In today’s world, it is easier than ever to start a business. Explore Instagram on any given day and you will inevitably see an ad for some new online retailer. It begs the question: How, in such a saturated online marketplace, can a fledgling brand separate itself from the pack and survive?
There is no one answer to such a complex question, but for many consumer brands, the key is brand storytelling.
In short, brand storytelling is a marketing strategy that references a product’s functional benefits and establishes a context for when, where, and by whom that product is to be used. Oftentimes the goal is for a consumer to see her/himself in that scenario; for example, a casual menswear brand might produce a shoot involving a group of men on a weekend trip to the outdoors.
In other cases, the audience or customer profile is more aspirational in nature; an example of this might be a company that makes luxury handbags producing a shoot with beautiful talent up and down the Amalfi Coast. The average consumer will not be traipsing about the Mediterranean coast all that often, but with the right handbag, they feel like someone who would. Here emerges the two primary ingredients behind the secret sauce that is brand storytelling: Functional benefits and emotional connection.
Functional Benefits
Integral to any sensible advertising is a display of the product’s functional benefits. If you are a photographer shooting a campaign for a pair of boardshorts, it’s fairly obvious in what context that shoot will take place. You wouldn’t showcase a pair of sunglasses lying in bed, and you certainly wouldn’t photograph a pair of boardshorts at the opera. There is a natural association between a product’s benefits — in this case, probably lightweight and fast-drying material — and the expected scenario in which you would find that product. Once you identify a few key benefits, then you can begin to segment your market by other metrics like price: Yes these shoes are comfortable, but are they lounge-in-a-hammock comfortable or sip-martinis-on-a-yacht comfortable? Think of it like a mind map; identify your core benefits then branch out from there.
The primary benefit of Kuju Coffee is convenience, but here’s the thing: K-Cups are convenient and easy to use too, just not while hiking. So when I decided to produce a spec shoot for Kuju, I had to go beyond the logical appeal of convenience and portability and tap into something deeper.
Emotional Connection
Think back to my examples in the opening paragraphs. In either scenario, the advertiser’s goal is to strike an emotional chord with their audience. One plays on a sense of belonging and friendship, while the other taps into a bit of envy and longing for a future perfect self. The narrative being told tells us who is expected to buy certain products and for what context.
With Kuju, the emotional association I wanted to make was a sense of adventure and wanderlust. Shooting in a location like the mountains of West Virginia is generic enough to have a universal appeal while still evoking this feeling of envy and a yearning to go somewhere beautiful. If your coffee can go wherever you go, then why not go anywhere? Suddenly your mind is flooded with possibilities far beyond the coffee itself.
By driving home this connection between product benefits and emotion, you effectively marry the two in a consumer’s mind:
“Man, I need to get out and see the world and with this coffee I don’t even have to give it a second thought.”
Or:
“You know, I’m going hiking with some friends next weekend, this coffee would be perfect!”
Whatever direction the consumer’s mind takes them, at the end of the day they want to buy your coffee.
Good Versus Great
Brand storytelling is the key to levelling up your company’s marketing strategy and zeroing in on your target market. In fact, you could argue that for many companies these days, it is the only thing separating one brand from the next. Good content is well lit, properly exposed, and captures the mind; truly great content goes a step further and captures the head and the heart, showing you not only what’s being sold, but why you need it in your life.
By Brad Vassallo
About the author:Brad Vassallo is a commercial and outdoor lifestyle photographer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A creator since his earliest days, he once had the dream of being a National Geographic photographer. In spite of those aspirations, he spent the better part of his life chasing other people’s dreams of what he was supposed to do and who he was supposed to be. At a certain point though, the voice inside got to be too loud, too persistent, and told him that the path he was on was not his own. He began to listen to that voice, affirming his own creative aspirations and returning to his creative roots. You can see more of his work on his website and Instagram.
Launching a successful Amazon product is both exciting and challenging too.
Getting a product on the biggest buying website in the world takes time, knowledge, and patience.
Sellers often fail to realize it takes more effort than just listing a product for sale and waiting for the money to pour in.
AJ Rantz is a former bartender turned entrepreneur who turned his idea for drink mix recipe cards into a business after going viral on TikTok.
“Over the past 10 months, I’ve been able to launch cocktail cards my very own business on Amazon, and it’s been absolutely incredible,” explains Rantz.
The entrepreneur was willing to share that while his recipe cards are currently selling well on Amazon, he made several costly mistakes when first launching his business.
