Brandmerry Blog Archives
Learn the Top Consistency Myths Business Owners Believe
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
Consistency is the cornerstone of a strong marketing plan for every online business owner.
It's with consistency that you're able to test your content topics, gauge what's working and what's not, and of course build trust with your audience.
Consistency is essential as a business owner, but so many entrepreneurs are carrying around old definitions or beliefs around consistency.
I know it feels like consistently showing up online is a struggle.
I know the concept of consistency feels so fluffy and hard to understand, what does it actually mean?
I know the idea of posting content daily is overwhelming.
That's why, today on The Brandmerry Podcast, I'm busting three myths around consistency!
Tune in now to learn:
The three myths most entrepreneurs believe about consistency and how they are keeping them from showing up.
How to remove the overwhelm of posting daily on social media and what to do instead.
How to redefine consistency in 2022, so you can show up, build community and make sales...consistently!
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. A great way to master your marketing and take the pressure off of social media is to join Brandmerry Academy. Inside, we're teaching a holistic and sustainable approach to marketing your business without relying on social media! Learn more at brandmerry.com/academy and get an entire year of marketing courses and support!
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
3 Ways to Become a Better Marketer for Your Small Business
Social media just isn't sustainable and so many entrepreneurs find themselves burnt out and no further along trying to keep up with the hustle of social media. That's why today's episode is so important and if you're an entrepreneur, which I guess you are, you are going to want to tune in.
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
Marketing is a non-negotiable for business owners. That is if you plan to make money!
In all seriousness we've got two big players: Branding and Marketing. While Branding, is typically done at the beginning of your business set up and revisited from time to time, the work behind the scenes is not ongoing.
Marketing is very different. Marketing requires consistency (whatever that looks like for you), creating valuable content and reaching your ideal customer to ultimately attract them to your paid offers and services.
It's like freaking magic.
And since, it's one of the most important parts of running your online business, I thought I'd share three of my must-have tips so you can become a better marketer!
In today's episode, of The Brandmerry Podcast, you'll learn:
Why consistency is so dang important and not just a buzz word!
How and why you should incorporate the power of storytelling into your marketing strategy to improve client attraction and connection.
Why after your customer buys is a continuation of your marketing work and how to take better care of your clients.
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. A great way to master your marketing and take the pressure off of social media is to join Brandmerry Academy. Inside, we're teaching a holistic and sustainable approach to marketing your business! Learn more at brandmerry.com/academy and get an entire year of marketing courses and support!
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
Why Marketers Should Stop Relying on Social Media
Social media just isn't sustainable and so many entrepreneurs find themselves burnt out and no further along trying to keep up with the hustle of social media. That's why today's episode is so important and if you're an entrepreneur, which I guess you are, you are going to want to tune in.
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
Time and time again I see entrepreneurs believe that in order to market their business they MUST use social media.
Now don't get me wrong, I love spending my time on Instagram and with the addition of Instagram Reels I'm loving it.
But, the reality is most entrepreneurs don't have countless hours to spend on social media, not to mention enough brain power to create new content every single day.
Social media just isn't sustainable and so many entrepreneurs find themselves burnt out and no further along trying to keep up with the hustle of social media.
That's why today's episode is so important and if you're an entrepreneur, which I guess you are, you are going to want to tune in.
In today's episode you'll learn:
Why relying on social media at the top of your funnel, and ultimately how you create brand awareness, is not the best strategy.
The other platforms I recommend to not only evergreen your content (more in the episode) but to also bring in consistent leads to your business.
How to streamline your content, using other platforms, and still show up on social media for FUN! Yep, Instagram can be fun, I promise.
Tune in now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear the full episode and all the tips.
P.S. A great way to learn all these amazing marketing platforms and take the pressure off of social media is to join Brandmerry Academy. Inside, we're teaching a holistic and sustainable approach to marketing your business! Learn more at brandmerry.com/academy and get an entire year of marketing courses and support!
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
How to Increase Your Website Traffic Without Social Media
Social media strategies are outdated. Social Media is meant to be social and keep you on the platform. You have to get in in front of your audience in the right place. Today we're talking about using SEO, Pinterest, and Youtube as your primary strategy for increasing traffic to your website.
