What the heck is content marketing and why should I care: the small business guide

Hey! If you’re reading this, you’re interested in content marketing, one of the biggest trends in recent marketing history. So give yourself a pat on the back. Yes, content is king.

Here are a few stats to support that statement:

Content marketing generates about three times the leads that traditional marketing does (including paid search marketing), at about 62% less cost
Small businesses with blogs (i.e. content marketing) get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that don’t.
Websites with blog content have 434% more search engined-indexed pages than those that don’t publish. You’ve heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Well, this is for that.
And more is better: businesses publishing 16+ posts a month get almost 3.5 times more traffic than businesses wtih zero to four.

Why does content marketing work so well? Because we live in a world where a couple of things are increasingly happening. First, we’re absolutely inundated with ads. Experts estimate that most people in this country see between 4,000 and 10,000 ads each day. The result of that deluge runs from mere ad blindness (“tuning” them out) to taking active steps to remove them; in 2018, one in four US internet users reported having an ad blocker installed. Second, we’re increasingly getting our news from the internet, and not always from legit sources. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2018 almost two-thirds of people got their news and information through social media.

Now, combine those two things together: people who don’t like ads plus people who consume online information voraciously. You can understand why content marketing works as well as it does, right? It breaks through the ad noise and gives people the information they want, when and where they want it.

Plus, when done well, content marketing costs very little to produce and continues to work hard for you long after you first put it out on the internet (and, in fact, often gains steam as people like and share it)—while traditional ads need a continuous supply of money to keep running.

But what, you ask, exactly IS content marketing?

In a nutshell, content marketing is any material you share with potential (and current) customers that gives them information they need or want…BUT ISN’T ABOUT A CALL TO ACTION OR ASKING FOR A SALE. Also called inbound marketing (as opposed to outbound) or pull marketing (as opposed to push), great content marketing makes your target audience’s life better, makes them think of you as an authority in your area of expertise, and builds their trust in you. This leads to them ultimately reaching out to buy your product or service. It’s also a great way to stay top-of-mind if you have a longer sell cycle. You’ll usually see content marketing in the form of:

Blogs
Vlogs (video blogs)
Listicles (you’ve seem ‘em: those “top six ways you can…” articles)
Photo galleries
Informational videos
Podcasts
Webinars
Speaking Engagements
Infographics

Basically, any format through which you can transmit valuable information can be used for content marketing. Heck, if you don’t have much time, try just sharing individual tips and tricks as separate posts on social media, like Facebook. Say you are a kids’ dentist. You could do a series of posts, each with a different tip for helping kids prepare for, and enjoy, their next dentist visit. By providing really helpful information to parents you build a rapport with them that will keep you in mind when they are looking for a new dentist for Junior.

Of course, careful readers will have noticed that I said, “when done well”. Here’s how to put together a good content marketing program:

Provide information that your target customers actually want or need, NOT what you care about. This is a mistake that even seasoned marketers can make if they are too “deep” into a subject. Do your best to put yourself in your customer’s mindset.
It’s good to include a little blurb about your company, but never do a hard “sell”. People are turned off by being sold to, and you’ll disengage your audience before you ever engage them.
Don’t bother with boring content. Your goal is to add value to potential customers’ lives, and in order to do that, you must provide interesting information. There is a LOT of crappy content out there, but remember, the ultimate dream goal of content marketing is to be shared organically by your followers because they think it’s so dang cool, or so helpful. Other than as an SEO boost, content marketing for content’s sake is a waste of money and time.
Promote your content to new audiences. Social media is a particularly good place to share your content through promoted posts. Don’t rely on people finding it on your website, because they won’t. There are also other content-sharing platforms like Outbrain, if you’re willing to spend a little more money.
If video is your content of choice, make sure you include a shortish description of what is in the video when you post it to your website. This will help you with your search engine optimization (Google doesn’t scan videos for search terms), and allow people with just a bit of time the chance to scan the content without committing to watching the full video. Read our rant on using too much video here.
Keep it short. People (myself included) have the attention span of gnats these days.

