3 Key Elements to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

Do you have a content marketing plan? Is it working for you? If it's not working as well as you would like it to work, this training might be helpful for you. My name is Shelly Hitz. I'm an author coach, and I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. And in this training, I'm going to talk to you about three key elements to a successful content marketing strategy. These are three things that many times if you don't have all three of these things going for you, you're going to not have the success you want to have. So what do I mean by content marketing? Content marketing is one of the best ways you can get word out. You can be able to reach new customers, be able to build your tribe of people who know, like, and trust you and can eventually purchase your books or products from you. Content marketing is anything like blogging. It could be podcasting. Content marketing is what I'm doing right now. I'm recording this live video on Facebook and then this video will be edited. It will end up on my YouTube channel, my podcast, and my blog. So also social media. But you don't have to do all of that. But content marketing can be any of those things. It could just be social media. But I really believe every author needs to have some content marketing plan. Doesn't mean you have to do everything. I have a team that helps me, so that's why I can do all of those things. But what is one thing that you can do that is really going to reach your target audience and help you to be able to build a relationship with them and be able to eventually have them purchase from you? So content marketing is powerful. However, there are three key elements to content marketing. So the first key element is strategy. It needs to be a strategy. So what I see a lot of authors doing is going into content marketing. How haphazard. So you think, oh, somebody's on Pinterest. I should be on Pinterest. Oh, I think I need to be on Twitter. Oh, I think I should start a blog. Oh, Facebook Live. Maybe I'll try that. Oh, a podcast. And then there's just all of these things. So the main thing that I really want you to do is I want you to have a strategy. I want you to have a plan. I want you to really do the research and know who your target audience is. I have training on that for you inside authoraudienceacademy.com to know who your target audience is, to know where they hang out online, to really know this information. So you're not just going into your marketing plan blind. I think a lot of times the reason you don't get the results that you want is, is it's just all over the place. And bright shiny object syndrome is an obstacle to this. Instead of having a strategy and sticking to it, I would say focus. Follow one course until successful. If we don't have that focus and we're doing all these different things and just jumping around from here to there, it's really going to be hard to see momentum happen with any content marketing strategy. And so it's really important to have strategy, know what works for you. I'm a speaker, I'm an extrovert, so it works well for me. Like, I literally just have a very, very small outline of what I wanted to cover in this video. I know what I want to say and I just, I hop on here, I say it, I record it, I send it to my team, they edit it, they transcribe it, they do everything they need to do and then it appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, my podcast. That works for me because I'm a speaker for you. It may work better to write. So a blog or social media might be better. Your target audience might be more graphic or image related. So Instagram or Pinterest might be better. Only you can know what's going to be best for your target audience and you really have to do the work in order to to discover that. But you need a strategy. If you are an author, audience, academy member and want to brainstorm your content marketing strategy, we can do that in our private Facebook group. So just start a new post and I'd be happy to brainstorm that with you. The second thing that you need, and this is where I think a lot of you lack, is consistency.

Part of the obstacle to consistency, I believe, is that many of you set goals for that are way up here. They're not attainable with the time you have available, the resources you have available, you set these high goals of I'm going to blog twice a week or every week. I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to start a podcast and I'm going to podcast, you know, all the time. And then when you don't achieve that goal, you get discouraged and give up. What is a realistic content marketing schedule? That you can stay consistent to, because consistency is really truly the secret sauce of content marketing. Since I started my podcast, I've released a new podcast almost every week. If I haven't, it's just because my team has been behind and so that has maybe pushed us back sometimes from releasing things as quickly as I want. But I'm learning to give up control and not have to do everything myself. And so I'm learning to work with the team. But typically I will try to have a new training every week. What is a schedule that works for you? Maybe it's once a month. Maybe that is what's really going to be consistent for you on blogging or going live on Facebook and then embedding that into your blog or whatever you're going to do. YouTube Live or, you know, what is it that is going to be something that you can stay consistent to. Consistency is so important whether it's social media or something else. Social media, you can schedule a lot of your posts so you don't have to be sitting in front of your computer all the time. I share a lot about that in my seven day social training. And you can get a free social media templates@7daysocial.com free. And you spell out the word 7s e v e n daysocial.com free. You can get some free templates and, and get access to a discounted rate on my training there. But whatever it is, are you being consistent? How many times have you posted on social media in the last month? How many times have you released a new blog or podcast or video in the next month or the last month? What has your consistency been and what is realistic? Don't put yourself into a pressure cooker of unrealistic expectations. That's only going to stress you out. It's only going to cause anxiety.

