Become an expert content creator
All businesspeople know how difficult it is to create new great things, the ones that become the best hits. However, imagine not needing an original product at first. Wouldnt it be easier?
In fact, you can relax: at the beginning, you dont have to be unique. You have time to find your audiences and convince them to choose your product.
As far as the creation of content goes, you dont need to advance your product. In fact, you need to understand the customers desires instead. In turn, it will allow you to determine how and where to earn money from your content better.
Content marketing can attract an audience much more effectively than traditional advertising.
Got a product youd like to present to everyone? Well, you need to draw the attention of your customers. In this case, people usually use ads for marketing; however, there are tons of commercials and other ads nowadays. Therefore, it is difficult to be unique and original.
Adverts were much more efficient before. So how do you make your product stand out?
Creative content works better than ads in attracting modern consumers.
There is a global non-profit organization called the Content Council. They mainly deal with content marketing, and the research theyve conducted states that 61 percent of buyers would rather purchase the products of the company that creates unique content for particular audiences.
Content+, the marketing hub provides the necessary data as proof. Its studies show that 70 percent of buyers would rather learn about a company via articles and content instead of ads.
Advertising being replaced by creative content is an important change in marketing practices and a positive shift for start-ups and small businesses.
Before, reaching a multimillion audience meant expensive advertising campaigns. Now though, there are many technologies and platforms available for everyone who wants to have the appropriate content to form a big and faithful customer base.
It also allows you to gain an advantage because of a clearer idea about the needs of consumers.
In contrast to conventional advertising, creative content provides essential information concerning potential customers interest right away. Follow their reactions and responses to your content through, for example, comments and frequency of sharing.
Its possible to do so even at the stage of production. Developing content and following the customers interests allows you to concentrate on that. Thus, you will surely succeed with your product.
Once you discover your sweet spot, you can find your target audience.
Before creating and using content, you have to determine its topic.
At first, you need to figure out what you are particularly great at or informed about and what you love.
Finding your passion is crucial. When creating a start-up, prepare to deal with it for a long time, which is way more difficult if you are not passionate about it.
So, put together two lists: what you know and what you can do. Then, determine what your passion is and what motivates you, whether its painting or walking dogs.
For example, businessman Andy Schneider is passionate about teaching and his special ability is raising chickens. After a while, Andy became aware of others having an interest in raising chickens. In fact, they often consulted him regarding that.
Thus, Schneider had a chance to realize his passion for teaching by having meetings regarding raising chickens in your backyard in Atlanta. Half a decade later, hes got his own radio show in addition to a book and a magazine. Now, Schneider helps others holding workshops across the U.S.
He managed to combine his knowledge and his passion, though they were two different things: raising chickens and teaching. Moreover, Andy had his audience.
Its an integral part of starting a business, finding those who would be interested. If you want your content to be relevant, you need to identify your target audience.
At the beginning, it would be more prudent to choose a certain audience and think about the others afterward.
Instead of addressing farmers or students, Andy Schneider made a smart decision to target householders keen on raising chickens on their own. Thus, he became known as the chicken whisperer.
With unique and focused content, you can stand out and position yourself as an expert.
When you find that perfect combination, which is your business niche, you only need to do one thing before launching content production.
Your content tilt is the first thing to worry about. It distinguishes your content among those that already exist and, preferably, makes it original, relevant, and catchy.
You can achieve it in different ways. For example, if you want to work in the home-office decoration business. To determine an appropriate content tilt, you might go through social media platforms to find out your target audiences interest and to determine a novel angle to propose.
There are more straightforward methods: online surveys or interviews.
Having determined your content tilt and presented your product, get ready to work.
While your original content attracts an audience who shares your interest, your expertise has to turn you into a valuable advisor, expand your audience, and improve your status.
There are three things that would help you to achieve that goal: you need to concentrate on your niche, emphasize your expertise, and inform people about what to expect.
A type of a mission statement or some piece of writing to share with your audience is the last important thing.
Take for instance the founder of the Digital Photography School, Darren Rowse. Hes got an understandable mission statement on his website along with the pieces of advice for beginners in photography regarding using cameras to their fullest.
Rowses content was popular among a number of Internet surfers, who revisited his website again and again. Thus, he ended up being an invaluable source for his target audience interested in digital photography.
Use the right platform to reach your audience, and hold on to them by using a content calendar.
Proper content to customers is like a bright light to moths; however, you need a suitable platform to ensure that your audience finds your content.
Such platform needs to be a channel that is specifically adapted to your target audience, which means it facilitates the process of connecting to your content for them.
Well then, do you opt for a blog or is another channel the right one for your audience? Perhaps, it is a podcast or a YouTube channel? Or rather, its a magazine or a WordPress website, isnt it? Thats what you should figure out for yourself.
For example, for Matthew Patrick, YouTube was the right platform for his audience, which made him a popular online celebrity with a series called Game Theory. Would you believe that he was an unknown actor looking for a job and having a background in neuroscience before that?