The first big mistake Rantz made was not outsourcing a bulk of the day-to-day work.
At first, Rantz launched the product and designed all of the cards on his own.
Unfortunately for the mixologist, he’s not a designer, and his original cards looked amateur. Eventually, Rantz hired a designer but admits that he should have outsourced other tasks as well, like social media management, video editing, and general email and DM correspondence.
The second mistake Rantz admits to making while launching his Amazon business was not trusting his gut.
“There were a lot of decisions that we had to go back to because I just didn’t trust my gut,” explains Rantz.
Rantz’s mistake involved including QR codes on each card, which he had initially, and then took off each card. Finally, he realized the QR code was a smart idea – after polling his fans – and put them back on each card.
This wishy-wash approach costs Rantz time and redesign dollars.
Not being firm with expectations from people was Rantz’s third mistake when launching his product on Amazon. He wanted to avoid confrontation, but in the end, the processes took longer because he wasn’t specific about what he wanted and expected from employees.
Rantz’s fourth mistake was believing he could please every single customer.
“A good example of this is when I got my first order. I did 700 units by plane and 800 units by ocean.
Well, the plane came to me in a week, and the ocean took around five weeks, and I really had no idea we were gonna sell so well. On Indiegogo, we actually did really good marketing, and by the time I got the plane shipment, I had sold all 700 units already.
At that point, I’ve already had this expectation that I’m shipping out to customers that I just convinced myself that if anyone purchases on Indiegogo, they would not be willing to wait a month for the product to be shipped to them, which is kind of silly, because Indiegogo is a crowdsourcing platform where people invest to be one of the first to get a project.
They typically know that it’s gonna take anywhere from 1-to-6 months to get their product.”
Rantz estimates this mistake cost him anywhere from $5-10K.
And the final mistake Rantz made while launching his product on Amazon was not continuing to push the product after he’d sold out.
Rantz said he waited three weeks to promote the cards again in hopes of supplies being replenished. Many of his mentors told him to keep pushing the product even when sold out.
Rantz estimates this costly mistake also lost him about $5-10K in sales.
LinkedIn Learning published a list of free courses that you can take on its platform to continue acquiring skills and succeed in your professional career.
An entrepreneur knows that he never graduates or finishes preparing and that training is key to achieving goals. LinkedIn Learning published a list of free courses that you can take on its platform to continue acquiring skills and succeed in your professional career.
Become a graphic designer : If you are interested in knowing the basics of graphic design to generate innovative visual concepts, this course is for you. Master the basics of building innovative design projects, and discover the skills you need to become a great visual thinker and communicator. Also, learn how to manage design teams and take your first steps managing your design company.
Master digital marketing : In this course with more than 24 hours of content, you will use your creative, analytical and tactical skills to help companies grow by generating new opportunities as a digital marketer. From creating marketing plans and content strategy to lead generation and SEO, learn digital marketing principles and best practices and tools to successfully navigate the world of digital marketing.
Learn to manage projects : Project management is one of the main activities of companies seeking to become catalysts for change. Through this course, you will learn the skills necessary to inspire your team to work with the vision and objective of having a common cause, and to manage projects from the beginning with the most effective techniques and knowledge of project management.
Become a true IT administrator : IT administration has become one of the top priorities for companies during the transition from new remote work schemes. Through this course, you will learn to design your own network and you will develop and expand your knowledge of cybersecurity, as well as the different skills that you will need to carry out a correct management of your own company’s networks on a day-to-day basis.
Learn the skills necessary to be a sales expert : If your thing is to make sales and get new business opportunities, this course is for you. Through 10 hours of content, you will learn how to convey trust, be attentive to your customers, influence their decisions and learn from their mistakes. Likewise, you will develop the necessary tools to become a sales professional, from attracting new clients to negotiation and sales techniques.
Apple’s iOS 14.5 update has triggered an unstoppable collapse in Facebook’s ability to collect user data
It is not unusual for the bosses of Apple and Facebook to be at loggerheads with each other over privacy. Back in 2018 Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg accused his Apple counterpart Tim Cook of being “extremely glib” for making scathing remarks about Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Weeks later Apple introduced privacy controls that hampered Facebook’s ability to collect user data via Apple devices.
Things moved up a notch at the end of last year after Apple revealed that app-tracking transparency would be installed as part of its latest system update. Until iOS 14.5 came along, apps like Facebook could automatically track what people were looking at on their phones and sell targeted ad space accordingly. The update was designed so users were asked their permission for the tracking to happen first.
