If you are looking for inspiration to market your business, look to the music industry. They’ve been doing it forever.

Marketing is all about community building. Musicians are born marketers because they have to show the world who they are. They sell an image image without selling. They just show off who they are and see who likes it. The give first and people come and receive. After a while they people pay like crazy to see what they give. This is content marketing.

Content marketing is a strategy that uses online material to reach, nurture, and convert online customers. 

It can be classed as any type of written, visual, or audio material, such as:

• Blog posts
• Lead Magnets
• Menus
• How to Tips
• Case Studies
• Stories
• Whitepapers or eBooks
• Infographics and Memes
• Podcasts
• Social media posts (tweets, Facebook statuses, Pins, etc.)
• Photos or videos
• Online educational courses
• Emails or newsletters

All too often I see businesses put up a website and then consider that they are “done,” at least until the website needs an upgrade a year or so down the line. Not only does Google not like static websites, neither do your customers. High-quality content gives potential customers a reason to visit your website and for visitors to become repeat visitors, returning to your site over and over again because you have new information for them to consume.

Content also builds credibility, making you and your site the go to place for information about what you sell. Imagine a pool salesman that is constantly putting out information about how to care for your pool. People begin following his content if they are interested in pools. And when their own pool needs maintenance, who do you think they are going to call? This is true regardless of what you are selling.

But content does more than just give you credibility, it is also what makes you visible to the search engines. Search engines like Google work by reading content on a webpage, determining what it’s about, then ranking the results in order from best to worst. Here’s the math: you can’t make the list if you don’t have content for Google to crawl. 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search, leaving 10% from paid ads, 5% from social media, and 34% from direct or other sources. This means that most of the traffic to your website is free and all you have to do is create enough quality content on a regular basis to start capitalizing on this.

That is the reason that I strongly advise against having just a brochure type website that never changes except once a year. If you are going to put up a website, you simply must work it just like any other aspect of your business. Otherwise it’s like opening up your store and not telling anyone that you are open. Make your weekly blog the focal point of your website – don’t hide it on some obscure page, put your latest posts on your home page where people can read them.

If you are going to put up a website, you simply must work it just like any other aspect of your business. Click To Tweet

And once you start creating regular blog posts, then re-purpose them by posting this content on social media and through your email newsletters. Notice that your website and your blog are the place to start. You want your content to appear first on your website since this is your “home” on the internet and the place that you control. Social media sites are great for engagement, but that is real estate which is owned by (and controlled by) someone else. You want your content to originate on your website, and then you can reference it through other channels.

You want your content to originate on your website, and then you can reference it through other channels. Click To Tweet

End of Year Content Ideas

Here are a couple of ideas to get you started creating content as 2019 draws to a close:

1. End of year wrap up – talk about what has happened in your business and your industry during the past year.
2. Looking forward – talk about what you expect to see happening in the coming year.
3. Winter How-To – Winter officially begins on December 21, 2019. Your customers will have winter projects, and your content marketing may be able to help. Consider creating helpful articles or videos that describe how to complete specific tasks within your area of expertise.

Start planning your content calendar for 2020. I have prepared a 300 page Content Planner to help you layout your content marketing ideas for next year. Grab yours at https://amzn.to/2NnM571. You will find that if you plan out your content at least a month in advance, then sit down and “batch” all of your posts at a single time and simply schedule when you want them to be released that creating content does not have to be so time consuming.

Is it worth it?

Creating high quality content requires committment. The alternatives are to do nothing (an approach that sadly most websites take) or to pay for ads.  It’s been found that content marketing costs up to 41% less per lead than paid search. The beauty of content marketing is that it’s cost-effective. You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars into Google Ads campaigns; nor do you need a team of 50 staff to see success from content marketing.

Clare Bittourna explains: “Setting up and running an AdWords campaign can be very time-consuming, and costly. It requires deep expertise, and a lot of monitoring and iterations to get a campaign set up to be successful and effective. On top of that, to target the keywords that you need, you could be looking at $50 per click.”

Not only that, but PPC advertising requires constant budget. As soon as your budget runs out, your ads stop—and you’re no longer visible to your target audience. Content marketing gets results forever.

Does all this mean that you shouldn’t advertise?

Of course not. Advertising can be a quick boost to your traffic. It is ideal for driving people to your free offers (lead magnets) and getting them on your mailing list. It can also be useful for getting people to return to your site after an initial visit (using retargeting ads). And when you have a special, such as during the holiday season, it can be a good way to get new customers to try out sale offerings. so advertising has its place, but here is what I have learned: advertising is always more effective when accompanied by high quality content on your site.

Advertising is always more effective when accompanied by high quality content on your site. Click To Tweet

My Plea

Please don’t put up a brochure style website and ignore it for months or years claiming that you don’t have time to manage it. Your website is your online business and in today’s digital world, that is where people are. Stop wondering why no one ever visits your site. Make your website a dynamic part of your business that you tend to on a regular basis. Give your visitors the content they want. Market like a musician.