Like many small business owners, Ted feels like he is banging his head against the wall.

He has a local professional services company where he constantly needs to be finding new clients. Many people call it “prospecting”, which brings to mind both the image of knocking on doors of completely cold prospects, and the image from the wild west movies, of grizzled miners sifting through the dust, looking for gold.

There are some connections between the two mental images, wouldn’t you say?

Ted’s problem is finding qualified leads; that is, people who are not completely unaware of the value he can offer to them, and who are at least open to the idea that he might be able to solve a problem they have.

But like many other small business owners, Ted is reluctant to invest in the very thing that will help him get past the cold calls, and the frustration and uncertainty of not knowing if he’ll have enough clients by the end of the month.

So if you sometimes feel a bit like Ted, let’s help you A.M.P up your business! Here are the three big steps that will set you on a more profitable, more enjoyable path!

A = Audience 

Identify exactly who your Audience is. You can’t speak to everyone! This means you need to know not only what specific market you choose to serve (or niche, as it is also called), but also the specific type of person with whom you want to work (your perfect client, or avatar).

Identify their #1 problem. You must know this in their exact words. As the old cliche asks, “What keeps them up at night with worry?”

How does that problem make them feel? What thoughts go through their minds, both consciously and unconsciously? What do they think about themselves? About others in their life? About their circumstances? 

Until you know the answers to these questions, you simply won’t be successful. So interview and survey your current clients, in order to get the answers you need.

Once you get great clarity on the market and the individual, and you are serving them well, you will also have an Army of referrers to help you grow! This comes later in the steps, but it’s useful to keep it in mind as you begin (and it also fits under “A”!)

M = Message

Armed with deep knowledge of your audience, both individually and as a group, you are ready to help them solve their problem with your services and products.

Clarify your proposition. What are you offering to them? How will it solve their problem?

Know your brand positioning. You want to be able to influence how your audience sees your brand, especially in relation to your competition. What makes you stand out? Why should they pay attention to you, instead of to someone else?

Be remarkable. That is, memorable. Catch phrases like “Just do it” (Nike) can help you be memorable, yes, but there are many ways you can be remarkable. Start to make a list.

P = Plan

Now that you know your audience in great detail, you’ve identified your unique value statement, and placed yourself squarely above the rest of the competition in your audience’s mind, you need a plan to send the message to your audience! If all the above points are simply written down on paper, and you don’t share the message, you won’t have a business!

That is called marketing. You need a marketing Plan, including paid advertising.

It doesn’t have to be a long, fancy plan. You can start with a one-page document that summarizes all of the above points.

Make sure you answer the following: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.

A = Army of Referrers

The A.M.P. Up Your Business Blueprint comes back around to A again when you reach out to your current clients and customers, as well as partners in related businesses, and they become your Army of Referrers.


Are you ready to learn more about how to implement this type of 1-page marketing plan? Let’s have a 20-minute conversation and see where you should get started! Click here to apply. If it doesn’t seem like a good fit, I will let you know.

The little I know about zombies – thank goodness! – it seems they are attracted to the smell of human blood. And it’s very difficult to get away from them!

Wouldn’t you LOVE to have new clients reaching out for you with just that much enthusiasm? 😉

What do you think creates that kind of compelling desire? Well, I don’t know about with zombies, but here with the living, it’s all about building a trusting relationship.

Trust is built on familiarity and mutual understanding

The BEST way for entrepreneurs to get that kind of mutual understanding is consistent, reliable communication.

I’d like to teach you how to communicate with your audience – your prospects and current clients – so you, too, can have that kind of relationship.

To get there, you need to create valuable, inspiring, engaging content (information!). Let me show you how to do it!

I am offering a brand new program, “30 Days to a Flood of New Leads” Content Marketing Blueprint.

In this program you’ll discover exactly what content marketing is, the most common mistakes people make, and why you really need to have a content marketing plan.

Each day you will have one or two simple tasks to create some content (useful information) that will help you be top-of-mind for your audience.  

By the end of the 30 days, you will have incorporated content creation into your daily habits, and you won’t be able to remember NOT doing it nearly every day!

And the results of this strategy will begin to show before the month is over. You will have people reaching out to you every day, friending and following you on social media, sending you messages about your products and services, and ultimately signing up to work with you.

What would these results mean for you and your business?