Facebook responded to the move by taking out full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal accusing Apple of posing a threat to the “10 million businesses [who] use our advertising tools each month to find new customers, hire employees and engage with their communities”. Cook retaliated by tweeting that users “should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used”.
It may have looked like little more than a war of words between two rivals, but Facebook – which warned of the “headwind” posed by iOS 14.5 in its 2020 accounts – was right to be concerned. Since the update went live last month iPhone owners have been opting out of data tracking in their droves. According to Flurry Analytics, 85 per cent of worldwide users clicked ‘ask app not to track’ when prompted, with the proportion rising to 94 per cent in the US. Apple did not respond to requests to comment.
For an organisation like Facebook, whose entire business model is based around collecting, analysing, selling on and profiting from data about its users’ likes and dislikes, such numbers could be devastating.
“It’s a huge blow for Facebook,” says Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET UK. “They have major issues when another huge tech firm such as Apple comes along and says privacy is important. When Apple is asking users not to track – and that language is important – if anything it’s sticking a couple of fingers up at Facebook.”
This strategy is important for a business that wants to position itself as being above the privacy concerns that have dogged the technology industry. Lawyer and data privacy specialist Heather Anson, director of Anson Evaluate, says that for a company that can make money from its hardware regardless of regulatory constraints, it’s reasonably easy for Apple to score points over its rivals by doing that. “Apple is very good at using these types of issues to make itself look better,” she says. “There was a case in San Bernardino where a guy shot his co-workers and the FBI wanted to get the log-ins to his iPhone. Apple said no because it would weaken security, but that was technically more of a publicity stunt than something that was legally binding, they could have handed it over.”
By taking this stance now, Anson believes, Apple is pre-empting strict data protection laws that have been mooted in US states including New York and Virginia as well as in the European Union. As with the EU’s Draft Digital Services Act, the US proposals, which are modelled on an existing Californian law, would require user permission to be given for data to be used. It is a carbon copy of what iOS 14.5 has already introduced.
While that puts Apple ahead of the curve, it creates an even bigger problem for Facebook. That is in part because it will further restrict its ability to target ads to individual users, but also because the more these rule changes are spoken about the more it shines a spotlight on exactly what it is Facebook does with user data.
Facebook still makes billions from advertising. But the world in which it operates is changing fast. How Facebook attempts to keep pace will be telling. Depending on take-up, Facebook’s digital currency diem, which will be piloted later this year, could also create masses of data due to the way digital transactions are logged by the technology that powers them. Meanwhile, WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired in 2014, is to start gradually switching off functionality for users who refuse to let it share information with Facebook about the businesses they have communicated with.
Even taken together, they are likely to be a poor substitute for what Facebook will lose if the iOS 14.5 opt-outs continue apace. For now, Facebook is continuing to frame the advent of the Apple update as an affront to the smaller businesses that benefit from its platform. The impact on its advertising revenues will, it says, “be much less than what will befall small businesses” that rely on its algorithms to promote their wares. “Many small businesses won’t grow, continue hiring or even survive as a result of an impact of this magnitude,” it says.
Similar to Apple’s strategy of proclaiming itself a privacy champion, it is a smart tactic for Facebook to put itself on the side of the little guy, particularly as laws such as the EU Digital Services Act remain in their infancy. “The EU act will be lobbied and debated over and won’t be passed for another couple of years then it will be another couple more before it comes in,” says Anson. “By that time Facebook will have done what it needs to do to comply and it will have bullied the EU by lobbying to get something it likes.”
It’s clear that Facebook needs that time to come up with a strategy that will allow it to thrive without unfettered access to data at its core. David Wehner, the social media giant’s chief financial officer, wrote in the company’s fourth quarter 2020 earnings report that “over time, we hope to help businesses by providing more on-site conversion opportunities through initiatives like shops, and also click to messaging ads”. A blog posted on Facebook’s corporate site last month says it is “important to acknowledge that the ways that digital advertising collects and uses data will evolve” and that Facebook is “investing in new approaches to privacy-enhancing technology and building a personalised advertising ecosystem that relies on less data”.
Less data is not no data, though. The problem Facebook now faces is that as time passes and developments like iOS 14.5 make users more aware of how their data is used to manipulate them they might not want to give any of it up at all.