BY MICHELLE KNIGHT
What good is your website if nobody actually sees it? It's the number one struggle that entrepreneurs have when they come to me to help them with their marketing.
What I see is that entrepreneurs will build their website, they're doing it themselves, they're hiring a graphic designer, they're hiring a team to do it, and then it sits there. And they're like, well, I spent all this time, I spent all this energy, I spent some money building this website, but no one's actually finding it except for maybe a handful of people that saw it the day that you announced that you had a new website.
We've all been there.
I had a website for about two years before people started to find it because I didn’t know about the strategies I’m sharing with you today.
Now, more than 10,000 people land on my website every single month!
You're going to notice with these four tips, I’m sharing today, that I do not talk about social media.
Listen, social media is an asset. I am not saying there's anything wrong with marketing your business on social media. But when we are talking about consistent quality leads, there are other avenues that you want to have in place for your business.
Social media just isn't the top dog when it comes to marketing your business anymore. And many of my clients actually are overwhelmed with the process of using social media every single day.
I use the analogy that it feels like you're shooting a paper airplane into a sea of people and hoping it hits the right person. The strategies I'm about to share with you are very different and they focus on client attraction.
But, before we get into all of my favorite ways to drive consistent traffic and quality leads to your website, let us first talk about the importance of your website.
THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR WEBSITE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR
Now, I know there's a lot of information floating around the internet on whether or not you need a website and how much energy and time should go into your website.
But I truly believe that one of the greatest assets to entrepreneurs and small business owners is their website. We actually refer to it as your home base over here at Brandmerry because that is essentially what it is.
If you needed to create one spot with all of the information for your ideal customer, whether they are coming in at the beginning of the buying process, just knowing they have a problem and not sure how to solve it, all the way to ready to pull out their credit card and purchase your products and your services, you can create your website.
Your website will serve as your home base.
It is where you get to share your story.
It's where you get to share strong language and connect with your audience.
It's where you get to share powerful resources in the form of a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel.
It is where you get to share full sales pages of your offers so people can get all of the information that they need.
It's truly one of my favorite things to support entrepreneurs in creating. But it also can take a really long time. It's one of the reasons that I created an entire training inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy and Roadmap to Freedom because I watched entrepreneurs spending months and months and months building a website.
Now, I am not recommending that this is the route that you go. In fact, many of my clients do it in 30 days or less.
You don't need to have some fancy, beautifully designed website if you don't have a) the budget or b) the time to take care of that.
You just want a central location with your info.
And in this video right here, I talk about the four-part framework for your homepage because your homepage is incredibly important and serves as a kind of launching off point or landing page for all the resources and things that you have on your website.
Now that we understand why your website is important and how it shouldn't take you forever, let's talk about how to get your website seen.
INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #1
OPTIMIZE FOR SEARCH ENGINES (SEO)
One of the first things that you want to do when you create your new website is making sure that it's optimized for search engines, specifically for Google.
Now, there's a lot of different ways to handle this. I actually talk about SEO specifically in this video right here where I talk about the strategy for SEO, how to create site-wide SEO and some of my favorite ways to boost your overall rankings.
But so many people will create their website and they forget about the technical, very strategic backend that comes into play for site-wide SEO.
We also tend to gravitate a little bit more towards thinking of SEO in terms of blogging, and that is powerful, but what I want you to focus on first and foremost is making sure that your pages, your headings, your site descriptions are optimized.
Here’s an additional blog with some tips on this >>
INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #2
PINTEREST
My second favorite way to drive traffic to my website and the website of my clients are using Pinterest.
Oh my gosh, I swear this is my love language. I used to use Pinterest as a consumer all the time. Maybe you're like me and you use it to look up recipes and home decor and clothes that you're going to pack for your next vacation and you never really thought about using it for business.
Well, back in 2017, I recognized that a lot of bloggers were using Pinterest and there had to be a way for us to use Pinterest to build our service-based business at the time. So I started exploring it.
I was already blogging, so I looked at ways that I could optimize that. I figured if my ideal customer was already there looking for lifestyle things, what are the odds that they would be there to look for business pieces as well?