If you could get just 2 new clients a month from your content marketing strategy, how much would that be worth to you? What is that number? Go ahead, write it down!

If you did this for 3 months, or 5 or 6 months, now how much is that worth to you? And wouldn’t it likely grow exponentially?

What is your customer lifetime value? If you could get 5 new clients over the next 3 months, what is THAT number? Yes, go ahead and WRITE IT DOWN!

So you can see that figuring out how to really do content marketing the RIGHT way can significantly increase your business, starting within just 30 days.

So let’s cut to the chase. This program will eventually probably sell for at least $200, but since this is the beta version, I’m offering it for a mere $97.

Talk about GHOULISH DEALS!

Yes, just like someone cornered by the zombie horde, this amazing opportunity won’t last long! So make a decision and let’s just dive right into it!

UPDATE: We start on Monday, Nov. 14, so register by Sunday, Nov. 13! That’s all the time you have to decide! You are running out of time to attract your perfect client!

Click here to start this 30-day email course!

Will your ideal prospective customer remember you when they are ready to make a purchasing decision?

Seriously.

While there is some question about the accuracy (and origins) of the numbers, we are often told that 20 years ago, consumers were exposed to 2000 messages a day, and that number is now around 5000 messages a day.

Regardless of the true number, I am sure you know it’s pretty high! We really are completely inundated with information. All day long.

It’s hard to remember!

Because of this constant bombardment of information and messages, we have trouble remembering what we did at 2:15 three days ago. And many people also have trouble remembering the name of the notary who helped them sign an official document 3 weeks ago.

So when your prospect is really ready to buy a product or service that you provide, it’s very likely they won’t remember you, your company, or your brand.

Whether you are an online business, focusing mostly on coaching and/or education, or a brick-and-mortar business, counting on lots of foot traffic, if prospective customers don’t remember you, what can you do about it?

Stay top-of-mind

You must focus on creating the brand recognition that is the lifeblood of any viable business. Because your prospects are not all ready to buy at the same time.

Some will be ready to buy today.

Some need a little more time or information.

Some need to develop more trust with you and your brand.

Some are only beginning to look for information.

Be prepared for the fact that your message WILL get buried. Just continue to create valuable content. Eventually, that familiarity will build trust in the mind of your prospect.

When you post something, don’t add to the “clutter”. In addition to being valuable, your content must also be engaging, relevant, and inspiring.

Create text, video, audio, and interactive content that captures your prospect’s attention.

Post frequently on social media. Sponsor local events. Send out print newsletters that are 100% guaranteed to land in your prospect’s mailbox (you can’t say THAT about email!).


This is one of a series of articles about relevant, valuable, engaging, and inspiring content as part of a profitable content marketing plan.

It’s your turn! What did you find most valuable in this post? What action will you take now, to make sure you don’t add to the clutter too, but still manage to stay top-of-mind?

Leads and sales is all about marketing. So if you don’t have a consistent, steady flow of new leads, converting into paying customers, you probably have a marketing problem.

So let me ask you: is your marketing strategy a little haphazard? Do you wonder how to increase your return-on-investment and get more leads and paying customers?

See if you match any of these top 6 problems faced by other small business owners:

1 – A lack of resources

This could mean time, money, people, or knowledge. When you are busy actually running your business every day, it’s challenging to come up with ways to meet this lack of resources.

2 – Poor understanding of social media

There are more than one billion people who are active on Facebook. And more than 100 million use Instagram every month.

If you aren’t taking full advantage of the social media platforms most often used by your ideal client, you are missing out on hundreds of opportunities to get in front of your core audience.

3 – It’s challenging to keep up with changing trends and technology

Unless you have a staff member whose primary job is to keep up with industry and market trends, it’s a struggle to know what the “latest and greatest” is.

The problem? Most of your competitors are figuring out how to do it… somehow.

4 – Lack of a marketing plan or strategy

As tempting as it is to just slap something together and send it “out there”, shockingly, this doesn’t usually work very well!

If your marketing doesn’t have a focus, your prospects and customers don’t focus on you either. Unfortunately, this goes back to problem #1.

5 – Expecting immediate results from long-term marketing tactics

This comes from not fully understanding how marketing works, and goes back to the problem of not having a plan.