Now, to follow my own advice, it’s time to sign off. This thing has gotten long enough!

Happy small business marketing,

Katie & Theron

At Urban Sherpa Marketing Co. we offer marketing advisory, strategic planning, and services for small business and startups, including content marketing. Our goal is to make high-quality marketing possible for every business, no matter the size. Think of us as your outsourced marketing department, strategic marketing adviser, or even your phone-a-friend marketing lifeline. We specialize in building efficient marketing programs to grow your business without blowing the bank.

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Marketing not working? Six ways to troubleshoot

If you are a small business and you don’t feel like any of your marketing works… well, let’s just say you’re not alone. I hear this over and over, and often not just from small businesses. I’ve heard the infamous, “marketing doesn’t work for us” line from businesses ranging from one employee to fifty.

And the reality is that they aren’t wrong. But they also aren’t right.

Don’t worry, I haven’t lost it. The truth is that at the very most basic level, every marketing strategy has one goal: bringing in more business. And if someone’s marketing isn’t actually helping them bring in more business, then it’s not working. So, they are right: their marketing doesn’t work for them. Where they are wrong is assuming that all marketing will be equally dysfunctional. Marketing isn’t at fault here; bad marketing is.

Or, more accurately, misaligned or misdirected marketing is at fault. You can put together the most brilliant ad ever, but if it’s not speaking to the right people in the right places, it’s not worth a darn. BUT put together even a super ugly ad that yet does speak to the right people in the right places, and you might very well have success.

Which brings me to the subject of this guidepost. If your marketing isn’t working to bring in new business, what can you do? How do you fix it?

Start with your ideal customer and your promise to them. (Targeting!) If you haven’t already, do some serious thought on your target customer. If you have done so, but it’s been awhile, do it again because things may have changed. Think about what you have to offer to those people, especially the things that your competition doesn’t or can’t offer. Try to break out of your “we’ve always done it this way” habits, and take a good, hard look (sometimes getting an outside opinion is a big help). Be brutally honest with yourself, and really think about what you do offer and who would want it—instead of what you’d like to offer, and to whom you’d like to offer it. If, for instance, your price point has had to creep up in the last few years to cover costs, you may have moved into a new customer demographic, whether or not you are still emotionally invested in being the low-cost option for college kids.
Take a good look at your website. When was the last time you updated it? Does it look like 2005? Do you make it easy for people to contact you, submit a lead, or buy something? Is it easy for your customers to find the information they need when your advertising directs them to your site? Is your last blog post from two years ago? Do all your links work, especially those that are part of your lead funnel or sales generation funnel? (people—especially super busy business owners—often put up a site but rarely visit it themselves; it’s a good idea to go over your site every month or so to check for functionality). Do you have landing pages for your advertising that help connect your ad to your business? Trust us, a bad website (or a dated website, or an overly complex and confusing website) can be the kiss of death for a lot of businesses. And, much like my knees, they have a tendency to age and start to wreak havoc if you’re not on top of them.
What marketing initiatives are you doing, and why? Do you have a strategic reason for the advertising you’re running? Now that you’ve taken a fresh look at who your customer is, are you sure that you are targeting them where they will see the ad? A perfect example of this is a business that has “always” run newspaper ads, but now they find that they just aren’t working anymore. Perhaps their target customer no longer uses a print paper as their main source of news, and a switch to digital media may be in order. If you’re doing digital advertising, go in and check your audience targeting again. Sometimes, if it’s been a while and you’re still using old audiences, you may find you need to make some updates.
Does your advertising clearly state the benefit you’ll give your customer? Do you have a really compelling call to action (CTA)? Again, using the “people just don’t care” rule, try and look at your messaging and CTAs from the perspective of your customers. They may not care that you want them to buy from you, but they sure will care if you’re having a sale or can offer them something that will make their life better and easier.
Are your links live? Do your sign-up forms work? This may sound nit-picky, but links get broken and emails get sent to spam all the time. And nobody is going to work to try and figure out what you want them to read. You have to make it easy, or they’ll leave. Go through and check. Make sure your links are good, AND THEY GO WHERE YOU WANT THEM TO. I can’t tell you how many old digital campaigns I’ve seen that go to broken links.
Have you waited long enough? Depending on the type of advertising you do, and the type of business you have, some marketing strategies can take months (and even more) to bear fruit. We have a client that got a lead from a person who had picked up a brochure for his services at a conference almost two years before.

