057: Content Marketing Strategies That Work in 2021

Kate Kordsmeier 0:00

Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're back with the Success with Soul podcast. I'm your host, Kate Kordsmeier. And today we are talking about by far my favorite topic content marketing. Now, a lot of y'all know me from my blog root and revel and my courses, 21 days to impact and the six figure blogger Academy, which of course teach you how to set up a blog and then grow, monetize and make money blogging. So you might be thinking that content marketing is different than blogging. But actually, blogging is just one form of content marketing. Another form is podcasting. What you're listening to right now, this is content marketing. If you watch YouTube videos, those could also be considered content marketing. There's lots of examples here. And what I am trying to get people to see, you know, I've been talking about this paradigm shift for a while all websites or blogs, all businesses need one, you've heard me say it again, and again, probably by now you're sick of hearing it, but it's true. And that is what this episode is dedicated to today, it's talking about content marketing, not specifically blogging, but blogging as part of it. Like I said, it's gonna put a different spin on things, though, I think it will be really interesting for y'all. And for anybody who feels like they have to spend money on paid ads in order to get leads into their funnels or traffic to their website, or to sell whatever it is you're selling, whether it's a service or a product, or a digital course, or a program or membership, whatever. A lot of times, we're told you have to spend money to make money and so you've got to pad Mark Zuckerberg his wallet a little bit more, right. Fortunately, there is another way and I have nothing against ads, if that feels aligned for you. But I do have something against putting all of your eggs in one basket. That's why I think if you are interested in growing your traffic and leads organically and thus your revenue organically, meaning no paid ads, and no time spent on what I consider to be very toxic social media. Content Marketing is the best way to do that. So I won't give too much away. Now we're about to get into the episode and all the nitty gritty details. But if you like what you hear, and you're interested in learning more about how you can use content marketing in your business, I want to invite you to apply to the Success with Soul incubator, you can go to KateKordsmeier com/apply. So content marketing is one part of my four part framework for Success with Soul. When you apply, you'll learn my entire four part framework because you'll be invited to a private advanced level training where you'll learn exactly how to scale to 50k a month on autopilot without live launching paid ads, social media or selling your soul. So the application only takes five minutes there's no obligation to enroll. So go ahead and check out successwithsoul.co/apply to get started today. Alright, without further ado, let's get into today's episode. You're listening to the Success with Soul podcast with Kate Kordsmeier x journalists turned CEO of a multi six figure blog in online business. But it wasn't that long ago that Kate was a struggling entrepreneur who lacked confidence, clarity, and let's be honest money. But all those failures, experiments and lessons learned helped Kate create a thriving business that impacts 1000s and brings freedom, flexibility and fulfillment to her life. If you're ready to do the same and make something happen with holistic, soulful, step by step strategies from Kate and other experts, you're in the right place. here's your host, writer, educator, Mom, recovering perfectionist, bookworm, and sushi connoisseur, Kate Kordsmeier.

