Content Marketing: From Internet Cowboy to Business Building Tycoon

Graduate from Internet Marketing Cowboy to Business Building Tycoon

With all the talk about quality top shelf content, content marketing strategies and business building, it’s a good idea to step back and look at the bigger picture. Is content marketing something you should be doing? How can you fully leverage its power? What other piece can you add to explode your business?

Chris Anderson said it in his book, The Long Tail: “We are at the dawn of an age where most producers in any domain are unpaid, and the main difference between them and their professional counterparts is simply the (shrinking) gap in the resources available to them to extend the ambition of their work. Where the tools of production are available to everyone, everyone becomes a producer.”

Many “unpaid” producers surface in the form of webmasters, bloggers, and product reviewers; those that create, compile or curate information, have an opinion, and offer it to the world via a website.

These are both “amateurs” and professionals…people who love what they talk about. They are passionate about their subject. They want to share what they know and, in many cases, earn a few bucks doing that.

Do you Recognize the Opportunities with Content Marketing?

You should be able to recognize there is a shift, a change that has already started. The change is that the barriers of production have been lowered. More people can offer their experience, expertise, and unique insights to a hungry audience looking for answers.

Keyword stuffing is out; quality top shelf content marketing is in.

People want training, tools, and relevant information that will help them succeed in life. They don’t necessarily want to pay thousands of dollars to go to a University or wait 4-6 years to make stuff happen.

They want it now. And, that’s exactly where you can come in and provide the content they are looking for. You can establish yourself as an expert through your information and you can use smart and effective content marketing strategies to get your expertise noticed.

This means, very simply, that you have an effective way to start, maintain, and profit by creating a real business that offers products and services that people want.

So how can you do that?

Create a website on a (paid) subscription basis
Offer a service based on your area of expertise
Create product that teaches people what you know
Write a book for traditional or electronic publishing
And so many more ways….

You have the ability to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset where your possibilities are virtually limitless.

How Content Marketing Enhances your Business

For example, I work with clients on product development such as training systems, eBooks, and published books. While they may feel that what they know is “common knowledge” often times it’s not as common as they believe. They are just used to the information because, well, they are experts.

By taking that knowledge and putting it into a system or a book they can teach others what they know and earn an income as a result. Now the other part of that equation is that they have to be what I like to call “Google-able.” When someone is researching, trying to find out how to do something, and they come across your information product or book they are going to Google you to see who the heck you are and determine why the heck they should listen to you.

This is where your content marketing strategy comes in. If you don’t have any other information on the internet about you, showcasing your knowledge, then you basically don’t exist and your product or service may not get the attention it deserves.

Let me give you an example of Content Marketing and Product Development:

I have a client who has quietly and profitably worked in a niche market of the real estate industry for over two decades. She is good at what she does and works in a tough market. Her knowledge is valuable and many already in the industry or wanting to get into the industry will benefit from her experience. Their learning curve and potential for making costly mistakes will be lessened because they have access to her brain and experience.

As a result, we are putting together a training program. This is her main product. However, to enhance that we are also putting together a comprehensive content marketing strategy to build her brand so that when someone is contemplating purchasing her system, she is seen as a reliable expert (which she is). Without the supporting marketing strategy the product would probably not get the attention it deserves.

Information and Product Development is Not New

This is not a revolutionary idea. The only thing revolutionary about it is that more people have the ability to produce content and spread it more widely through the internet. Back in the day, an apprentice may have sat at the feet of a mentor and learned a trade…often a long tail niche trade. Today, an expert, amateur or professional, has the ability to become a mentor to millions of people worldwide through their web content and information products.

The internet is the vehicle; content marketing strategies make it possible. Are you ready to step up and fully leverage your business opportunities?

Until next time…

Dawn