We started to see that traffic was consistently coming to my blog. So rather than the one day a week when I shared my blog on social media or emailed my list, I was getting views every single day from Pinterest. That's when I fell in love with it and went all in.
And to this day, we have over a million viewers on Pinterest every single month. And one of my favorite ways to use Pinterest, obviously, is in connection with a blog.
Blogging is a great way for you to have valuable resources, high-value content on your website to support your ideal customer through the buying journey so that if someone's coming in at the very first stage and we're wanting to move them through to the purchase stage, we have great information and resources there to show our authority and our expertise.
Blogging is also a fantastic way to improve your SEO rankings because Google, as we mentioned in number one, wants to know that you have high-quality content on your website and that you are backing up what you say that you're doing within your industry with content.
So blogging tells Google, oh, this person is an expert in personal branding and they talk about it all the time on the blog. But then, in addition to that, we can use Pinterest to drive consistent traffic to our website so when we post a blog it doesn't just disappear or we cross our fingers and hope that it shows up in Google. We can make sure that it's showing up on Pinterest.
When you’re writing your blogs, it’s important to create content you know your audience is searching for so that you’re showing up in that way, while also providing value.
A blog can serve so many purposes.
Imagine someone who doesn’t know anything about your brand and finds your post on Pinterest, they now have brand awareness.
The same can happen on Google.
Now imagine someone follows you on Instagram or is on your email list and thinking about working with you. They can see the value you provide and your blog and it might be the turning point for moving your relationship to paying client.
Blogging is incredibly powerful and can also be used to repurpose your content on other platforms, just another way to drive traffic back to your website. Learn more about repurposing here >>
Now, Pinterest requires a lot of training, it’s something I teach my clients inside of my program Brandmerry Academy and is not something I can teach you in a blog, but here are some tips to get you started.
Consistent pinning is important, meaning you don’t just post one pin a week. We recommend at least three times a week with 10-15 pins each of those days. To do this we recommend using Tailwind.
You’ll want to create eye-catching images for the platform, and a few variations for each piece of content. To do this we recommend Canva and Tailwind Create.
Just like Google, Pinterest is a search engine which means your titles and keywords matter. Take the time to research those!
Pinterest advertising can be an amazing underrated asset and you can sometimes get started for just $2 a day. Check out this blog post for all the details >>
INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #3
YOUTUBE
Speaking of search engines, we cannot miss an opportunity to talk about YouTube.
YouTube just like the other two that I've mentioned before, is a powerful platform because it again is a search engine, meaning that your ideal customer is coming to this platform to search for very specific topics.
Since it’s a search engine it brings in quality leads because people are searching for your resources. In addition, video is a great way to build a connection because your audience is able to see and hear you. It’s one of the reasons I post weekly videos on Youtube!
YouTube is also a great way to build that know, like, and trust factor, to expand brand awareness, brand attraction, and to again get people off of the platform.
If you watch any of my Youtube videos then you’ll notice that reference additional videos and blogs, as well as free resources to get viewers on my email list.
So there's a lot of creative ways that you can think about using YouTube. While I prefer camera face-to-face video, you could also explore repurposing your podcast onto the platform.
You could explore creating trainings (think slideshows) if you don't want your face on camera and putting those onto the platform.
Just as with all of these strategies, make sure that you're paying attention to search engine optimization, that you're paying attention to what you're naming your video, the tags, the description because that's going to play a role in how your videos are viewed.
INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #4
PUBLIC RELATIONS
And finally, number four, this is a tip and a tool that is so dear to my heart because it's actually my background. I have my degree in public relations. It was actually the world that I lived in before I moved over to non-profit and ultimately became an entrepreneur. And I've carried so much of that knowledge into the business that I run today.
One of my favorite ways to drive traffic to my website, to build that know, like, and trust factor with my ideal customer, and ultimately expand the awareness of my brand is through features.
Now, by features I mean podcasts, interviews, guest speaking opportunities, featured in a publication. It is absolutely amazing what happens when you get in front of a new audience through one of these trusted platforms.
What I mean by that is if I pitch a podcast, something I teach in my programs, and I'm invited on as a guest, I'm getting invited in front of a new audience and I'm getting invited by someone who that audience already knows, likes, and trust, so immediately my trust meter, even though this are people who've never heard of me before, is already high because the host trusts me enough to bring me onto the platform.
