We hear a lot these days about the important role content plays in marketing today. In fact, marketing professionals are often advised to “think like publishers”. But what types of marketing content should professional service firms be creating?
When implementing the Duct Tape Marketing System, we believe you should focus on two broad categories of content – content that builds trust and content that educates. These categories will often overlap as content that educates also builds trust.
Rather than trying to create a sheer volume of content, frame your content in the context of your marketing strategy – who is your ideal customer and what type of information do they need to know, like, and trust that you are the person to help them solve their wants or needs?
The main tool in your marketing content arsenal is your marketing kit. Your marketing kit replaces the typical 3 panel brochure and provides great educational content about who you are, who you work with, and the problems you solve. A typical marketing kit may consist of any combination of the following items:
- Case Statement – Your customers problem(s) and how your service or product solves it
- Unique Benefits – Why you are unique and the ideal company to do business with
- Company Story – How you got started or another relevant story as to why you are what you are
- Core Principles – What are your key principles in terms of the way you operate
- Ideal Customer Profile – Who is your best fit client or customer
- Benefits of Hiring You – Specific benefits (results) your clients can expect to receive as a result of working with you
- Services and products – Your products and services – the named process
- Processes and checklists – those items that you can share that show HOW you ensure a client is successful
- FAQs – 5 or 6 of the most frequently asked questions
- Client List – as many as you are willing to list
- Case Studies \ Success Stories – short, ½ page stories of the results you or your products have provided to your customers.
All of the items above also make great content for your website.
I like to think of the marketing kit as not only something that gets handed to prospects, but as an “inventory” of marketing materials. Whenever you begin a new marketing campaign, check your inventory of materials you to see what you already have that you can use. Also, at the end of each campaign, review new materials you have created, add them to your marketing kit, and consider other ways to put this material to work. For example, if you gave a presentation to an industry group, can you post the presentation on your website? Can you turn it into an e-book or maybe break it into several blog posts?
Don’t think of your marketing kit as something you create in one sitting; rather, evolve it over time.
photo credit: jrhode on Flickr