6 – Not getting enough referrals

Word of mouth is not scalable, but it is still an important component of any business’ growth. It’s so important, in fact, that you can, and should, encourage referrals by offering incentives.

New customers are more likely to walk in, ready to buy, if they have a friend or family member who has already recommended your product or service.

There is another way!

If you would like to know a tried-and-true method to increase leads and sales, a method used by the most successful businesses around the world, of all sizes, please sign in below to download our short free ebook, “Guaranteed Customer Conversion for Small Businesses!”

In a previous article, I shared the first four of six compelling reasons to immediately produce a recurring revenue product as part of your product suite.

Continue reading below to discover the next two reasons, as well as one of the most efficient, yet effective, recurring products you can offer your customers and clients.

5 – You have more time to maximize client value and increase retention.

This is related to #4, above. When you can spend less time and money to acquire new leads and convert them to customers, it means you have more time and money to create an amazing experience for your current customers.

This also helps reduce churn, which means you spend even less time acquiring new customers.

The key is to go beyond expectations.

Think about it. When you go to a grocery store, you expect quality fresh produce and a decent selection of brands and food types. When you don’t get that, you complain.

If you walk in, however, and someone greets you at the door and asks you what you are looking for, and then they offer to compare prices for you, and they push your cart around the store for you… Well, that is an entirely different experience.

So always give your customers what they expect. And with the extra time and money available to you when you use the recurring revenue model, make sure you also give them a WOW experience.

6 – You can focus on outcomes, instead of being a commodity.

Commodities can be bought and sold. You can measure them and count their features.

Commodities are such things as diamonds, air conditioners, cars, etc. You can measure how many they are, and sometimes how much energy they use.

Instead, with a recurring income product or service, you can market by emphasizing the outcome your customers are looking for.

You can talk about how they will feel when they use the gym as often as they want; or the peace of mind it will give them to know that someone is always on call if their washing machine breaks down; or how working with you every month as a business coach will turn their business – and life – around.

You are not held to providing your service or product for a certain number of hours. This means your customer feels more confident turning to you when they really need to, and you feel secure with money coming in every month. It’s a real win/win for both of you!

The real result: Relationship

While all this is terrific news for you and for your customers, even better is the end result of your recurring income service or product: the relationship you build with each individual in your community.

The ongoing “touches” you get to have with your customers and clients increase the opportunities for you to get to know them, and for them to get to know you. And, of course, the more you get to know each other, the more you will like each other. And trust comes next, after “knowing” and “liking”.

Never, ever underestimate the power of presence – being available to someone regularly – to build the relationship. And in this case, the business.

A great model for automatic monthly income – without a lot of effort

If you are someone who has a list of subscribers – people who have raised their hand and given you permission to show up in their email inbox – you now have available to you the best way to increase both their relationship with you, and, naturally following on that, their expected results.

How do you improve that relationship and their results?

By giving them something concrete to learn and apply each month.

It’s possible to create a membership site and continually update it. That is, indeed, a valuable service and it helps boost relationships.

But if you don’t have the time – nor the inclination – to run a membership program, a simpler, yet still highly effective recurring revenue offer is a monthly subscription newsletter.

You can certainly write and produce this newsletter yourself, or you can let my company do this for you.

All you need to do is allow one of us to interview you – or your team members – once a month for 30-40 minutes. We take over from there.

We get the recording transcribed, “massage” the content so it sounds JUST like you, set it up in a nice-looking template, then send it to the printer/distributor for you. (Printing and shipping costs are obviously separate from our content management fee.)

That’s it!

Of course, you do need to sell subscriptions to your list, but it doesn’t take very many sales before you’ve covered all your costs, and the rest is pure profit. All while you are providing valuable, relevant, engaging content that makes a difference in the lives of your customers.

I know, you may say, “Why would I mail a print newsletter these days??”

The truth is, people have stopped paying attention to their email inboxes. Lots of emails end up in the wrong tab – or in spam – and they never even get opened (what is your personal open rate, after all)?

On the other hand, how much of your “snail mail” do YOU open, especially when you’ve paid for it? And don’t you think it becomes easy to include an insert to other services and products you may want to offer as well?

If you are ready to receive automatic monthly income without a lot of time and effort, please apply here for a consultation. We are ready to help you increase your Impact, Influence, and Income through the power of engaging, inspiring content!


