Content marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways for any business to grow their market share, build a relationship with their audience, and turn leads into high paying customers. In the first half of 2019 this 3 step content marketing system increased my repeat customer rate by 231.43%.
Note: content marketing is no long about leads; we'll get into that down the post.
For a service contractor business, having a good content marketing strategy is leverage against competitors. The wide reach that you can achieve online is far greater than any traditional strategies you’d probably been doing.
And for the lower cost it takes than traditional marketing, it’s worth the bother of consistently creating content and sharing it, which you might otherwise deem are unnecessary busywork.
People are not thinking about your services often. In most cases, they would only think about contacting you when a serious problem that disturbs their day-to-day life occurs. But you’re probably not the only one who can deliver the service for them.
Content marketing makes sure your company and services are, for the most part, top of mind. Contrary to what many believe, content is not content marketing. First, let’s debunk the myths surrounding that assumption.
Content vs. Content Marketing
Years ago, publishing content on your website already guaranteed returns in the form or views. Google used to put valuable organic content on top of the search results. This made it easier for websites and businesses to make their content easily visible and accessible to people who are interested.
Nowadays, however, ads would usually be the first to pop up regardless of what you search. These paid ads are also disguised as organic content, so unassuming people will click on them first. And they fill up a significant part of the first page on Google too.
This is how Google’s business has evolved, so more people will opt for paid ads. As a result, real, valuable content on websites are pushed back. If yours is not performing above average, it ends up in the next pages on Google, which, let’s be honest, no one gets to anymore.
Content marketing is simply bringing people to your content instead of the other way around — except it’s not simple to do.
Advantages of Systematizing Your Content Marketing
It takes a lot to find a content marketing system that works, much more execute it. However, systems are vital in any business.
In all honesty, that’s what makes a business thrive. Not to undermine the imporance of the quality of service, but systems are the thing that your business won’t survive without.
Systematizing your content marketing is the best way to make those valuable blog posts visible to your audience and potential market. Think of it as a means to help your ideal audience and client find you. It also immediately puts you as an authority on the niche or subject you’re focused on. It builds trust and makes you look like an expert, even if you aren’t yet.
The best thing about content marketing is it allows you to follow up on people — people who’ve seen your services and have gotten interested — without being too invasive.
Some advantages of having a content marketing system are:
- Increase your closing rate
- Raising your prices (value perception premium)
- Perpetuating referrals
- Inspiring repeat business
- Establishing a solid image to your market
- Staying relevant in your industry or trade
- Reaching more people than you can with traditional marketing
1) Weekly blog post
Content and content marketing each won’t work without the other. A weekly blog post is your main material for content marketing. This page is where you want to direct your audience coming from other platforms (more on this later).
For my own business, I do a recap of the projects that were accomplished the past week. The key elements of content that you want to share for content marketing are: they have to be brief, easy to digest, have good photos, and they shouldn’t be in long-form.
Weekly blog posts contain bite-sized information about the projects. It opens the opportunity to share stories of clients that new customers might relate to. You can also show and tell the transformation that your company did for the customer’s home, which is a tactic to show people that you can get the work done.
These are weekly blog posts that my team has done for other contractors. An important element of your website is that you should design it for mobile first since most people use their phones for browsing more often than their desktop browsers. Either way, these blog posts generally use the same format, content-wise.
After giving these interesting details about the projects, including the photos, you can then add a call to action at the end. This can be to encourage people to give a call or get an estimate.
2) Email Sequence
This is where content marketing really begins: sharing the content on other platforms.
Emails are eternal. It provides a very close connection to your audience. People can easily give out their profiles or numbers, but no one gives their email addresses to just anyone.
Having an email list is an opportunity in itself. It means your contacts are deeply interested or are past customers. Being flooded with emails is annoying, so tread lightly in this aspect.
Sharing your weekly blog post to your email list gives them sufficient emails from you. This is one way of making your business known week by week without bombarding your contacts with too many emails.
This is an example of an email that follows the publication of the blog post featured on the previous section. The key here is to send the email soon after the blog has been posted.
The email sequence should simply lead them to the blog post. This is not yet about selling them anything. It’s just directing them to the blog post. Getting them there might encourage them to avail of a service that was similar to a project that was featured in it.
3) Facebook Ads
Facebook is one of the top platforms for content marketing. It’s where you can find people easily because almost everyone is already on the platform. Facebook will also find them for you, as long as you give it the right information about your target audience or market.
If you already have a contact list — consisting of leads or previous customers — then you can identify these kinds of people on Facebook and have them pixeled. This allows Facebook to filter through people and find the ones that are most likely to engage with your content, click links, and take action.
Once you’re done with identifying your audience, you can really utilize the paid ads within Facebook to market your content to the right people. This is what we do with ads like these:
These Facebook posts also have one main agenda: to direct people to the blog post. You can also use the same photos for these ads as the ones from the blog post to give a sneak peek of what they can find.
Facebook ads also give you the opportunity to feature your customers, show transformation photos of your projects, and share even smaller information about your services. These are actually tips for the types of photos and Facebook ads that I’ve found work best.
You Need Photos That Influence!
The core component behind all content market is authentic photos that are intended to influence the buying decision. Notice there were no stock photos in any of the examples above? This framework training video covers the types of photos you should capture regularly to turn into awesome content!
Get all of our Contractor Marketing Frameworks & Training
CONCLUSION
The thing about this system is that it takes a lot of work. Even if it’s a system that you repeat week by week, the content needs to be authentic that your audience is going to find valuable. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.
Content marketing takes as little as 10 hours every week. If you want something that’s guaranteed to work and have a high ROI, it can even take up to 30 or 40 hours, especially if you’re just beginning.
Content marketing is not an easy job and it takes a lot of work like any aspect of your business, but it’s one of the most effective and worth it for growth.
As we’ve done for at least 6 other contractors, you can also entrust us to perform this system for your business. You get to free up those hours to focus on other things while we get your content done and delivered to the right audience. Learn more about it here.