What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn seven content marketing tips to build your brand so you can stop repelling clients
with push marketing and start pulling clients in with the value that you give
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond visuals using strategy
psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit that subscribe button and the
notification bell if you want to fast track your results make sure you grab the pro brand strategy
blueprint the link is in the description now i remember when i first realized that i knew i had
a marketing problem i've been freelancing for a couple of years and i had managed to survive on
referrals i had some contacts in the industry that were passing me referrals and that were
giving me business and all of a sudden all of these referrals all dried up but once i
had nothing in my pipeline and all of a sudden that work had disappeared and i realized then
at that point i had no system in place or nothing to bring in any kind of leads and that's where i
started from scratch and i started to dig into what marketing was all about how i could market
my business and my services and that's when i came to the realization there were two main categories
of marketing and that was push marketing and pull marketing so push marketing is all about paid ads
so it's all about paying for the privilege to put your message in front of somebody else's
audience so think facebook ads or google ads or the google display network or any other kind of
paid advertising where you have to pay for that privilege to put your message in front of somebody
else's audience pull marketing on the other hand is all about giving value it's all about
organic reach and putting out value to achieve that reach so it's not about paying somebody
for your exposure it's about earning that exposure through the value that you give and you can do
this by creating content creating blog content creating video content even social media content
and using that content to gain organic reach now at the time when i was trying to figure out what
strategy would be best for me i had more time than i did have money so it was an easy choice i
wanted to go the organic route i wanted to go the route of earning my exposure as opposed to paying
for my exposure because i didn't have the budget to do that so i devoured everything i could on
pull marketing on content marketing seo blogging video marketing and i really started to study and
started to throw myself self into that type of marketing and the way i threw myself in was i
started to create content now aside from the monetary aspect the fact that i had to pay for the
push marketing side of things there was something else that appealed to me about the pull marketing
side of things besides the fact that i didn't have to pay for it was the nature of pull marketing the
nature of pull marketing is all about giving value it's all about going out there and helping people
whereas the nature of push marketing it's all about interrupting people you're interrupting
somebody's feed you're interrupting their search you're interrupting their daily lives to put
your message in front of them when they haven't asked for that whereas pull marketing and content
marketing it's all about giving value it's all about helping your audience with a certain type
of problem they might have many different problems and you just go out there and you help them
with that problem and one piece of content marketing one very good piece of content marketing
can bring in thousands of visitors per month and that can go on for months on end or even years
on end so you just invest in a single piece of content and that can bring in leads year after
year so today content marketing is still my number one strategy both for my agency side of things
and my education side of things and i highly recommend getting into content marketing if
you haven't already now another reason that i really like the content marketing approach
is the profile that it helps you raise it really does raise your expert profile and your authority
in the marketplace because you're helping people with their problems they're coming to you
as a source to overcome their challenges and once you've helped them with just one problem they're
going to remember that and it's really going to elevate your image in their mind as an expert and
an authority in the marketplace so that's another added advantage of creating content
and i created a piece of content back in 2017 so that's nearly three four years now at this stage
and that is still my number one source of leads to this day so it just goes to show that you know
content marketing if you get it right if you take the time to develop your skills
it can act as a tool for you to bring in leads years after you've taken the time to invest in
a single piece of content so it's another reason that i really like the content marketing approach
so let's jump into the seven content marketing tips that you can use to build your brand and
start pulling your clients and your leads in number one define your niche now this is the
single biggest mistake that i see personal brands make business brands make businesses
in general they don't take the time to specify the niche that they want to serve and i'll give
you a little hint here small business is not a niche nobody identifies with small business me
personally if i see something with small business on it i just do not give it the time of day
because it's not talking directly to me only when you specify a niche only when you're crystal clear
about what industry you're serving can you be really specific with your messaging and
really specific with the content that you you put out there to help them with a very very
specific problem so think about illustration for the hospitality industry this is picking
a very certain and very specific service for a very specific niche so really take the time to
think about what service you want to offer to what particular niche number two know your audience
now this is all about the person within the niche that you're trying to reach so who is that person
what's their life like what kind of job do they have what do they do in the morning when they
get up for work do they go to work do they take public transport how do they get home from work
what kind of challenges do they have during the day what kind of challenges are you trying to help
them with and once they overcome that challenge where is it that they're going to what is their
objective what is their goal and what are their fears from not overcoming that challenge and not
reaching those goals so this really is about understanding the person within that niche
niche that you're trying to reach who is that person what do they what feelings are they going
through what challenges they do they have once you understand all of that then it becomes a
lot easier to start creating content to help that individual person number three select your content
type now this is all about knowing yourself knowing your skill sets knowing what you're
passionate about what you're not what you're good at what you're not now when i started out creating
content i started with video but i didn't last very long because i believed i was terrible at
it and i pushed back from it and i really didn't give it enough time i didn't stick with it and
i'll be honest i bailed i i didn't think i was good at it and i thought it just wasn't for me
so i start writing content and i started to write on my own blog at first then i started to create
guest posts and i got really good at writing and i really enjoyed writing actually and i