Do you have a “hole” in your marketing funnel that is leaking leads and sales? Take our quiz and find out!

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Netflix does it. GE does it. Verizon does it. Your local gym does it.

What’s the common denominator? They all have some sort of recurring income product, also known as a membership model.

In this day and age, recurring income is THE business model. If you don’t have a recurring product or service yet, you will likely get left behind by those in your industry or market who do.

Case in point: Netflix vs. Blockbuster.

Netflix started right from the beginning by getting customers onto a pay-once-a-month-watch-all-you-want plan. Customers loved it because it gave them lots of choices, and lots of freedom about when to watch their movies.

In contrast, of course, Blockbuster gave some freedom of choice – “you can get any 3 movies for $6” – but they didn’t provide for customers to watch a variety of movies, whenever they wanted. Once Netflix provided all of their movie selections digitally, instead of just by mail, the game was over and Blockbuster was done.

Why is the recurring revenue business model so popular? Below are the first four of six compelling reasons to start using this model as soon as possible:

1 – It’s money you can count on.

Sure, there are people who come and go; there will always be “churn” when you have any kind of membership program. Some people lose interest in the topic, others decide they can’t afford to stay, and still others just aren’t a good fit for the program.

But in general, if you take good care of your customers (we’ll get to that in a minute), you will have regular income that you can count on for months.

This allows you to plan for how you invest in your company: marketing, ads, launches, professional development, software and hardware upgrades, etc. When you have a regular source of income, you can make plans!

2 – There is less risk in your business.

Anytime potential investors look at the viability of a company, they always look for predictable income. The recurring revenue model gives them what they are looking for.

3 – You can predictably pay off your bills each month.

Many of your company bills are monthly themselves. Software applications like AWeber or Active Campaign. Website support. Utilities. Rent or mortgage (for your business and for your home).

4 – You spend less time acquiring new customers.

Everyone knows it is significantly more difficult – and costly – to acquire a new customer than it is to get a current customer to buy again.

Yes, as stated above, there will always be churn, so you will always need to be acquiring new customers. Besides, you likely want to GROW your customer base!

But the need for frantic, hamster-wheel-style customer acquisition is significantly lessened when you know you have a core number of customers who will likely stay with you from month to month.

To make the most of this benefit, you’ll need to know these numbers:

  • How many customers typically stay each month (retention)
  • How many customers typically leave each month (churn)
  • Your cost to convert a lead to a customer
  • Your cost to acquire the lead
  • Your customer lifetime value

When you are secure with these numbers, you’ll be able to figure out how aggressively you need – or want – to get new leads.

If all these companies rely on recurring income, for all the reasons stated above, it makes sense for you to set up up a recurring revenue model too.

As if these four reasons aren’t enough, check out Part 2 to discover two more, as well as one of the easiest-to-produce, yet most impactful recurring revenue products!


If you would like to talk to me about creating money you can count on in YOUR business, please click here to apply for the Winning Content Strategy Master Plan Session!

That statistic is both shocking, and not shocking, at the same time.

We’ve all seen local businesses come and go.

Just as a restaurant begins to become your favorite, it disappears, sometimes without warning.

Or a favorite used book store – Yay! Book stores are NOT dead… yet! – that struggles on for 10, 15 months, and then finally closes its doors.

Perhaps you know of a business owner who has been around longer than five years. But you only know them a little, because they are always – always – at the shop or office. They never seem to get a day off. I know a Korean woman in our town who runs a dry cleaning and sewing business. She works 10+ hours a day, six days a week…

And many small business owners stay home in the summer, year after year. They never get to take their kids on a vacation because it would mean they would lose money if they aren’t physically present at the shop or office.

And retirement? Woah! Who can possibly save for retirement?? Since many small business owners barely manage to pay the bills each month, putting aside any decent retirement funds is a bit of a pipe dream.

These scenes are not uncommon. It’s very challenging to create a business that not only survives, but THRIVES.

It is because of these very types of situations that I recently found myself in front of a room of 17 entrepreneurs – and aspiring entrepreneurs – talking about how to use Facebook to grow your business organically, without having to pay for ads.

Most of the people in the room had no idea how powerful this social media platform can be, even when it’s totally free.

After that presentation, when it came time to do the networking portion of the program, it was easy.