It’s also helpful to think about troubleshooting dysfunctional marketing programs as a bit like testing plumbing to see where the leak is. Look at the performance of your ads. Are they working? Do people click on them, or open your emails? If not, your problem is with your outbound messaging and/or your ad targeting. If, on the other hand, you’re getting a ton of web traffic but no sales or leads, then you can be pretty sure that your problem is something to do with your website—either your website messaging is off, your website isn’t helping customers get the information they need, or it isn’t prompting them effectively to contact you (or buy).

Of course, there are other factors; we’re assuming your pricing is right for your market and people actually want your product… but that’s the subject of a whole ‘nother blog.

Happy small business marketing,

Katie & Theron

At Urban Sherpa Marketing Co. we offer marketing advisory, strategic planning, and services for small businesses and startups. Our goal is to make high-quality marketing possible for every business, no matter the size. Think of us as your outsourced marketing department, strategic marketing adviser, or even your phone-a-friend marketing lifeline. We specialize in building efficient marketing programs to grow your business without blowing the bank.

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Don’t make me watch your stupid marketing video

Marketing video fail: a few weeks ago, my mortgage company sent me an email regarding their annual audit of my escrow account. In the past, they’ve sent me a letter describing the change and letting me know when my payment will adjust. I read the letter, absorb the information, and I’m on to other things in under 10 seconds. Sounds good, right? No need to mess with that formula.

This year, it appears the marketing department at my mortgage company was given a little too much leeway. Instead of a concise note, they sent me an email with a link to… A VIDEO!! A customized, three-and-a-half minute long video, no less, with my name and everything. It walked me through what an escrow account was, told me why it fluctuates and gave me a whole bunch of other information that I really didn’t need.

It totally pissed me off.

Blogs extolling the great marketing power of video are all over the interwebs, and the conventional wisdom would have us all believe that video is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I disagree completely. Sure, it has its place, and there are things you can do with video that simply don’t translate into a written post (explainer videos are a great example of this). Videos are also really good for social media campaigns. But video is not a universal cure-all solution.

Here are my main issues with the widespread use of video:

Time: In my mortgage example, I used to be able to consume everything I needed to know quickly when it was sent by mail. With the “new and improved” video delivery system, they just took 3 ½ minutes of my life to tell me what used to take 10 seconds.
Expense: No matter how low budget you go, producing video costs more and takes longer than writing a simple email or blog. Sure, you can take super low budget selfie videos with your phone, and they’re great for some things. But full production video is costly and time-consuming.
Combining the Time and Expense issue: to really make a long term impact with video, it takes consistency and quantity. Ever been to a YouTube channel with 2 videos that were produced 12 months ago? Unless you can build something that looks credible and has some depth it’s actually worse to produce a couple of videos than to have none at all.
Often, there’s no option for those who’d prefer not to wade through the whole video. If you absolutely insist on using video, it would be in your best interest to also include a transcript or blog version for those who just want to read through quickly and move on with the rest of their lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate video in general. I have to admit a certain fondness for a YouTube channel where the host blows things up. It would be impossible to do justice to a slow-motion replay of a watermelon being vaporized in a blog post. But when I visit that channel I’m ready to spend the time that it will take to properly consume that content. I’m definitely not ready to spend 3 ½ minutes of my life thinking about an increase in my mortgage payment. And a lot of marketing falls into the latter category.

