It’s one of the most cost-effective marketing activities that a new company can invest in. However, many startups fail to see the value that can be gained by implementing content marketing measures to drive their financial success. Understandably, it can take a while for content marketing to grow into a sales funnel that drives endless leads, new customers and sales. But it is fair to say that when it does work, it works on autopilot.
One of the best examples of this on the web is MoneySavingExpert.com, which was started as a blog by Martin Lewis and designed for a humble fee of £100 in 2002. As he continued to publish money saving advice, he was able to grow the blog into a successful business that generated X and eventually saw him sell the website for £87 million
You can use similar growth hacking tactics that were applied by him in order to grow the value of your business. Here’s how.
Stick to one key value proposition.
This is the thing that will make everything else work. You must focus on pitching and delivering one key value proposition in your marketing messages that is going to your core audience. Your business needs to be disciplined and focus on one specific niche topic so that people know exactly what it is your business is offering and how the solution that’s available will help them solve their problems.
The content marketing plan that you develop will centre around the key value proposition that you plan to pitch. So it is essential that you get this right. Lewis was able to accomplish this by pitching “money saving tips’ that would allow people to have more ‘buying power’. People would then keep on going back to his content to find out more ways they could improve the buying power in their lives.
Build a valuable subscriber list.
It’s not just a numbers game, but it is the quality of the people that you have on your database. The more direct communication your business has with potential customers, the lower the marketing costs will be and the more likely the audience is to purchase the product or service that you are offering them.
You will need to work out what the average value per subscriber is based on the revenue history for your business. From there, you can forecast how many subscribers you need to build the customer value of your business. So if the average value of a new subscriber is 10 cents and you get 100,000 subscribers, you should be able to generate a revenue of $10,000 from your list.
Publish valuable content.
Value can be measured in a couple of ways. The first being how people receive your content and how they choose to engage with it. Do they share the content? Do the like or comment on it?
Secondly, the content can be attributed to the commercial value in the business. So your site’s content might provide comparison information between the major players in your market and then lead into a sales pitch that generates sales. You can then work backwards and see what is the value for each visitor that visits the piece of content and then implement marketing tactics to drive relevant visitors to the content.
The content can then be published on platforms that you own or external platforms where you wish to promote your content. You can click here to learn more about content marketing.
Be consistent.
Success may come quick for some, but it often takes time to build momentum that will allow your business to attract a large following. It’s important that content is published regularly so that it gives your audience something to look forward to. Don’t publish something purely for the sake of publishing and meeting a deadline or completing a task. Develop a content plan where you can release something of value in a timely manner. This may be daily, weekly or monthly.
YouTube vlogger Casey Neistat attributes much of his success to consistency and challenging himself to publish content daily. As a result, he was able to generate millions of followers to his YouTube channel, which in turn generated thousands of sign-ups to his app venture BEME, which was then sold to CNN for $25 million.
You can click this link to see more of what he says on YouTube.
Implementing these activities alone can double your business’s revenues over the next 12 months. It’s an opportunity cost that many businesses miss because they don’t prioritise the need for content marketing and its impact on long-term revenue and brand equity to the business. So if you aren’t using it, start looking into it so you can start reaping the rewards of content marketing in the next year.