The attendees enjoyed talking with each other and sharing stories. They told each other about their dreams, their struggles, and their best offers.

We even had several people whose businesses overlap, but we were all clear with each other that we prefer cooperation and support, rather than competition.

We then had time for one “hot seat”. If you are not familiar with the concept, it is an opportunity for people to bring their business problems to the group, and together, with the power of the “master mind”, the group tries to help solve each other’s problems.

Eager to start her own business, but stuck on a couple of key issues, one volunteer received extremely valuable suggestions from the group. When she left at the end of the evening, she had a plan for moving forward.

Finally, the evening ended with my presentation about “The 4 Things Your Business Needs In Order To Thrive”.

They had mentoring, peer support, important connections, and accountability

Mentoring is the first critical piece of the success puzzle. There is almost nothing new under the sun; most of the great ideas have already been thought up. And you don’t need to waste your time doing things that someone else can show you how to do in less than half the time.

Find yourself a mentor. Someone who has been there before. Trust me; all those successful people had mentors of one sort or another too.

Peer support. It’s very important not to be “the smartest person in the room” all the time. You need to find others who are further along than you are, and yet who are more than happy to share their best strategies and tips.

At the same time, you learn a lot when you have to explain something to someone else who isn’t as far along as you are.

This is the power of peer groups. Lift others while you climb…

Important connections. Never have a conversation with a potential business partner without asking, “Whom do you know who…?”

And always be thinking… “Whom do I know that might be able to help this person?”

As has been said, “Your network represents your net worth.” It’s a cliche, but it’s also true.

Accountability. You know what you are supposed to do. I know what I am supposed to do. But we don’t do it. Doesn’t that drive you crazy??

The reason we do that is because our brains are lazy. If there is an easy task on the list, that is the one we will always gravitate toward first. The more challenging tasks… get pushed off.

Weekly accountability usually prevents that from happening, because we are even more averse to admitting we are wrong than we are to doing hard tasks. Accountability is the fourth key component of a mastermind group.

These four components – mentoring, peer support, connections, and accountability – can literally mean the death or survival of your business. If you have them, you are MUCH more likely to survive. If you don’t….business failure is an possibility.

How do you find these success principals and apply them to your business? They all exist in a mastermind group!

The term, “mastermind”, was originally coined by Napoleon Hill, author of the book, Think and Grow Rich. The idea is to unite several minds together to solve a problem. Today, many local business people join referral networking groups, which is valuable. But a mastermind group goes beyond referrals and networking, and provides the other three components too.

If you would like to learn more about masterminds, or even if you just want to learn more about how to use Facebook organically (without ads!) or how to network more effectively, then I invite you to join me at our next Entrepreneur Night!

We’ll have all of these presentations within 2 hours, and you’ll leave feeling energized, excited, and ready to try new things with your business!

Click here to register, and please bring a friend!

Head down, one light left on in the house, darkness outside the windows. My husband kissed me goodnight a couple of hours ago.

Even the dog who always lies at my feet has gone upstairs to bed. “Et tu, Terra?”

This week, Neil Patel came out with a new book about hustling. I haven’t read it, and even though I love Neil, and learn a ton from him, I don’t plan to read it. I do enough hustling as it is.

I have been studying productivity for about 3 years now, as I am constantly trying to become more efficient with my time.

I even joined a group on FB specifically intended to help people “get s&$# done”. Eighteen months later, that group now has over 4000 people in it. Clearly I am not the only one looking to become more efficient.

Since May, I have been in a small online mastermind group where we meet virtually each week. We hold each other accountable for what we said we were going to do over the past week, and we help each other solve technical, logistical, and mindset challenges.

In this group I receive: accountability; mentoring; peer relationships; critical connections.

This group has been invaluable to me, because we all come from the same type of training (we were at a business-building retreat together earlier this year), and are all headed toward the same types of goals.

Yet I still find myself in that late night situation too often, alone in the dark, typing on my computer.

This is where I am being real with you.

I know a lot about marketing. I know a lot about writing. I know a lot about relationships, mindset, and productivity.

Yet many days I still have trouble putting it all together.

I am still up late at night, after already working for 10, 11 hours. Again.

I am still on too many email lists that distract me; I should unsubscribe.

I am still ignoring critical tasks in my business, because it is easier to do other tasks.