So we always see that after I am on a podcast interview that gets released or part of an interview series or featured in an article, website traffic explodes.
Now, I'm nerding out a little bit about SEO. I know, I know. I talk about it again in that bonus video. You can check that out below. And of course, I teach all of these strategies inside of my programs.
CONCLUSION
Those are four of my favorite ways and truly underrated ways to drive traffic to your website.
It's not enough to rely on social media. It just isn't going to work in your favor for consistent traffic, not to mention you've got to consistently be posting.
With the platforms that I shared with you, one piece of content can live for a really long time, or one strategy that you implement can drive traffic to your website for years and years to come.
All right. Go forth, and drive traffic to your website. I can't wait to see what these strategies do for your business.
P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast
- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -
DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES
LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS
MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR
- READ THE LATEST POSTS -
MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.
The Difference Between Free and Paid Content as a Content Creator
You're sharing content every day as a way to make people aware of your brand, and your ideal customer ecstatic about how you can support them! But, what's the difference between what you share for free and what you share behind your paid offers. Today on the blog I'm breaking it down!
One of the top questions I receive is, “If I'm marketing my business and I want to get people on my email list through a freebie, how do I know what to give them? If I want to write blog posts, I don't want to give away everything I do in that blog post, I want people to buy from me.”
So we're going to break it down and I’m sharing the difference between free and paid content.
When you think of your free content you’re probably thinking of blog content, reels on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube videos, podcasting, free gifts, email marketing, etc...
What should you include in your free content vs your paid content and why is the difference between the two so important?
FREE MARKETING CONTENT
You've got your free marketing content.
That's the kind of content that you're creating on a regular basis as part of your weekly workflow that you put out to bring in an audience.
That content is the first level. That is really meant to do a few things. But one of the main things is to attract new customers.
We always want to be focused on branding and brand awareness. So making new people aware of our brand, a cold audience, as it's often described in our industry.
You want to attract people who don't know anything about you through your free content. That's how we make sure you have a consistent, ongoing, flow of people coming in, who are interested in your offers.
That content can also serve your existing audience, giving them value, warming them up, and nurturing them as well. But when you're creating your content, I always want you to think about creating it for people who don't know you yet.
CREATING A FREEBIE OR LEAD MAGNET
Then in the same bucket of free content, we also have a freebie or a lead magnet. So we recommend over here at Brandmerry, that every business have some sort of freebie or lead magnet. Yes, even product-based businesses. And I'll give you an example of one in just a minute.
This free lead magnet is what you are ultimately going to give people in exchange for their name and their email address.
Let's say you write a blog post on four ways to improve your business.
Someone finds that blog post.
They read that blog post.
They love it.
They're like, "Hey, I like this person. I would like to learn more about this person. And I would like to be in their inner circle and I would like more free things."
So they see that you have a freebie that says, 10 Steps to Starting an Online Business. Great! They give you their name.
They give you their email address.
They're on your email address.
They get that freebie.
It's that next level. It takes somebody from cold to warm.
Let's say you sell a product. My favorite example to use is skincare. Let's say you have a skincare business.
You have people who are coming to your website.
You have a blog on different ingredients to use for different skin problems.
Maybe you have a video that shows how to correctly apply a skincare routine in the correct order, some free content.
Somebody consumes that content on your website, on YouTube, wherever, and they're like, "Hey, I want a little bit more."
They see that you also have a quiz that will help them identify what kind of skin they have and the top products that you recommend.
They have to put in their name and their email address to get the results from the quiz.
On the quiz results, you tell them, but you also are pitching some of your products as a solution. That is a lead magnet.
Every business can create some sort of lead magnet.
Then, of course, we have the paid content and that's what's behind a paywall.
That can be a product that you sell, an ebook, a course, a group program, a one-on-one, consulting, whatever it is, that's behind the paywall. Someone has to pay to get that content from you.
When you're thinking about why free content is important, I hope that you see this sequence of events.
They're important because you want to constantly get your brand in front of new clientele. You want to give them value so that they are eager to learn more from you and join your inner community, your email list.
And then you want to continue to show up for them leading them to the sale.