So, here are a few questions to ask yourself when you’re trying to decide whether a marketing video is right for your project:

Do you really need a video to get your message across, or would a simple email or blog post work just as well? For instance, if you’re trying to explain a complex subject, you may want a good explainer video—but a simple service business (like ours, for instance), really has no need for one. Pro tip: if you find yourself having trouble thinking of the content for the video, it may be the wrong format for you. If you’re unsure, I’d recommend trying to put together an email (or blog post, or whatever) first- you’ll save yourself time and money.
Who is your target audience? Are they of the Youtube/SnapChat generation, or more likely to want to read a letter? If they are analog book readers still, trust us, they don’t want your video.
Where will they be when they get your communication? Are they probably going to be sitting in an open office space (hint: not a good time to watch a video), or will they be they surfing Facebook at home in the bathtub (probably a better time)? In fact, a video is a really excellent choice if your messaging is appearing on Facebook since the platform is optimized for video.
How much time does your audience have? Are they super busy professionals with an inbox stacked 40 deep (again, no time to watch a video—a written communication is easier to scan quickly), or do they have a little more time on their hands?
What is your budget? Is a video really the best place to blow your money, or could you put those funds to better use?

In other words, keep your audience in the front of your mind, try and meet their needs (not yours), and remember they simply don’t care. Essentially our basic marketing premises, right?

Oh, and buck the trends to do what’s right for your customers. You know, those good business practices.

Happy small business marketing,

Theron, and Katie

At Urban Sherpa Marketing Co. we offer marketing advisory, strategic planning, and services for small businesses and startups. Our goal is to make high-quality marketing possible for every business, no matter the size. Think of us as your outsourced marketing department, strategic marketing adviser, or even your phone-a-friend marketing lifeline. We specialize in building efficient marketing programs to grow your business without blowing the bank.

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Business marketing: three three reasons why you should stop looking at your competition

Between the two of us, Theron and I have about 40 years of business marketing experience. And I’m willing to bet that the one thing we’ve heard the most in all those years is, “We should be doing [some idea] because our competitor is doing it”.

These things that the competition are doing range from great ideas to really terrible ideas. But they all have one thing in common: the sense of gut-wrenching urgency from the requester.

We have to do this thing, now, because, otherwise, the Other Guy will get ahead.

Hey, I get it. We’re all competitive. Heck, I’ve been self-banned for life from playing board games because I’m just a wee bit too competitive for it to be fun for me or the people I’m playing with. And there’s something about seeing your chief competitor step out with a new marketing campaign that gets right to the core of that competitiveness—and our insecurities.

That said, let me be the person to tell you, right now, that as a small business owner you really need to filter out whatever marketing your competitors are doing and just do you. Oh yes, I said that.

Here’s why:

First, except in rare cases, you actually don’t know if the marketing your competitor is doing is actually working to pull in customers. They may be just hemorrhaging money right and left without seeing any results. Unless you have it on really good authority that their marketing effort is actually working (and by “good authority” I mean actual performance metrics rather than hearsay) why would you copy it?
Second, in small business marketing, the best way to NOT stand out is to blend into the crowd. You see it happen all the time: one business in an industry puts an ad somewhere, and then suddenly that platform is packed with ads from their competitors. The problem with this is that now you have to compete with them to get your customers’ attention. People don’t flip through a publication carefully looking at each ad and reviewing the merits of each company. They just don’t care that much. What you really want is to get your ad in front of them someplace where you’re the only business in your industry. In a flock of sheep, be the llama in the next field.
Finally, focusing on your competition wastes your time and keeps you from putting good, creative thought into your own marketing strategy. It pretty much guarantees you’re never going to do something truly innovative that gives you a market edge. Think about Apple and the packaging of the first iPhone. If they had been spending all their time watching their competition and copying what they did, would they have revolutionized package design as brilliantly as they did? Absolutely not.

Now, don’t for a second think I’m saying you should pay no attention to your competition at all. Heck no. One of the most important first steps for any new business or startup is a thorough competitive analysis (which should be periodically refreshed). This is not, however, so you can imitate their marketing plans, but because you absolutely need to be able to answer what makes you different from your chief competitors. Why should people buy from you, not them? How will you succinctly explain to people what sets you apart and makes you awesome?