I still make stupid decisions that I know better not to make.

Having said all that though, I also know I have come a long way.

Just 3 years ago I was teaching. I loved the kids, and was passionate about teaching them the skills they need to know to be truly successful in this information age.

But there was a lot of other “stuff” to deal with as a teacher, and I got tired of it. I had also reached the pinnacle of my profession by achieving National Board Certification, as well as an additional tech-ed certification, and being published in peer-reviewed journals. I needed new challenges. And I craved more autonomy.

So I started my own business from scratch.

I took online marketing courses, attended a slew of marketing events to meet people and learn more in-depth strategies, studied for coaching certifications, and tried to get traction as a parenting and youth mindset coach.

Along the way, I received top-notch marketing training, worked with, and wrote for, some of the most successful online marketers in the world, and made tons of connections.

I won’t go into the details of how I got from there to here in just over a year. Maybe another time.

Suffice it to say, I have currently transitioned the majority of my biz focus from parent and youth coaching, to business and marketing coaching, training, products and services.

I now have tons of knowledge about marketing, and I have a number of high-level connections within the IM (internet marketing) world. And I am a pretty darn good writer.

I am also very excited because I have a pretty big goal for my business now: by using my own knowledge, connections, and teaching and writing skills, I will positively impact 1000 small business owners in New England over the next three years, through the power of local in-person mastermind groups.

I am starting the first couple of masterminds in Westford and Acton, and am looking forward to getting going in Lowell soon too.

If you are in the Boston area and want to be part of this mission, please let me know!!

So it is time to stop the late nights. To actually apply all I know about productivity, and get more sleep, more time to exercise, and more time to do personal things, like be with my family!

I KNOW what to do. I do it every day. And I am doing it more and more EFFICIENTLY every day.

You know what to do too. Are you ready to do it more efficiently?

I am a work in progress. I want to be partnered with others who are also enthusiastically a work in progress.

Is that you?

If you are a New England local business, please contact me at winningcontentstrategy AT gmail.com and we’ll get you started in a mastermind group.

Teach each other. Learn from each other. Bring me to your meetings, along with my 7-figure connections from around the world.

You’ll get accountability, peer support, mentoring, and worldwide connections.

Let’s do this. Together.

It’s late Saturday morning. You are new in town and are ready to go explore.

You step out your front door, a little uncertain in which direction you should go, when you notice the neighbors on either side of you are also out in their front yards.

One family is playing with their kids on the swingset, and the other is preparing a barbecue. They both come over to ask what you are up to today.

“I’d like to find a really good coffee shop nearby.”

“You should definitely check out the shop at the corner of Vine and Maple called Coffee Dreams. It’s great!”

“Yes,” replies the other neighbor. “That’s my favorite coffee shop! Make sure you try their pumpkin spiced latte. You’ve never tasted anything quite like it.”

You thank them for their friendly recommendations, hop in your car, and after a short drive, find a place to park, and walk in.

There is a funky blackboard behind the counter with colorful names of coffee varieties, some sandwich selections, and delicious-sounding pastries. The chairs and tables are each unique, and comfortable for small group conversation.

You like the way it feels here. You start to chat with the barista, who is really friendly and helpful. The shop owner introduces herself and offers some great information about the unusual coffee flavors she offers.

Being a real coffee aficionado, you inquire about the origin of the beans and the different ways of preparing coffee, and the owner enthusiastically engages you in conversation. She also encourages you to join her newsletter list, so you can get more information in the future.

You finally leave about 90 minutes later, telling yourself that you’ll definitely be back. This is a good place to hang out.

Same story – Online

Now imagine this same scenario, but instead of in your neighborhood, it’s online. You are interested in a particular topic, like coffee.

You notice that your social media friends have been talking about a specific coffee shop, so you check the reviews online, and discover that the place has raving fans.

When you do a search for coffee shops in your town, it shows up on page 1 of the results, so it’s easy to click on the link to get to the website.

When you get to the webpage, you discover that they not only list their menu items and hours, but they also have a blog with really fascinating information.

After reading for a while, you get to the bottom of the third blog article and notice that you can sign up for their monthly newsletter to keep up to date with all the latest happenings at the shop.

By this time you are hooked, so you are happy to give up your email address.

Then you head out the door to try it out for real!