All right, yay. I'm excited to go over content marketing today. So I know for you this will be some repeat of some stuff that you already know as a blogger. But I think there will be some new stuff and kind of a some mindset shifts into how to approach your blog from this perspective, rather than from traditional blogging perspective. So there we go. Alright, so what is content marketing. So content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience, and the objective being to drive profitable customer action. So in layman's terms, we're talking about free valuable content to attract your ideal customer and sell them your stuff. So I think this is a little bit different than how we've thought of blogging, for example, in the past, because in, in traditional blogging, you're not necessarily trying to sell them anything. A lot of times you're making money from ads and from sponsors and things like that. So this is a little bit of a different model or mindset to be in, although the actual content itself is maybe not that different than what you're used to. If you have the doing traditional blogging in the past. So the key here is to be of service to provide actual value to be helpful and answer questions. And the goal is potential clients will find your content, they'll find value in it. And they'll convince themselves that they want to work with you, before you even have to go into any like high pressure sales tactics or do anything like that, because they've already found so much value and know like and trust with you in your free content. So content marketing is also the fastest way to show up in Google search results, which will bring more people to your website, which will increase your visibility, which will increase your income. So it's definitely this domino effect that happens. And if you are wanting to have a steady stream of new leads coming into your world every single day without having to spend money on paid ads, and without having to spend a lot of time on social media, content marketing is going to be your best friend. So there's lots of different types of content marketing, but for simplicity's sake, I'm going to talk about kind of the top five and then moving forward, we'll kind of just look at the top three. So blogging obviously is a form of content marketing, podcasts, another great form of content marketing, YouTube, or vlogs. Having a book is a great form of content marketing, or doing like public speaking, whether it's on an actual stage or speaking at like a virtual conference, or some kind of a summit or something like that. Again, just thinking about like, anytime you're providing value for free, and the goal is sort of to attract new people into your world. So again, for simplicity's sake, we're just going to focus on blogging, podcasting, and videos. And to go even there, I'm just going to say it's your website. And what I mean is that your website is where you're going to do your content marketing. It's where either your blog posts will be published, or the show notes to your podcast will live with a potential podcast player, or your videos will even be hosted on your website. Even if you are like you have a YouTube channel, you're going to embed that YouTube video onto your blog itself onto your website. So that the video then also lives on your actual website. And this content, whether it's a traditional like written blog post, or podcast, show notes or video, it's going to take the form of a blog post, even if it's not exactly a blog post, like in the traditional sense. So what I mean by that is like it used to be that a blog was really just like an online diary. It was a place where someone would go share about their day, what's on their mind, etc. It was kind of like this glorified MySpace or Facebook, you know, whatever even Instagram today is, a lot of people mistakenly think of Instagram as a blog. But today, I think that blogging really is where you're providing value and service to readers with helpful information that solves a problem and gives them actionable, tangible advice. So I think unlike traditional blogging, the goal of content marketing is to create content that will get your people into the mindset they need to be in in order to buy your products. So the big like paradigm shift that I'm really trying to get people to realize is that even if like you don't have any desire to become an influencer, or you know, maybe that word even makes you cringe. The difference is that all websites are blogs, and really all businesses need one. So if you have free content on your website, it is a blog. And you don't have to be an influencer to use blogging as a way to grow your audience and revenue for free. Because blogging itself, producing free content in the form of a blog post will bring more people to your website, increase your visibility, which will help you sell more products or courses or programs or coaching sessions or even like brick and mortar businesses can find new clients this way. So moving forward, I'm going to refer to all content marketing as your blog. Just with that caveat of knowing like I don't necessarily mean you have to be doing a written blog post as your form of content marketing. So for context to and because there's obviously a replay of this, many of you watching may even know me from my blog, which was Root + Revel, or my course the six figure blog Academy, which teaches people how to monetize their blog itself. But the difference between six FBA and monetizing your blog and what I'm teaching here is that we're not so much focused on monetizing the platform itself, which is typically done with like ads and sponsors, like I mentioned, but rather, we're using the platform to attract More of our ideal customers so that we have that steady stream of leads coming in. No ad spend required, really no time on social media required but even if you want to minimal, and so it's kind of that different.

Attention ambitious, heart centered female business owners ready to say goodbye to the hustle stressful live launches and feeling like you have to choose your business or your family. If you're ready to create more time and income with a business that serves your bank account, and your soul, then I have a special invitation just for you. The Success with Soul incubator is a one stop shop for building a sustainable business and life. Instead of buying a dozen different courses on business strategy, feminine energy blogging funnels, email marketing, affiliates, team building, and more. The incubator includes everything you need to build a wildly lucrative business, all in one spot, while intentionally serving your spirit. This is a course meets mastermind meets group coaching program designed specifically for intermediate entrepreneurs who have had some success in their business and are ready to take it to the next level. If that sounds like you, and you're interested in learning more, head over to successwithsoul.co/ apply. It's easy and there's no obligation to enroll after you apply. Plus, if you're accepted, you'll get access to a private invite only advanced level workshop where you'll learn exactly how to scale to 50k months on autopilot without live launching paid ads, social media or selling your soul. The application only takes five minutes and there is no obligation to enroll. Once your application is accepted, you'll learn my exact four part framework to grow your traffic organically scale your passive income with evergreen funnels, and do it all without burning out. I'll explain everything you need to know about the incubator program. So come on over and apply now. Again, that's successwithsoul.co/apply.

