things you can do to improve your sleep, etc.) have a higher click through rate than those with even numbers - go figure! If you don’t believe me, google “29 reasons you’re reading this article” to see an article on Medium with the extensive research explaining why it’s true.
Remember that your content needs to be something that your target audience really wants to read. Make it timely and relevant, and you’ll be able to bring readers in through search engines and social media. By building a relationship with them through helpful content, you’ll also eventually see the impact on your bottom line and sales.