THE CONSUMER BUYING PROCESS
This sequence is also essential when we look at the information around the consumer buying process, something a lot of people don't talk about. I have an entire YouTube video on it and a blog post about it, where I share with you the stages of the consumer buying process.
There are people who are at stage one who are aware they have a problem, but they know nothing else. They don't know about the solutions.
Maybe they're on Google, just looking for solutions to their problem. How powerful would it be if they found a blog post by you, were introduced to your brand and your business and joined your email list?
Now those people are less likely to buy right away, but we can speed them up through the buying process by giving them value, building trust, leading them to where they're ready to invest.
But you've also got people who are ready to invest, who are seeking out the solution, who knows exactly what they need, and they're just seeking out the person and the brand to give it to them.
They're ready to buy, but maybe they just need to read a blog post or watch a YouTube video so that they know that you know what the hell you're talking about.
People are coming in contact with your brand at different stages and we really have to keep that in mind as marketers.
We cannot assume that everybody that lands on our website are just ready to whip out their credit card. We know that that's just not true.
So when you're creating free content, it's important that you keep that in mind, because then you are able to, not only make someone aware of your brand but then attract them and keep them engaged so that when they are ready to buy, they buy from you, rather than losing them.
Because if the only thing that they can get from you is, "I've got this offer." Well, they're not ready yet. And I think that's something that we don't talk about a lot.
Sometimes people just aren't ready for multiple reasons.
Show up for the people who maybe just aren't ready yet.
Don't lose them.
They're going to move to somebody else if you don't show up and create content for them.
Free content is very important.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FREE AND PAID CONTENT
So now the question becomes, what is the difference?
What is the difference between the two?
What I’m going to tell you is going to make this entire process so much easier.
When you think of your free content, think about giving your audience the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’.
So what do they need to do?
What needs to happen, what do they need to change?
Why does that need to happen?
Why does that need to change?
Why should they think about something differently?
Why is this information important?
And the paid content is the ‘How’.
PRODUCT-BASED BUSINESS EXAMPLE
So let's use the example of my skincare line, yet again. Let's say we have a blog post, and it's talking about three of the top ingredients that you should avoid in your skincare. That's a What. I also could incorporate why you have to avoid them. So I'm hitting a What and a Why in one blog post.
Then I want to share with my audience, through my freebie, how they can clean up their skincare products and the type of products, ingredients they should be focused on, because of their specific skin things.
So the quiz that I'm giving them is further diving into What they should be focused on and the Why for their particular answers. It's just another level of free.
The first level was broad, it could apply to anyone that was reading the blog.
Now they're answering very specific questions in my quiz, but I'm still giving them the What and the Why.
But I'm also, on the results page, after they've given their name and their email address, starting to give them the How.
These are the specific products for how you do it.
SERVICE-BASED BUSINESS EXAMPLE
When it comes to a service-based business, let's say the ‘What’ is “Four Tips for New Entrepreneurs”. These are four things that they could be doing.
Then, once they've read those four ‘What’ elements, give them the Why. For this particular instance, I would definitely do What and Why.
For example, I would share that you need to have a solid brand.
What is a solid brand? Giving an overview of what a solid brand is.
I’d also share why it's important.
Next, I’d share that they need to grow your community.
What does that mean to grow your community?
What specific elements do you need?
Why are those important?
Next number three, would be the marketing strategy.
What is a marketing strategy?
What is not a marketing strategy?
And why is that important?
Next-level is selling with confidence.
What does that mean?
Why is that important?
So this is the blog. This is what I've given them. The What and the Why.
To follow the blog, I’d offer my lead magnet that dives into “15 Lessons To Propel Your Business,” which goes deeper into the free content, and then I’d invite them to join my program, Roadmap to Freedom where I will give them the How.
So in the blog post, I said, "Hey, this is what branding is. This is why it's important." And then the How, I'm actually teaching them each of those individual pieces.
GIVING IT ALL AWAY
When you look at it like this, you're not giving it all away. I am a firm believer that you can't give it all away in your free stuff because they'll always get more from your paid courses, your paid group programs, your paid products, services, all of it.
They always will.
