We're looking at how to create a marketing strategy that is centered around your blog. The reason that we're doing that is so that you can attract targeted prospects to your site. You want them to do that so that they will join your list and buy your products so that they can solve their problems. In order for that to happen, they have to believe that you're an expert. The only way that will happen is if you create a lot of high quality information and put it in a place where they are looking for solutions. So far, so good.
The next step is to think about where to publish your evidence. The search engines have a website displaying search results, but you can't write for them, you can't send them an article, blog post, or recording, and expect them to put it on the first page. Instead, you have to put it where they can find it. So we have to ask this question: where do you want the search engines to find our expert knowledge?
Where do you want your prospects to find the information that you're publishing on the net? The short answer is, everywhere. While that's a worthwhile objective, you can’t achieve it simply by spreading your content all over the internet.
It has to happen by other means.
Those means, of course, we call marketing. Marketing is nothing more than putting your expertise in front of your prospects. Every time your prospect sees an article, blog post, or video by you, that's marketing. This is a good place for me to introduce to you a new concept. And it's central to our discussion of how to create a content marketing strategy.
We call it a marketing funnel.
The shape of it is significant. You've heard about funnels before - but maybe you haven't really thought about it in terms of marketing. Imagine this funnel. It's wide at the top, and it's narrow at the bottom. What do you suppose goes into the top?
Well it's all of your marketing activities. Imagine that you're seeing articles and blog posts and videos and audios and interviews and all the rest of it being dumped into the top. Where do you suppose the bottom of that funnel is pointing? It's pointing at your blog. Every marketing activity that you do therefor is designed to attract visitors to your blog. And that's why your blog is central to your content marketing strategy. Your blog will contain your best information. It will be the hub of your expertise. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all of the online marketing that you do will lead to your blog.
You're probably wondering why I've placed so much emphasis on making your blog the central point rather than an article directory or even your squeeze page. There are a number of reasons for this. For one thing, you want every one of your visitors to join your list. That's because you have no way of knowing which ones you can help, and which ones you can't. You won't be able to find that out until they begin to interact with you.
The second reason is, other platforms, such as article directories, want your traffic. That's because they want people to visit their websites instead of yours. Yes, they probably provide you with a resource box, or a space for your biography, but they’re not doing it just because they’re nice people. They're doing it because if they didn't give you that opportunity, then you would have no reason to share your content with them. But ultimately they want your traffic. In order to get the traffic they want, they have to give you an opportunity to get some as well. They would take your content without giving you any traffic if they could get away with it.
The third reason that you want your blog to be the central point in your strategy is because it's the one place where you can demonstrate your expertise better than any of the rest.