Content Marketing
Foundational Content
Your #1 priority is to make sure you’ve got a really good website that describes all the foundational things that you do.
Content Priority Number One.
Before you get stuck into the long-term growth of content, first step is what we call the foundational content. This means making sure you’ve got a really good website that’s describing all the foundational things that you do.
1. Everything About You
This is broken down into three simple formats:
The Why
You want to clearly communicate why you guys do what you do? Why do you exist? What are you trying to achieve? What are your big, hairy dreams and goals that your target audience would want to know about? That’s really important.
People Buy Why You Do What You Do, Not What You Do. Simon Sinek really ran this home, so if you haven’t seen his YouTube videos or TED talks, we highly recommended them.
You need to clearly demonstrate your why, and your passion. Why do you do what you do? That’s what people are ultimately going to buy. The enthusiasm, the excitement, the commitment, and the striving for excellence.
The What
What do you actually do as a business? It’s important to make sure you clearly communicate exactly what you do as a business.
The How
How do you do it? How do you go about fulfilling the wants, needs and dreams of your target audience? Once again, answering these questions in a crystal-clear way and communicating that well is really important.
You Need to Describe Everything About Who You Are, What You Do, How You Do It, and Why You Do It.
2. Your Story
Your story is one of the most overlooked areas of content on your website.
This includes, who you are and where you’ve come from. How did you start out? What has the journey looked like? How long have you been in business? What have been the ups? What have been the downs? This ensures your story really adds character to who you are and where you come from – people love that.
People want to know more about you, because, ultimately, when you choose a product or service, you choose the people that are behind it. The product and service are important, but the people who are providing it are more important because good people produce good products and services. You need to make sure that you’re seen as a really good person, and this is why your story is really important.
Your History
Take people through your history. Where you’ve been and where you have come from.
Today
Give people a good overview of who you are today.
The Team
The most important part is describing the team. Share how good they are, where they’ve come from, what their qualifications are, what’s their story?
One of the most important bio titbits is to share each team member’s favourite food, people love hearing about this. Add some real character in communicating who your team really are.
3. Products and Services
Your products and services need to be communicated really well.
They need to have an immense amount of detail in them. The more detail, the better. You can never have enough detail.
High Level
What’s the summary of your products and services, the features, the benefits, and how do they operate?
More Detail
What’s the next level of detail? So, each of those points you’ve raised in the summary page, you need to break them into more detail and more detail. You might have four pages of the next level of information. And then, you know what?
Create Even More Detail
Then you take it to the next level. What’s the material you use? What are the safety ratings? You can never produce enough detail. Some people just want the summary, which is great, but other people will really drill down. And the more information you can provide, the more people will like and trust you.
4. Process and Journey
Your process and the journey you are going to take your customers on
What’s the experience your customers are going to get? What’s the seven core steps they’re going to go through? What should they expect at every step? What’s required from them, from you? How are they going to see it? When is it going to be delivered? What’s the follow up process? What’s the customer service support (if required)?
You want to detail exactly the experience your customers are going to have by buying your products and services.
5. Content Calendar
Bringing together your Content Calendar
Once you’ve defined what foundational content you need to create, it goes straight into a Content Calendar so you can start working on it. This foundational work is priority number one. Once you have that right, you can move onto the other things, which is the next chapter – content for SEO.
It’s time to do great content marketing!
THE LOTE AGENCY
“Due North gave our website a long overdue and serious overhaul so it now actually ‘works for us’. I love working with Due North, and have recommended them to lots of people.”
Adrienne Meakin