FREE CONTENT TO PAID CONTENT EXAMPLE
For example, the stages of the buying process is something that I've openly talked about. I have a YouTube video about that. It's also something that I teach inside of my programs.
So if you come into the program, most people will already have an understanding of the consumer buying process, if they've consumed those pieces of content, but not everybody has.
So I need to reiterate that inside of the program as well.
But then in the program, I'm talking specifically about how you reach customers at each of those stages.
So even though I've given you the stages for free, I haven't dived into how you reach people at those stages in the most efficient way. That happens inside my program.
Are you starting to see the difference?
When you're setting up your free content, I want to specifically think about your freebie, your lead magnet, to intrigue your audience, to give them incredible value, and I'm going to talk about that in just a second, and to set up your offer. That is the goal.
Because if someone is like, "Ooh, I want to hear more," they're moving further along in the consumer buying process, they're now into a place where they're seeking really solid solutions that they're looking to invest in.
You want whatever you're giving away as your lead magnet to be valuable and to set up the offer, to also intrigue your audience, so they need and want to learn more from you.
WHAT DOES ‘GIVING VALUE’ MEAN?
Giving value can mean so many different things.
I often talk about giving value as being inspirational, motivational, obviously educational, and also entertaining.
Yes, your content could also just be funny. That's value, making someone laugh is giving them value in their life.
But when you think about giving value on an educational level, like in a free gift or a lead magnet, I want you to think that the value piece can simply be answering a question that has been floating around in their minds forever and ever and ever.
So when I first was thinking about releasing my Brand Roadmap, which is a freebie that I've had, I went back and forth with myself, wondering if it was valuable enough.
And I realized after I put it out there and I started talking with people, that it was exactly what they needed because branding was overwhelming to them.
They didn't understand what branding was and that was keeping them from moving forward and creating their brand.
So by creating a PDF for them, that clearly gave them the stages and in what order, not only did I remove the overwhelm, but I gave them the information they needed to start taking action. And it beautifully set up my offer, where I would teach them how to do that.
So when you think about giving value, don't always think that you've just got to give all your information away.
It's really understanding your ideal customer, the questions that they need to be answered, that they would pay money for, but you're going to give it to them for free.
That's what you want to deliver.
That's why knowing your ideal customer is so incredibly important because when you know your ideal customer, you know what questions they have and you can answer those questions in a very valuable way.
The last thing that I'll say about this is, don't beat yourself up if you want to trickle in the ‘How’, that’s ok! Every once in a while you can give some ‘How’ information because remember, you can’t give it all away!
I can talk about branding in a hundred different ways. If I tell one person how to craft a hook, which I've said, “Your hook is specifically who you are, who you serve, what they struggle with, what they want, and how you support them. Solve that problem.” I can give you the formula for that.
But guess what? You've got to know all those other pieces for that to work. So even though I've given a little piece of the How, I know that in order to make that work at the highest level, you need to come work with me.
CONCLUSION
Free content is necessary in order to bring in clients, making them aware of your brand and moving them through the buying process, to being a paying client.
Bringing somebody in who doesn't know anything about you, warming them up, making a connection with them, and getting them to invest.
That free content that you're creating is focused on the ‘What’ and the ‘Why’.
And the paid content is focused on the ‘How’ - how they actually do those different things.
If you found this free content incredibly valuable, I want you to know that there's so much more to creating free and paid content.
And it's one of the pillars that I teach inside of my program, Roadmap to Freedom.
The doors for Roadmap to Freedom are opening on Sunday. You can go to Brandmerry.com/freedom to learn more and get ready, the doors are only going to be open for four days. That's it. It's the shortest launch period we've ever had.
You're going to want to be ready to go when the doors open, so you don't miss the deadline, because doors will not open again until next year.
When we're talking about the free versus paid content specifically, that is something that we go into in depth inside of Roadmap to Freedom, where I teach you how to come up with free content ideas, how to strategically create a freebie that's going to lead to the paid offer, so that you've got people joining your email list and then moving effortlessly to the paid offer.
Learn more at brandmerry.com/freedom.
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The Content Planning Blueprint is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.
In just a few hours, you'll have 90 days of content planned, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your blueprint now >>
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MEET MICHELLE
Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.
I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.
I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.
This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.