The 3S Marketing System

In this situation, just like in the real life situation, you have a vital intersection of content marketing, keywords (SEO), and social recommendations (social media).

In fact, the synergy between these three is critical for both the consumer and the proprietor. This is why I call it the 3S Marketing System: SEO, Syndicated content, and Social media.

The consumer (prospect) needs the content in order to become more knowledgeable about the topic, and can only find their way there through a combination of recommendations and keyword searching. The content also helps the consumer feel comfortable with the proprietor, desiring to come back in the future.

The proprietor first needs to decide which keywords will be most obvious for the service offered, and which will likely be most effective at drawing in their perfect customer (avatar). Then she needs to create great free content that speaks directly to that prospect, and his interests.

When the prospect visits, he has a great experience, and it isn’t long before he, too, is telling all the neighbors about how much he loves Coffee Dreams!

Is it relevant?

It goes without saying, of course, that people who don’t like coffee won’t be attracted to a place like Coffee Dreams, either online or in real life. And that is perfect.

The owner of Coffee Dreams wants lots of coffee lovers to show up! But she doesn’t have time for people who aren’t interested in coffee. So she provides content on her site and in her store that is relevant only to coffee lovers.

What do these scenarios really mean for you and your business?

It means you have to leverage the power of combined SEO, content marketing, and social media to build your business.

The first first key to this formula is to fully understand relevance.

As anyone who has tried to work with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) knows, search engines are constantly evolving.

And although it may feel as if that evolution is intended to harm marketers and make their lives difficult, the truth of the matter is that it is intended to provide the user with a satisfying experience.

So don’t take it personally. It’s not about you; it’s about your prospect. As it should be for you too.

Instead of being upset about the constant rotation of Google’s “zoo” (Penguin, Panda, etc.), if you keep in mind the PURPOSE of your marketing, you will be just fine, no matter what the search engines do.

That purpose? To create a relationship with your prospect that brings them on a journey. The benefit to YOU, of course, is that during that journey, they go from prospect, to lead, to customer, to raving fan.

prospect awareness, content marketing,

What is the intent?

To determine how relevant your content is to your target audience, you really need to know the intent behind their search.

While you, as the content person (yes, you!) may be interested in choosing the right keywords for your meta description and to sprinkle throughout your text, your target audience simply wants an answer to a question.

First, we need a couple of definitions, because people often tend to mix these up:

Keyword: A term used to describe something (for the marketer)

Query: What a user types into a search engine to accomplish something or to get an answer (for the searcher)

So ask yourself these questions as you search for keywords:

If my audience member is typing in a query, what is their goal?

Are they looking for information?

Are they comparing different versions of the same thing?

Are they looking to buy something right now?

What keyword(s) can I choose that will be the end result of their query?

1 – Enter the funnel through SEO

Since most traffic comes from people who are looking for information, leverage that search to drop them into your marketing funnel.

Where do they end up? On your website! Reading your blog, watching your video, etc.

Ideally, you will have custom content, specific both to you/your company and to your audience.

Although some businesses use generic content (and this may be just fine for businesses like doctors and attorneys and chimney sweeps, that are built entirely on local traffic), in general, you want to use custom content.

Custom content – that is, content provided by you and your team, specifically for your audience – helps preserve your “voice” and attracts exactly the right type of person to your business.

Besides, you know your audience best, and you know your solution to their problem best. So you are the best person (or someone on your team who knows how to articulate your voice is best) to share how your solution solves your prospect’s problem.

So don’t skimp on this critical part of the 3S System. Custom content, produced on a regular basis (it’s important to the search engine spiders that you produce new content frequently), and distributed widely over a variety of platforms (syndicated) is a key element in the SEO algorithm.

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2 – Great content – syndicated

Of course, in addition to your content being custom-made for your audience, your content needs to be EXCELLENT to keep them there, and to get them to continue to engage with you.

And as we already stated, great content starts with its relevance to your audience. So you really, really need to know your avatar.

Once your audience knows that you exist, great content that meets their needs helps them begin to like you.

If they like you, they will keep coming back for more great content. Now they trust you!

Think about it: Do you trust someone you don’t know? Or someone you don’t like? Of course not!

Remember that trust means “absence of doubt”. Your prospect has to have no doubt that your intentions are to help them. If they think there is any chance of you not fulfilling your promises, that’s it; “gave over”.