That's just not worth it. Do something that with the time you have available and the finances you have available, so the team that you have works for you. So the first thing is having a strategy, not just getting involved in that bright shiny object syndrome. The second thing is being consistent and realistic in your consistency. The third thing is commitment. So when you're doing content marketing, it takes a commitment because you're not going to see results right away. It's going to be more like the snowball effect. It's going to be something that as you go, as you build, as you're consistent, as people know they can rely on, have. Like I'm going to be releasing a new podcast every week and as they continue to listen to me and get information from me and learn from me. Eventually, you may want to join. Authoraudienceacademy.com you may eventually want to join. You've gotten to know that you can trust me. You know that my tribe is your tribe. And you want that community. You want that coaching. You need the training that I have in there. But sometimes it takes time. And so someone may listen to my podcast for years, months. They may get all my free stuff. Some people will never, you know, some of you will never buy one thing from me, and that is fine. I offer these free trainings for you. Some of you may consume my free trainings, my free content marketing training for months and then you decide to sign up for Author Audience Academy or years. So it takes a commitment. It takes a commitment to say, I am going to continue doing this. Now, that doesn't mean you can't change it. It doesn't mean that you can't have a change in how you deliver your content marketing or that you tweak it. Because sometimes we learn things and we make things better and we grow over time. But if you go into it without a commitment and you're like, oh, I think I'm gonna try blogging, I think I'm gonna try podcasting. Oh, maybe I'll try getting on Instagram, or maybe I'll try this. And if it's a maybe I'll try, or I think I'll give this a try. But it's not really a commitment of I'm committed to creating new content for my target audience on a monthly basis on my blog. I'm committed to that. You put it on your calendar. You let people know that that's when they can expect information from you, content from you, and you're committed to it. There is a completely different mindset. It's like some people will say, I want to write a book someday. You know what? When I have people in my authoritacy academy write out, they write out their commitment to publish a book. We do this on my virtual writing retreats. If you are interested in learning more, you can go to shellyhits.com virtualretreat I have one coming up in June. I actually have them write it down in pen and paper, their commitment to finish their book. And there's a power that comes by making a commitment. So the three keys to a successful content marketing strategy. The first is just having a plan, having a strategy. The second second is being consistent. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist. It just takes consistency. Continuing to deliver that valuable content to your audience on a consistent basis and then a commitment. I hope that this training helped you. If it did, please let me know and I would love to hear from you again. My name is Shelly Hitz. I am the owner of authoraudienceacademy.com and I invite you to check out all of my free training webinars and downloads and books and tons of free training for you. You can check it out@shellyhits.com free it lists all of the free training that I have for you. Check it out, see what what would be helpful for you right now and I look forward to sharing more with you in the future. We'll see you next time. Bye Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Author Audience. I would like to invite you to attend one of my free TR all about how to sell more books without being pushy or self promotional. It's called Amplify youy Message. Plus I will give you two free gifts just for attending. No credit card required. First you'll get my best selling book 9 Strategies to Build and grow your author Platform and you'll also get my ebook titled List Vend 5 powerful emails you can use immediately to grow your business. These are basically fill in the blank style templates and and they are yours at no charge when you join us for the training. You can sign up for my free training by going to shellyhits.com/ that's shellyhitz.com S H E L L E Y h I t z.com amplify this training and the two bonus ebooks are free and I would love to help you sell more books.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.