“Over the next five to ten years people will start to learn the importance of privacy and keeping their data,” says Moore. “Facebook’s business model is all about tracking – they are not a social media company, they are an advertising company and if they can track you they can make more money. Apple has got nothing to worry about, but Facebook could be gone in ten years.”
Podcasts, specifically, have exploded in recent years, and Clubhouse trying to become the YouTube of audio. Are you already taking advantage of these platforms?
It seems that lately they only talk about social audio . A few weeks ago, Clubhouse announced that it had closed a new round of financing (the amount was not disclosed) to respond to the exponential growth that the platform has had.
Facebook was not far behind and reported that in the coming months it will launch two social audio products: Soundbites (short audios like reels) and Podcast (a tool to discover podcasts); While Twitter is still standing up to now with the millionaire purchase of an audio application, after having launched Spaces in 2020, a kind of chat rooms with limited capacity.
In reality, this social audio boom has been going on for some time now with the growing popularity of music streaming services, podcasts, audiobooks, and new hands-free hardware like wireless headphones and earphones that have made listening and using voice commands necessary. voice easier.
Podcasts , specifically, have exploded in recent years, largely due to Spotify’s efforts to dominate the audio market by buying Gimlet Media and Anchor, as well as podcast studio Parcast.
I’d say Spotify has been paving the way for platforms like Clubhouse by trying to become the YouTube of audio, creating opportunities for content creators to make money, attracting more creators and getting us used to listening to audio beyond music. .
The new social audio platforms then have come at a time when not only was audio consumption ubiquitous, but people were eager to connect and share experiences.
Social audio and content marketing
Image: Depositphotos.com
In my opinion, social audio is content marketing . It’s just another form of content, like an infographic, blog post, or video tutorial. It is simply the distribution and sharing of this content in audio format within a social environment.
Among social audio platforms, Clubhouse’s success is evident both because of the novelty, as well as the longing for connection and belonging that people from all over the world have in what has been a time of isolation and uncertainty.
From a content standpoint, brands can start leveraging the app right away by hosting a Clubhouse room at least once a week where they can collaborate with colleagues, make new connections, and lead conversations on topics that matter to the industry. .
Whether you’re hosting a room or participating in someone else’s room, the best tactic is to focus on adding value.
My recommendation to all of us in this industry is to use your experience to share knowledge, provide useful information, and ask questions that enrich the conversation.
Brands can also work on connecting with their audience by sponsoring rooms or chats organized by industry leaders. This collaboration can give marketing executives the opportunity to share your brand story, connect with customers, and have a speaker in the room highlight a product.
The biggest challenge for brands right now is being consistent. Many brands start a Clubhouse room but end up closing it shortly after or without giving it continuity.
Then there is the expectation factor. Even if your brand is successful with its Clubhouse strategy, the maximum capacity of the room at the moment is 5,000 people, so it cannot be compared to the massive audiences of other social media platforms and expect to have the same reach and engagement, and much less access to metrics.
It is still too early to take full advantage of the marketing potential of social audio. At the moment we have to be creative, active and constant.
Over time social audio will pay off as a new frontier for social media.
Innovative ideas often come from one person, but great businesses require the right team.
As an adviser to new businesses, I’m a strong believer that no one succeeds alone in business.
Yet I find that many entrepreneurs struggle and fail with the transition from personally developing an innovative new idea to building all the relationships necessary to transform their idea into a successful business. These relationships include investors, an operational team, and customers.
He credits his own rise to this strategy, and I certainly agree with his key guidelines on how to get there:
1. Dream big — this inspires strong people to join you.
You won’t learn much from a small dream or an idea that has minimal risk, and you won’t inspire the people you need to help you. Thinking small won’t stir their passion, create meaning, or spur creative thinking. Strong people love an “impossible” challenge with a large opportunity.
2. Move fast — speed highlights energy and impact.
Moving fast is about going from not knowing to knowing as quickly as possible, and everyone loves to maximize this learning. The world around you is moving faster and faster these days, and not moving fast likely means you are not keeping up with the people and customers you need to succeed.
3. Learn from reality — test new ideas and get feedback.
Learning from reality takes humility, courage, and really listening to others, but it allow you to change quickly for the better, and you will enjoy the journey, as well as the destination. Study what has come before, capture what works right now, and ask customers what they want in the future.
4. Be solutions-driven — to drive success and learning.
Ideas and problems are the opportunity, but collaboration with the right people gives you the energy to achieve great results. This will give you the confidence to surface breakthrough ideas, proactively attack impossible challenges, and lead others to leverage what you and your collaborators have learned.