So I think that really the difference between being a blogger and being a content marketer is intention. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And how we can use content marketing to grow our audience, our email list and our customer base for free. And when I say free, I mean that there's two different types of traffic, there's paid traffic, and there's organic traffic. And with paid traffic, that's anytime a customer visits your website after you have paid for advertising promos like Facebook ads, or Google ads or whatever. So you paid to get them to your website. Versus organic traffic is going to come from people finding your website, typically among search engine results like Google or Pinterest. So social media can fall into either category, depending on whether or not you like boosted a post or paid for the ad spot. But it is a form of traffic that takes a lot of daily time and energy. And something that's something that most working women and moms just don't have a lot of, I prefer not to spend a lot of time and where you have every day you have to continue showing up. Whereas content marketing, your posts can live on forever. And actually, some can sometimes benefit, the longer it's been alive. So a lot of people kind of tout the solution to getting customers like growing your email list and increasing your followers as paid traffic. Because you can just turn on ads, it takes so little time and you can hire somebody to do it for you. And when it's done well there's a direct return on your investment. So a lot of people would say like, why even spend hours every week creating free content when you could just pay for some ads and make money that way? And I'm not anti ad. I think it's a great compliment. But I think there are some key reasons why that should not be your one and only strategy. And so I want to talk about some of the reasons why I think you should prioritize content marketing over just doing paid ads. The first is ads are not reliable. So algorithms change. Facebook could go under iOS changes their cookie terms, all of these things are things that are happening right now in real time. And if you put all of your eggs in one basket, what happens when that basket disappears? And it's kind of the same reason that we're like, don't build your blog on Instagram because you don't own Instagram, right? So it's making sure that you have a diverse stream of ways that people can get into your audience and end up buying your products. And it is a much more steady and reliable way to do content marketing than to rely solely on something that changes all the time and even like we've been doing Facebook ads for evergreen funnels for you know, a year now and every month is different. And it's not something where it's just like you set it up and you get it working and then it just Works forever, like things change, you run out of audiences, you have to change, like, it's very complicated. And it is very expensive. And like I said, When done right, there's a good return. But it's not always so simple to have it done right. So ads are not as reliable number to know like and trust. So ads, again, can be a great complement to organic traffic. But if you don't have free content, whether on your site or through your email list, even, it's going to be incredibly difficult to nurture your leads, and help them get to know like and trust you, and ultimately buy from you. Because usually with an ad, you're taking them to one thing, and then that one thing is sometimes not going to be enough for them to go, Okay, I fully understand who this person is and what they're about. And I'm ready to entrust my money and time with them. Whereas if you have free content that they're coming to every week, you know, think about something like a podcast where after you listen to a few episodes, like you've just spent maybe five hours with somebody and you're hearing their voice, and you're in kind of an intimate setting with them, even though you're not actually speaking to them, but you're listening to them while you're in your own home or taking a shower or doing the dishes or something that is a little bit more intimate. So that know like and trust factor happens much quicker. And it's just all content marketing in general is a great way to build that for free. Again, similar to ads not being reliable, you also own your content on your site. So if you only rely on ads or social media, and you don't have free content on your own site, whether it's written audio or video, you don't own it. And if those things ever change, or you get hacked or something happens, you're screwed. So making sure that you're prioritizing content marketing on something you own is very important. Also, there's so much repurposing potential when you're doing content marketing. So content marketing is going to provide that additional content that you might need for social media. And it's going to contribute to your SEO efforts at the same time. So for instance, you could write a blog post, and then that blog post could become a podcast episode, you could record a video of you doing the podcast episode and put it up on YouTube. So right there, you've really just had like one form of content marketing that's now taken on three different forms and has three different ways to attract people to it, you're going to promote it on social media, you can use the content to promote to your email list. So there's a lot of repurposing potential and a great way to kind of get more with doing less. And then number five is organic traffic. And this is probably the best one of all, because if you think of your website homepage, like a billboard that represents your business or your brand, that's great. But nobody is going to see your billboard if there is no traffic coming, driving by right. So you could have the prettiest, funniest most compelling website out there. But if nobody sees it, then what is the point. So that's where content marketing comes in. And creating content online is the fastest way to show up in Google search results. And then bonus, like I mentioned at the top, you can also then monetize the platform itself. So you have this content marketing that you're using more so to drive people to your own products and services. But while you're doing that, you might as well do something like affiliate marketing, or ads or sponsors, or some of the myriad other ways that you can monetize a blog, like I teach in six FBA and a couple of lessons that crossover in to the incubator as well. Alright, so that is kind of the beauty of content marketing. And the final thing I want to talk about was this article that I read from Forbes. And it talks about the four steps of the buying cycle. And I thought this was like exactly the point of content marketing. So the first step of the buying cycle is awareness. And prior to awareness, a customer may have a need, but they're not aware that there is a solution, or they're not aware that you are the solution to their problem. So what does somebody do who has a problem and is looking for a solution, they're going to research it and once the customer becomes aware that there's a solution, they're going to start doing the research to educate themselves. So like a car buyer is going to start looking at what different types of cars exists, which

