A short marketing-tip video by Sandy Waggett advising businesses to become a "voice of value" for their audience by consistently creating useful content. She emphasizes building an email/cell contact list, sending regular (non-sales) newsletters, posting on appropriate social channels, supporting employees/vendors as part of the audience, and repurposing recorded content (transcripts, podcasts) to build a long-term library and reputation.
Chapters
Hey everyone, Sandy Weigt here with MSW Interactive Designs. And today I'm here with another marketing tip. This marketing tip is a little bit different than some of the other ones that I do because I want to talk about the marketing strategy of becoming a voice of value to your audience. The world has changed in the past decade. People have access to resources, it's a fast moving world and they tend to ignore high pressure sales tactics. And so marketing has shifted with that. The most successful companies out there have a voice of value that resonates with their market. And it's really become part of delivering a world class experience to your customers. And think about it this way, you know, to be a leader in your industry, you really want to be the person who is sought after for insight and comment and expertise around the type of services and products that you offer. The most successful entrepreneurs today are prolific creators of content. And it's not just willy nilly content, it's content that offers value to their market. And then the so called wantrepreneurs are the ones who are just consuming the content, not creating it, not offering their voices to the marketplace. So you know, in the age of the Internet and the fast moving world that we're in, your reputation is really your most valuable commodity. And becoming a creator of content and a voice of value to your market, to your customers, is a way to position yourself as the go to expert in your industry, whatever your industry is. This applies to any industry across the board. And your reputation is created not just by serving customers. Service is an expectation. Your excellent reputation is formed by your contributions to the market and the value that you bring to the marketplace and to your customers. Now, to create and become a voice of value to your customers, it takes time and it takes consistency. When you start doing this, it is not going to happen overnight. But if you have the wherewithal to stick to it and be persistent and be consistent, the payoff is absolutely huge and it's very long lasting. That is the incredible part about it. It is one of the best investments you can make with your personal time in your company, in my opinion. So what can you do or start doing now to become a voice of value to your customers and to your market? Well, the most important thing immediately is to start a mailing list of customers and prospects. If you are not doing that already through your website, you know you're already investing, pardon me, you're already investing marketing dollars into driving people to your website and to pick up the phone. But are you capturing the email addresses and cell Phone numbers of people who are not necessarily contacting you to work with you right off the if you are not doing that through some kind of a lead generating mechanism, that is your number one priority. Now if you're building the mailing list, you are on the right track. What happens now is a lot of people stop right there. They get the mailing list going and then they don't do anything with it. Your next step is to start let's just go small with a monthly newsletter. Better would be a weekly newsletter and it's not a sales pitch newsletter. It is a piece of value that you're sending to your prospects and your customers customers on a regular and consistent basis. Repositioning or positioning yourself as the go to expert in your industry and in your ability to solve your customers problems. You can also do things like what I'm doing right now, creating these marketing videos as part of me being a voice of value to my prospects, to my customers and to my marketplace. It's very simple to do. I just do it using a lonely zoom meeting by myself. And then I record the zoom meeting and then I take that recording of the zoom meeting and I post it out on social media and I put it up on YouTube. Now you can also post and should be posting consistently and regularly on a variety of social media channels. And the channels that you want to be on will depend on your industry and where your customers are. And don't forget about where your vendors are and where your employees are. Those messages might be different, but you want to build relationships and connection not just with your prospects and your customers. You want to be a voice of value and a resource for your employees and for your suppliers. Because these people in your life that help drive your business and your business success are also a marketing resource for you. So don't ever forget that. Be a voice of value for them as well. And then the beauty of being a content creator and a voice of value is then you can take all of this content that you're creating over time and you can repurpose it. So as an example, I can take this video and I can transcribe it, turn it into a newsletter for my customers. And another thing that I can do is take it, pull out the audio and I can add it to a podcast list. There's so many things that you can do to repurpose content. When you invest time in creating content and putting value messages out there for your customer, you are building a library of resources that your business can go to over and over and over again. So I hope this tip is helpful. Ask yourself today, what could you start doing to become a voice of value to your marketplace and build your expertise and reputation in your industry? Payoff is huge, investment is small, little bit of your time each and every day. Sandy Waggett with MSW Interactive Designs. We put the web to work for you. Thanks everyone.