Don’t be a sheep. Have faith in yourself and your own abilities, and kick butt forging your own trail. History is never made by the followers.

Happy small business marketing,

Katie & Theron

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What you think is marketing isn’t really marketing (and what that means to you)

A week or so ago, we were chatting about the importance of marketing with a business owner, and it became apparent that sometimes the idea of “Marketing” with a capital “M” seems a bit daunting—and even perhaps irrelevant—when you’re dealing with the day-in, day-out challenges of keeping your business running profitably. And sometimes the basic underlying purpose of marketing gets lost in the translation, when agencies and so-called experts start to pontificate on the importance of “building your brand”, “developing your voice”, “identifying your target audience”, or any of a million other mystifying technical terms that are often, frankly designed to scare you into opening your wallet.

It brought to mind something I hadn’t thought about in years. Back in the early 90’s, I lived in Southern California and was trying my best to make it in the music industry. I had a day job in marketing (and since I’m writing this blog, you know which one of those paid off…)

Bear with me, I promise there’s a point coming.

Some of my musician friends hung out in Newport Beach, and they turned me on to what is likely the coolest restaurant I’ve ever visited. The chef was absolutely amazing; in fact, to this day, I haven’t had a better steak anywhere in the world. It was dark with a funky, cool vibe, located on a side street somewhere north of Pacific Coast Highway, definitely not on the beaten track, and I couldn’t find it again if my life depended on it.

You see, this restaurant had no name and no sign indicating it was even there. If you didn’t know someone who was wise to its existence, you weren’t getting in. Looking back, it was a perfect example of the most powerful type of marketing in action: word of mouth.

On the flipside, it was never full. You certainly never had to wait to get in.

If they’d wanted their business to thrive and grow, what they needed wasn’t some fancy marketing plan. They already had a brand, whether they knew it or not (it was, “amazing, world-class food in a hip atmosphere served by cool people”). They didn’t need to “establish their voice” or “develop a brand standards manual”. They didn’t need a promotional strategy and long-range marketing plan. They needed MORE CUSTOMERS.

And that’s the main purpose of marketing for small businesses. Driving more customers. Bringing in incremental revenue. Growing the business.

Many agencies will tell you how many awards they’ve won, and point to their clever ads. But in our opinion, they’re completely missing the point. If your marketing efforts aren’t driving more business, then they’re not the right efforts. Period.

All marketing needs to start with a solid idea of what the results need to look like for it to make sense in the first place. We’ve seen a lot of proposals that sound really cool, but just don’t make sense when you try to attach some reasonable set of expectations around results. “Reach thousands of people on our network – TV advertising is the answer!” “Buy an ad in our paper!” “Billboards are the way to go!”

Maybe they’re good ideas and will drive business, but we’ve learned to approach ideas that smell of marketing hype with a healthy dose of skepticism. If it’s not readily apparent what the end result of investing your hard-earned dollars and time will be, then we suggest asking questions until it looks like you can reasonably expect that cool idea to have a proportionate and highly positive impact on your business.

So if you’ve been putting Marketing on the back burner or ignoring it altogether because it seems irrelevant or too esoteric, we’d encourage you to take a minute and think differently. Just remember a few things:

“Marketing” is really just an umbrella phrase for any activities that attract customers to your business and help it grow. And you’re probably already doing it, when you talk to people at a meet-and-greet, by the fact that you have a website (or even a sign outside your business), or if ask people for reviews. And if you’re already doing it, shouldn’t you take the time to do it right?
“Marketing” (maybe we should call it “driving business”) doesn’t have to be complicated, or mysterious, or part of a massive complex strategy. In fact, for many small businesses, marketing can be as simple as adding one new way to reach new customers.
Don’t be distracted by shiny objects. Focus on small, incremental steps (ideally that you can test) to attract new customers.

After all, unless you’re an awesome restaurant with amazing food and incredible word of mouth, you actually do need this thing-formerly-called-marketing. Even then you probably need it if you want to be around in 5, 10, 20 years or so.

Happy small business marketing (or whatever you want to call it),

Theron & Katie

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