So focus on this: RELATIONSHIP COMES BEFORE ROI.

Build that relationship with excellent custom content.

Brand recognition

So here is the process so far:

SEO brings traffic to your site → great content builds trust

SEO is the technical stuff. Content is all about building trust through relationships. You want to create brand recognition.

There is a LOT to creating brand recognition. For today, here are a couple of quick tips:

  • Know your avatar so well that you choose colors and symbols for your logo and other visuals that really resonate with them
  • Provide great value. Over and over and over. Exceed expectations.
  • Tell great stories about you and your company.
  • Tell great stories that highlight your customers.
  • Be everywhere. Syndicate your content so you are top of mind when your audience thinks of your topic.
  • Be all over the social media channels frequented most by your avatar. Again, become familiar through repetition.

3 – Social Media

And this leads us to the final corner of the 3S Marketing System triangle: social media.

96% of all web activity is now on social media. The search engines have recognized this, and now include many platforms in search results.

In fact, if you are not prolific on social media, you are probably not relevant. And remember what we said about how important relevance is!

Now we are ready for the final step in the process:

SEO brings traffic to your site → great content gets conversions to your list → social media presence

No matter how relevant your content is to your prospect’s search, and no matter how great the content is, the easiest way to convert your lead to a customer is through their friends’ recommendations.

This is why social media MUST be part of your marketing strategy.

Social media must be both engaging and inspiring: get your audience to think, to relate, to consider, to comment, to share.

When they share your content – short posts, images, videos, links to longer posts – they both feel like they are participating, and they are recommending you to their friends and followers.

Don’t you trust your neighbor’s recommendation for an auto mechanic more than you trust the mechanic’s marketing claims?

When you show up on social media, you are able to reach a whole new web of prospects, thanks to one person sharing to their friends, than one of them sharing to their friends, etc.

Social media is how you increase visibility and credibility. And, to bring it all full circle, the more people share your content, the more the search engines trust you.

So in the same way that you trusted your neighbors to find a coffee shop that is perfect for you, and once you were there, you fell in love with it, your prospects actually WANT to fall in love with a solution to their problem. They want to find you!

So through the power of the 3S Marketing System, make it as easy as possible for your perfect audience to find your perfect solution.

Great, relevant content, found through targeted SEO and a prolific social media presence.

Take care of these three corners of the triangle, and you have a solid presence online, that will help your business grow.

  • People trust their social friend’s recommendation more than a Marketer’s
  • Social media must be part of your marketing strategy
  • Get social media to do your marketing for you.
  • Create a graphic here
  • When on social media, you are able to reach a whole new web of prospects, based on one person who follows you. Friends, family, colleagues
  • Increase visibility and authenticity so both customers and search engines trust you

You need to have a relationship before you can count on ROI.


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“Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5x more traffic than companies that published between 0 – 4 monthly posts.” Hubspot research

Wow. Content makes a serious difference.

The thing is, you need to have a LOT of content. Check out this graph:

blog_monthly_traffic_cs

According to the statistics, it doesn’t matter if you are B2B or B2C. If you publish 11 or more blogposts a month, you get a LOT more traffic:

blog_monthly_traffic_b2b2c

Hubspot is showing that even small companies of fewer than 100 employees NEED to have at least 11 monthly blogposts. Because when you do that? You get a lot more traffic.

Traffic (usually) = leads.

And leads – that then convert into customers – are the seeds for a profitable business.

Here you can actually see the increased leads you get when you publish more blogposts:

blog_monthly_leads_cs

When they analyzed their own posts, Hubspot also found that 75% of their blog views and 90% of their blog leads came from old posts. And the more content you create, the more old posts are hanging around out there, generating traffic.

Have I convinced you yet?

Most businesses “know” they should be publishing regular content, especially blogposts. But to see it in cold hard numbers really drives the point home.

Well here is the cold hard truth: If you aren’t creating fresh content on your website on a consistent basis, you are leaving money on the table.

Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t do that to your business. And don’t do that to your family.

Is NOW the time you are ready to become a content-generating machine?

Do you need some help making that happen?

You don’t have to do it all alone. .

If you liked this post, join our 30 Days To a Flood of New Leads program! You will learn ALL you need to know to create engaging, valuable content, that inspires your prospects to take action!