stuck with that for a while but then i was drawn back towards video i kind of felt that i didn't
give it enough effort i didn't give it enough time and attention and i really didn't stick
with it long enough so i went back to video and i committed to doing 30 videos and to seeing where
that took me and that led me to a place where i just kept going so it's really about
knowing your skills knowing what you're passionate about knowing what you could be good at
and giving it a try now you might feel that video is just not for you you just can't get in front
of the camera and i understand that i i never felt that myself i never felt that i couldn't
get in front of the camera i always believed that i could do it or i i could certainly try to do it
and i also believed that i could write as well but you might feel that you just can't get in front
of the camera or you might feel that you just do not have those creative writing skills but
you need to select uh an avenue for your content creation and decide which avenue that you're going
to go with and then commit to that go all in on it and you know just push through the pain barrier of
believing that you're terrible at it and give yourself some kind of challenge maybe a 30-day
challenge maybe a 90-day challenge to create content and you will get better number four do
your keyword research so once you understand that person when you once you understand that audience
and you understand the challenges that they have then you can get an idea for what types of queries
they're typing into google and to youtube and when you understand those queries and you're able to
really open up the world of keyword research and identify the keywords that they're using
in those search terms it really opens up another world in terms of all of the content that you can
create but it's important to remember here that the shorter tail the keyword as in the the shorter
the amount of words in the search term that you're trying to rank for the more difficult it is
to rank so if you have a niche that you're targeting if you have a specific business
that you're targeting and you know the challenges that that specific business has it becomes a lot
easier to rank for more specific keywords than it is for broader keywords that many industries
are probably trying to rank for so it's really important to do your keyword research here but
it's also very important to have that niche and to understand the person that you're trying to reach
number five generate content ideas now the keyword research that you do will give you a very good
idea of the content that you should be creating but one of the first places that you should start
is by identifying all of the challenges that your audience has so what questions would they ask if
they had the opportunity to speak to an expert and that can be the basis for your initial content so
you can get 30 questions you can get up to 100 questions that your audience might ask about
your specific industry about what you're trying to help them with or even other topics that they
might have other challenges that they might have in and around what they do or what they're trying
to do or what they're trying to achieve so if you know those challenges and you start to jot down
the individual questions that they might ask that can act as the basis for your initial content and
if you are doing a 30-day challenge or a 90-day challenge that is the first place that you start
find those questions that they're going to ask and get those down and make those the bases for
your initial content number six get creating now starting any new habit is hard and especially if
you're not good at it then chances are when you start creating content for the first time
you're not going to be good at it even if you're writing articles or doing videos
it doesn't matter you're not going to be great at it you're going to be rusty you're going to be
you know trying out new things and you're going to be finding your feet for the first while and
if you think about how many gym memberships there there are out there bought and paid for by people
with great intentions that don't follow through it illustrates the point that starting a new habit is
hard but the key here is in the process is you really need to jot down the individual tasks
that you need to go through to create a single piece of content and once you have
those processes down every time you tick one of those boxes it's like a mini accomplishment and
it's easier on the mind when you have a set of key tasks that you need to accomplish to create
a piece of content then it's a less of a burden on the mind so really take the time to map out those
individual tasks that you need to do make sure you have your processes down pat and then stick
with it commit to a 30-day challenge or a 90-day challenge and i guarantee you your 30th or your
90th piece of content will be way better than your first and number seven be consistent now
this is where 90 of content creators fail because over time it is more and more difficult to keep
that consistency so this is where the 30 day and the 90 day challenge really come in because
it forces you to be consistent to forces you to prove to yourself that you can actually do this
and it's not re the 30 or the 90 day challenge it's not really to achieve the 30 days or to
achieve the 90 days it's to prove to yourself that you can do it so you can keep that momentum going
and that momentum is absolutely key if you're going to do one video per week make sure you do
one video per week if you're going to write three articles per week make sure you write
three articles per week and once you set that momentum in place keep that momentum going and
that really is key if you're going to go from a bad content creator to a good content creator then
it's all about that consistency it's all about sticking with it long enough that you become good
and once you become good then you know the content create creation process becomes a lot easier so
i can't stress this enough be consistent stick with it find that grit find that determination
and find your new habit of creating that content now of course this video is all about content
marketing it's all about that pull marketing and it's not to say that push marketing and paid
marketing have no place in fact a solid marketing strategy will include both push marketing and pull
marketing but if you want to build a modern brand today you really need to be investing in content
and if you invest in content long term the content that you create today could be paying dividends
in months or years to come but i'd love to hand it back over to you i'd love to hear your experience
when it comes to content marketing do you believe in content marketing have you been creating
content for many years have you been creating content for just a couple of weeks and you're
feeling that twinge of you know trying to get over that initial hump and is that a challenge for
you or you do you have any other challenges around creating content whether it's video
or writing articles i'd love to hear from you in the comments below if you like this video please
give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and the notification bell as well it'll let you know
when i've got new videos coming out if you want actionable brand strategy tips and techniques head
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to hear from you about your challenges about your experiences i'll do my best to answer all of those
until next time brian like a master and i'll see you in the next video you