5. Obsess on opportunities to improve customers’ lives.
The more you listen to other people about opportunities, the more you will see, and the quicker your business will be responding. If you want to do something more meaningful with your life, find a passion for a customer-driven higher purpose, such as a social need or improving the environment.
6. Build relationships with respect and without ego.
Check your ego at the door, since outsize egos make trust and teamwork nearly impossible. Inspire everyone you interact with today to feel like they want to work with you again tomorrow and learn more from you. Give credit and thanks freely, knowing you will be repaid handsomely in other ways.
7. Play to your strengths, and seek strengths in others.
Don’t waste time trying to fix or hide all your imperfections. Spend the time capitalizing on the strengths of others on your team, and focusing on your own strengths, to maximize results and minimize time spent. Trying to be the best at everything that needs to be done isn’t fun and doesn’t work.
8. Bounce back from every failure with passion.
The truest test of character is not how you act when things are going great — it’s what you do and how effectively you use other people to recover when you hit bottom. Many people are willing and able to help you stand even taller, if you show the resilience, learning, and grit to never stay down.
Steve Jobs is a famous example of someone who bounced back from failure. After his early forced resignation from Apple, Jobs learned to rely on the help of many others, and came back to make Apple one of the most successful companies of the past decades.
The real message here is that no matter how good and how determined you are, you can go only so far alone. Your biggest challenge in business is to find those complementary and supportive relationships that can amplify your passion and strengths, and take you to the next level. Together, anything is possible. Start today.
Have no idea how to opt-out? Don’t worry. We explain all below.
Amazon Sidewalk goes live across the US next month.
The crowdsourced internet sharing service uses Amazon devices to create a free mesh network.
Supported Amazon devices will automatically form part of the service unless users unenroll.
Amazon Sidewalk, the company’s crowdsourced mesh network program, will be switched on across the US next week. But, if you own an Amazon device and don’t want to be part of it, you have just a few days left to opt out.
Amazon devices will automatically enrol in the program unless users explicitly visit their settings menu to withdraw. These include devices in the Alexa series, the Echo line, the Ring family, and other smart home equipment.
Sidewalk uses these devices as nodes that form the cornerstones of a crowdsourced Amazon mesh network. The service employs Bluetooth connections and other spectrum bands with network speed limited to 80kbps. A data cap of 500MB per month is also standard.
Amazon’s plan for Sidewalk
Amazon’s grand design for Sidewalk is simple. The free service allows the company to easily broaden the coverage and connectivity of smart home devices beyond a Wi-Fi network. “For example, if your Echo device loses its Wi-Fi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router,” it explains. “For select Ring devices, you can continue to receive motion alerts from your Ring Security Cams, and customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their Wi-Fi connection.”
While Amazon does provide documentation (h/t Ars Technica) on how it uses the service, the encryption it employs, and user privacy, it’s likely many users aren’t too thrilled by the concept. Some might find it beneficial. Those who don’t want to take part do need to visit the Alexa app’s settings menu.
How to opt out of Amazon Sidewalk
Thankfully, it’s simple enough to opt out of Amazon Sidewalk. To do so:
Head to the Alexa app on your device.
Open More and hit Settings
Select Account Settings
Select Amazon Sidewalk
Turn Amazon Sidekick Off
Sidewalk goes live from June 8 across the US. Amazon hasn’t yet published availability plans for other regions.
Want more sales from your ads? Wondering how to write Instagram ad copy that converts?
In this article, you’ll discover how to create ads specifically designed to sell products and services on Instagram.
Why Instagram Ad Placements Need Dedicated Copy
Instagram is often thought of as a purely visual platform, and while that’s true in part, the information you provide along with your ad visuals is what persuades the audience to take action. Getting your copy right is just as important as finding the perfect image or video.
When you use Facebook Ads Manager to create your Instagram ads, you can choose from multiple ad placements including Facebook. But you don’t want to rely on Ads Manager to auto-generate your ads from one set of copy and assume it will work on all placements. Instead, edit each placement so the copy works within the limitations of that platform.
For example, when you include links in your ad copy, they’re clickable in Facebook ads but not Instagram ads. So adding links to your Instagram copy is a waste of time and takes up valuable real estate. And people who are expecting to tap through to your website from the copy may get frustrated. To avoid this issue, stick with the features provided and direct the audience to tap on your call-to-action (CTA) button.