one is going to fit their needs, etc. And then at this point, we move into the consideration step, which is where the customer is going to start comparing different products from different vendors to make sure that they're going to get a high quality product at a fair price. And then finally, they're going to buy so the customer is going to make their decision move forward with the transaction. And I thought the way that Forbes said this was really smart because they said traditional advertising and marketing As great when it comes to the second two steps, so you take them right to consideration and buying and traditional advertising and marketing. But content marketing is going to tap the first two stages of the buying process, because you're going to be raising awareness of solutions and educating customers that they may have never even considered before. So you're able to hit them in those spaces earlier on, which then is going to increase your chances that when they get to the consideration, and then ultimately the buying phase, that they're going to go with you. And the last thing I want to talk about is the fact that blogging is not dead. And particularly when we look at it from this content marketing lens, so there's a couple stats that I wanted to share here, that just kind of prove this point and drive it home. So b2b marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads than those that don't, which is huge. marketers who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to have a positive ROI. And 57% of marketers say they've gained customers specifically through blogging. So another one that's kind of similar to that first one is small businesses that blog see 126% more lead growth in businesses that don't. And likewise, if you're thinking like, Yeah, but I don't read blogs anymore, is anybody even actually reading these 77% of internet users read blogs and us bloggers are projected to have a readership of 31 point 7 million by 2020, which obviously, we're now in 2021. So it's even more than that. And internet users spend three times more time on blogs than they do on email, which is crazy to me, because I think we're all constantly on email. And people are actually spending more time on blogs than they are an email. And ultimately, people really trust the information and advice that they read on blogs. So you're able again, to use your content marketing your blog as a way to build that know, like and trust factor with your potential customers.

All right, so there you have it. The very best way to grow your audience organically with no paid ads and no social media required. So once again, this is exactly what I teach inside my Success with Soul incubator program. Content Marketing is one part of my four part framework and if you want to learn the entire framework, so that you can build genuine expertise, authority and trust with your audience, all while expanding your sphere of influence and your income than the incubator is for you. To learn more head to successwithsoul.co/apply. And once you apply for your spot inside the incubator, you'll get access to our exclusive private workshop for accepted applicants only. It's private invite only advanced level workshop about how to set up continuous financial abundance using Success with Soul principles. You'll learn my exact four part framework to grow your traffic organically scale your passive income with evergreen funnels, and do it all without burning out or selling your soul. I'll explain everything you need to know about the incubator program to ensure we can truly help you get those results that you crave. Remember, enrollment to the incubator is not required. The application only takes five minutes or less to fill out. So go to successwithsoul.co/apply to get started today. Wait a minute, I know I know you're eager to get back to your life. But before you turn off this episode, I want to share something super quick with you. I know you're probably sick of hearing other podcasters ask you to leave reviews. But here's the deal. If you like a podcast, and you want them to be able to continue delivering you free episodes every week, we need your support. If you subscribe on the apple podcast, Google podcast, app, Spotify, or wherever you listen, it makes it possible for me to continue to provide free helpful content and bring you amazing guests. And if you take it one step further by giving us a rating and review with your honest feedback, we can improve better serve you in the future. And you could even be featured on a future episode during our listener spotlights. Because if we don't get the reviews, we don't get the rankings and it makes it a lot harder to continue justifying the cost and time expense of producing a podcast every week and convincing amazing guests to come on the show. And of course your reviews are super helpful and motivating to me personally and I love hearing from you

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