Patricks perfect combination included acting, science, and a passion for gaming. Therefore, he chose to create video series on YouTube to show the entertainment industry that he was perfectly capable of getting an audience on his own. Obviously, he succeeded: young gamers became his faithful fans.
After finding proper platforms, create a content calendar to maintain your channels activity.
Sometimes, its just too much when you try to sustain your audiences interest, but with the help of a content calendar, you manage everything easily and produce creative content regularly.
The calendar can also become a tool for following your achievements. Write the expected results on the calendar and set particular dates to follow up on your progress.
For instance, you can use it to determine the number of positive responses to your content or to see whether your sales increase or not. Thus, you could adapt and gain insight.
Email, search engine optimization and influencers are all important tools for growing your audience.
After finding the most effective way to address your audience, you should focus on making them faithful subscribers.
Among the various methods to contact your audience, including social media, email is the best one.
Truly, social media followers are not as important as email subscribers, who are the most valuable, actually.
In fact, they do not view you as another individual in their feed or as a business fighting for attention. Emails allow you to control the content that they get and to reach them at your convenience.
For instance, you can send them newsletters to emphasize your unique content or new industry trends on a daily or weekly basis.
One more thing that you can do to ensure the faithfulness of your audience is to make sure the users who are interested in your content are able to find it.
Practicing adequate search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the ways to accomplish it.
Using proper SEO techniques will improve your chances of search engines picking your content, thus attracting more users. Otherwise, search engines wont be capable of including your content when someone looks into the subject.
Basically, proper SEO presupposes tagging your content with useful keywords and formatting your content to show its main idea. It is possible to add links to some relevant websites to promote your search engine profile.
Working with those producing a powerful impact is the last way to expand your target audience.
Those bloggers and media who have the already formed audience that is partially the same as your target group are the ideal solution. They can improve your numbers of email subscribers by mentioning you in their posts or providing links to your content.
Improve your business through diversification, adding channels and buying content assets.
Diversification is one more method to use your content to its fullest.
You need to appear as a leader in your industry, who proposes not just one blog or YouTube channel to its audience.
Therefore, the first thing you do to diversify is adding new channels.
Keep in mind though that starting to use another channel can be done only after securing your faithful audience.
A number of acknowledged businesspeople present their content in print, in digital form, and in person through books, blogs, and public speaking. This way, they use two or three channels, which is a great objective to fulfill.
In case youd like to focus solely on the digital form, diversification would entail adding other channels to the platform you are using.
For instance, podcasts are rather popular these days use those to branch out.
Lets go back to the example with the Digital Photography School. In Rowses case, diversification was fulfilled through adding a page called Snappin Deals to their website. It focused on the sales regarding photography gear. Such uncomplicated steps can contribute to your image of an industry leader in the eyes of your audience.
Buying a content asset is the next means of diversification.
Those are content providers who have both a platform and an audience in the field that you chose for diversification. Rapid expansion requires buying an already established asset and assimilating their formed audience instead of creating a new one from scratch.
That was the case for Adorama, a photography supply shop. They acquired the magazine JPG, which was going to become bankrupt at the time. The magazine had about 300,000 subscribers, which, in terms of diversification, proved to be a remarkable contribution to their target audience.
There are many opportunities for generating income with your content right from the start.
Now, you are probably thinking so what, how do I earn money with all of this?
Surely, every good business has to carefully study and determine the needs and wishes of their target audience, but it is possible to earn money from the very beginning.
When you manage to launch your business, you can try out various revenue streams to find the most effective one.
For instance, Matthew Patrick was able to earn from Game Theory right away through ads on his channel on YouTube.
At the Digital Photography School, Rowse turned to an affiliate-marketing approach to produce revenue. In this case, their target audience was referred to the websites of their partners, who paid the DPS for the generated through their links traffic.
After a while, you will find other methods of earning from your content.
The majority use one or two at most sources of income, but acknowledged businesspeople possess a genuine network of revenue streams. Thats what you need to strive for.
Therefore, keep an eye out for new ways to earn money from your content, whether by selling content to news outlets or advertisers, or by profiting from subscription fees.
Crowdfunding sites, such as Kickstarter, or cross-media can also be helpful since they allow taking part in someone elses podcasts or hosting webinars.
Keep in mind that novel methods appear all the time, so make sure to not miss out on lucrative opportunities.
Moreover, pay attention to your audience. Your customers responses or occasional acquaintances can also provide great opportunities.
Clearly, many ways of generating income from the beginning exist nowadays. Moreover, the number of such profitable opportunities will increase as you diversify and your audience expands.
Final Summary
Content management can potentially produce great revenue. Forming a faithful target audience requires time, but proper tools, clever plans, and relevant content can help you to succeed. Afterward, youll have acquired the indispensable business asset: faithful followers.
A piece of advice
In order to find your content niche, try the Google Trends tool.
With the help of Google Trends, you will know what users usually look for, what your products position is compared to those of others, and which similar searches are common. Thus, you will know exactly which direction to take.