It’s also important to treat the ad copy for Instagram story ads differently from what you use in the Instagram news feed. Stories are displayed for up to 15 seconds so your audience won’t have time to read long copy. Plus, if you rely on Facebook to auto-generate story ads from your news feed ads, your copy is unlikely to display correctly.
Short, snappy ad copy is an effective way to capture your audience’s attention in an Instagram story ad. You can also get good results by using a captivating image and a strong CTA.
Content is the king of any type of marketing; there is nothing new here. However, creating a perfect plan for your next content marketing is the key to success. Almost anyone can create content but making it perfectly suited for your business is the key.
Long ago, before 2005, B2B and B2C businesses usually did not care about creating fresh content regularly. However, because of the audience’s ever-increasing desire for fresh and engaging content, search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., also give priority to fresh and engaging content.
Create a Perfect Content Marketing Plan for Your Business
And this is where it begins; from personal bloggers to big brands, all are racing to create fresh and engaging content regularly for their business website to get their share of organic traffic.
Because only by creating fresh & engaging content that their audience love, a business can increase not only sales but also build a brand name among the crowd. Thanks to social media, audiences can share content among them that creates a massive awareness for a business. Which, in turn, helps to increase revenue by many folds.
A recent study says 69 percent of B2B businesses have documented content marketing strategies. And 76 percent of marketers judge the success of a business by measuring their organic traffic statistics. As you can see, in this new digital marketing era, content marketing is the key to drive more organic traffic to your business.
In this article, I will discuss how you should build a perfect plan for your content marketing.
Step 1: Build Your Brand by Creating Mass Awareness
If you want to get success in the long-term, then branding is essential. Look at the big brands; their audience knows them for their brand name, not the product itself. This is a smart way of marketing that your audience will purchase because they trust you more than they trust their judgment.
Let me give you a perfect example of this. You may have seen many of your friends buy an iPhone without even a second thought. Even if they have seen recent bad reviews about that phone.
Why does it happen? Well, it does not happen in one day; it took them years to gain trust from their audiences. Now people buy iPhones from day zero when they get released.
This is a vital reason why you should focus on building a brand among your audience using mass awareness. However, before you do that, ask yourself the below questions to identify the right approach.
Who is my target audience?
What type of content is my primary focus? Text, visual, audio, or a combination of all.
Who are my competitors? What kind of content are they using?
How do they create mass awareness? Which online platform are they using?
Step 2: Tweaks Your Existing Marketing Campaign
Again, I am saying this; nowadays, it is a highly competitive era. It’s not 2000 where people are just starting to get along with online content & bloggers are just emerging from the womb.
It is 2020 & to date, more than 500 million blog posts exist & 1.7 billion websites all over the globe. In recent statistics, almost 80 percent of people do not even read your entire post, only read the headline and pass it. According to MOZ, 92 percent of Google searches never visit the 2nd page.
These statistics only tell us one thing. Content marketing is becoming harder every day. You have to focus on your target audience by creating highly engaging & relevant content. Otherwise, all your efforts will go in vain.
So, the question is – how are you supposed to tweak your existing campaign? Well, it is simple. Take a look at the below table. I have presented 3 of my favourite content & keyword analysis tools for you to get started. If you plan for long-term business, then you must have to use a tool like this.
Best tools for Content & Keyword Analysis
Best tools
Costing
Free Trial
Ahref
$99 per month
7-days for $7
Semrush
$99.95 per month
7-days free
Ubersuggest
$12 per month
7-days free
Step 3: Set Your Marketing Goals & Stick with It
Before you do anything, it’s always better to create specific goals of marketing your content and stick with it. Set your goals and synchronize them with your entire team for better collaboration. This is the digital era — do not forget that.
You do not have to arrange a meeting every single time you update your decision. Use the power of management tools to collaborate with your entire team, including sharing files, photos, and videos on the fly. Use a secure channel to share classified information without using third-party applications like Gmail, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, etc.
Once you can collaborate with your entire team securely & on time, it is time to set specific goals that can be achieved within a specific timeframe. Do not target a goal that cannot be achieved or too hard to get desired success.
Also, you need to focus on time management. Look for your competitors’ weaknesses to identify the untapped opportunity to seize it. For example, if your competitor is Microsoft, you can still beat them without directly targeting their focused objective. Instead, find the hole to get into the market by searching for an untapped opportunity that even Microsoft didn’t see.
It’s so obvious, you cannot fight head-on against a powerful opponent, but as they are your opponent, you have to find their weakness and hit hard to beat them.
Find Content Gap using Ahref “Content & Keyword Analysis Tool.”
It’s so obvious if your competitor is strong, then there is no way you can beat them head to head unless you have a large amount of funding to back you up.
So, what to do? Here is the answer for you. I have given you 3 of my best content & keyword analysis tools to begin with. For this example, I have used the Ahref tool. Take a look at how I find more than 2,000+ keyword gaps in their website.
If you want to beat your competitor, then this is the chance. Find their weakness by using “content gap” to find out which type of keywords they haven’t ranked yet. Now, create powerful content on that keywords & start to win the market.
Step 4: Plan for Your Target Audience
Always remember that the audience is the ultimate success key. Without them, no business could exist because they are buyers & the lifeblood of any business.
Every business’s target audience could be different. It is a vital task to identify the customer’s interest, habit & lifecycle. If you do not analyze your audience and build the correct content, then even if you have high quality and engaging content — your target audience may not be interested in those.
Some audiences may be interested in video rather than simple text content. Some may be interested in audio content but feeling bored with video & text. It can vary from the audience. Thus you should find out in which type of content they have an interest.
You may face that some group of the audience does not buy products right away. They always research first and take a decision after a while. Your task is to convert them before your competitors convert them. To do that, analyse your target audience and build a perfect marketing strategy.
How to Identify Your Audience Interest?
Using Google analytic, you can easily do it. Visit Google analytic, then click on the audience tab. Here you will find all sorts of information regarding your existing audience. Their age, location, gender, interest, income level, etc.
Visit Google Analytic – Audience
Step 5: Create a Plan for Content Creation
It completely depends on your business brand & target audiences. Some content creation strategies may work for my business. However, the same strategy may not suit your business.
For example, my target audience always searches through Google and research by reading the blog, article, forum post, social media post, etc. Therefore, my content creation plan is – highly engaging, helpful & fresh content that is built with text & images.
Because search engines like Google love text & images, which is perfectly suited for my business marketing plan as well. Now think very carefully what type of business you have, thus building your content creation strategy. For example, if it is a cooking course, then you should focus on video rather than text & images.
Step 6: Leverage Social Media to Create Mass Awareness
Though you can spend thousands of dollars on your business to market it. However, this is not a cost-efficient method. Better to focus on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., for online marketing.
If you use Google ads service for marketing your business, then for a single visitor, you may have to spend $1-2 on average. Most businesses from small to large spend $9,000 per month on average for online marketing.
However, if you can build a community on social media platforms, then you may get millions of visitors to your website without spending a dime. Though, not all social media may suit your business. For example, if your business is cooking-related or furniture-related, you may get massive visitors from Instagram & YouTube.
Step 7: Analyse & Track Your Business Performance
This is the final stage of success. After you have planned for your audiences & build a powerful content marketing strategy now, it’s time to focus on the result. By analysing your website visitors, subscriptions, sharing on social media & purchases made by the audience. It’s so obvious; not everyone gets their desired result without trial & error.
You may create an excellent strategy, but it will only become perfect when you test it out and get the desired result. If you do not get it — then find out the errors and fix it & again test it.
There are several metrics to test your business performance.
Audience Behaviour: bounce rate, visit duration, etc.
Revenue: subscription, conversion, etc.
Mass awareness: sharing, comments, backlinks, etc.
Organic Traffic: visitors from search engines, fewer advertisements needed
These are just sample metrics you could use to measure your performance. However, there are many CRM software out there you could use to handle these complex analysing tasks automatically.
Conclusion
How you should market your content completely depends on your business & audience. I can only show you a general way to get success. However, you have to walk by yourself. Analyse your audience & learn about them.
Then build a content-making & marketing plan. Finally, analyse your business performance to see if it works. Remember, every big brand once struggled many years to get the desired success. But they never give up.
Arif Chowdhury is the founder of Cliobra. An active digital marketer specialized in both search engine marketing and social media networks. With more than 10 years of practical experience in small to large organizations management, he provides consultancy on how to manage both sales & marketing departments.
Entrepreneurs should do what they can to avoid time-consuming and costly mistakes when starting a new business.
I started my business, six years ago, by accident. I had an idea for a unique wedding business, where strangers could hire me to be their bridesmaid, and decided to test that idea out by posting an ad on Craigslist. The ad drew hundreds of interested people to reach out to me and within a matter of days, I officially launched Bridesmaid for Hire.
Because I started my business so quickly, I found that in the first year I made many mistakes that cost me a lot of money and precious time. It’s been six years since then and looking back, I wish I had avoided these costly errors from the very beginning.
If you’re thinking of starting a side hustle, these are the mistakes I made that you should try to avoid.
1. Ditching a budget
When I started my business, I wasn’t sure how much money I needed to get the website up and running, to market to new clients, and to hire professionals (lawyers and accountants) along the way. During the first few months, I was charging every little thing on my personal credit card and not realizing how much I was spending.
I spent close to $500 to launch my website, pay for different software products to help with email marketing and social media, and get official branding for the company. This was all just in the first few weeks of starting the business.
Rather than just paying for things and racking up credit card debt, I wish I’d had a budget. If I could go back in time, I would first decide how much of my personal cash I wanted to loan to the business. Then, I’d create different categories for spending (marketing, software, professionals, freelance hires, etc.) and determine how much of that total cash I’d allocate per category. This would help me stretch a predetermined amount of money to pay for everything during that first year. Instead, I did things in reverse and when I needed something, I just charged it and didn’t keep track.
Set a budget before you start the business. Determine how much of your own cash you’re willing to pump into the early days of getting your idea up and running and stay meticulous about tracking your spending on a weekly basis.
2. Taking too much from my personal savings
When I first started my side hustle I was working full time and took some of my income from that job to help fund my business. Without realizing it, I was slowly draining my savings account to pay for a lot of the early expenses. Since I wasn’t earning that much yet from clients and services, I was using too much of my personal cash, too fast, to pay for things.
Rather than pulling out too much money from your personal accounts, and impacting your personal financial goals (such as saving for retirement or creating an emergency fund), it’s best to put a limit on how much of your own cash you’ll loan the business and have the intention of paying yourself back once the business makes money.
When you start a business, everything always feels urgent. What I should have done was prioritize what needed to be funded immediately and what could wait. That way, I wouldn’t have put so much of my cash into the business up front and taken on personal risk without knowing if the idea would generate income in future months.
3. Not asking for advice or mentorship
I didn’t have any friends who were entrepreneurs when I first started my company so I felt very alone in the process. When I’d ask my friends for help or ask their advice on certain situations (such as how much to charge clients or how much to spend on a logo) they wouldn’t know what to advise me.
I had to learn things the hard way by making my own mistakes, when a mentor or circle of entrepreneur friends could have helped me make better decisions with their lessons learned, industry knowledge, or just entrepreneurial experience.
Even if you’re not surrounded by people creating side hustles, find online communities or reach out and find a mentor who can be there for you to answer questions, help you avoid mistakes, and stay smart with your money.
4. Refusing to hire a virtual assistant
I started the business solo and found myself taking on too much work. I was working full-time and working on my side hustle during any free moment I had (early mornings, nights, and weekends). I could have accelerated the growth of my company, big time, by hiring a virtual assistant to help with more time-consuming tasks that didn’t need to be done by me (organizing emails, uploading blog posts, creating outreach emails, etc.). Instead, I took the time to do these smaller tasks that took hours or a half the day, when I could have been working on more important areas of the business like scaling, growth, or brainstorming ways to get new clients.
Hiring a virtual assistant would have cost around $25 an hour and that’s something I could have budgeted for knowing that if I used those “free hours” I could find ways to double or triple the growth of the business.
5. Setting my prices too low
One of the most rookie mistakes I made was when it came to figuring out how much to charge. I set my prices very low and because of that, I wasn’t profitable during the first few months when I could have been. I had many clients and was working more than 40 hours a week with this side hustle, yet my finances didn’t show success. I was undercharging for my services for two main reasons: I didn’t truly know my value and I was scared if my prices were higher I wouldn’t have any clients.
I was wrong. This was a costly mistake because I found I was providing clients with more hours of my time than they originally paid for at a very low cost. This meant I couldn’t take on new clients (because there just weren’t enough hours in the day) and it meant even though I was working hard, and working long hours, my business wasn’t making enough money to be viable.
When you notice a mistake in your pricing, make changes to how much you’re charging or your business plan. This can make or break a business early on.
Everyone starting a side hustle makes mistakes but when it comes to errors that cost time and money, it’s best to avoid those when you can. Set a clear budget, limit how much you’re pulling from personal finance, and ask for advice so you can make smart and efficient decisions along the way.
