Content marketing is an essential component to growing your VoiceOver business. The VO Boss podcast is collaborating with content strategist Pamela Muldoon to uncover the most effective ways to use this style of marketing. Whether you realize it or not, you are probably already involved in content marketing in one way or another. Social media, blogging, podcasting, and YouTube are just some of the facets that comprise this strategy. But what specifically constitutes content marketing and how can you use it to succeed in voice over?
What is Content Marketing?
In order to understand content marketing, you have to first understand what marketing really is. Essentially, marketing is any message that you share as a business owner that either directly results in or involves the intention for people to buy from you. It’s important to adopt a solution mindset when creating content for marketing. Voice actors tend to focus their marketing efforts by describing what they can do, rather than what problems they can solve for the client. By getting to know your audience, your customer’s journey, and their pain points, you can better align your content to provide solutions that your customers need. Begin by considering your customer's day-to-day experience. Take the time to develop a buyer persona (or avatar in marketing terms). Create a “journey” that your customer goes through when purchasing a service that you provide. Be as specific as possible. For example, consider an e-learning curriculum developers process. Build a persona or avatar around who they are and the journey they take when hiring a voice actor for their project. Then you are ready to start creating content for that specific persona.
How to Use Content Marketing to your advantage
Content marketing helps your business to be discoverable. The content you create should address how your product or service would make your clients' life easier. It’s critical to create a positive buyer experience and not to give your clients “homework”. These tiny little differences can make or break your relationship with the client. That might mean making your information available through a series of blogs or a checklist. It might be solution-focused content they can download from your website, as well as opting in to receive additional information. Remember to make sure the information you’re providing is specific and helpful to your audience/persona.
Mindset to Methodology: Put it into action
Instead of asking “What kind of content should I create?”, try asking “what are my audience’s needs and how do they want to ingest this content?”. Address the ideation process thoughtfully by thinking of your audience or persona first. What stage in the buying journey are they in? Are they just becoming aware that they have a problem that you could solve? Do they already know they have a problem and are evaluating their options? Are you one of those options? Once you know who they are and where they are in the process, you can formulate content that’s specific to their needs.
More focus means more money!
The more you focus your content on the buyer's needs, the more likely it is that they will be ready to buy when they visit your website. Online purchasing has garnered 60-70% of the current market, which means that the content you produce online is more important than ever. Great content can help you step into the light as an authority in your industry, and generate more revenue for your business.
Where does SEO fit in?
Google’s algorithm continues to evolve toward a content-first approach. The more content you provide the more likely it is for those words to get indexed by google search engines. This can help increase your SEO. It’s important to generate content the same way we speak and ask questions. You want your business to be on the first page of your client's search results. First page search results directly translate to more business.
Quality versus Quantity
There is an age-old debate about quality versus quantity in terms of content. Based on research, it seems that the magic number for blog posts is 11 per month. At this rate you may see a significant increase in SEO and website traffic. Blogs that are 1200-2000 words tend to be more successful than blogs that are 500 or less. That again, comes down to feeding your audience what they need. Blogs need to engage the reader. When blog quality increases, time on your site increases, as well as your ability to educate your audience in a more effective way. Research shows that consistency matched with high-quality content gets shared and can drive your website to the top of your client's search results.
There’s a lot to learn from the world of content marketing. A huge takeaway is the importance of taking your buyer’s perspective when creating content and making it about helping them. Remember, content marketing is not about you and what you have to sell but about how you can solve your client’s problems.
If you would like to learn more, listen to the rest of the discussion on our podcast below. You can catch all the episodes in our content marketing series at voboss.com.
Much love and Keep on rockin' your biz.
XOXO,
About the Author: Anne Ganguzza is a full-time voice talent and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voice over and business skills - including VO demo training and production. She specializes in Conversational Commercial and Narration styles, including Corporate, E-Learning, Technology, Healthcare - Medical,Telephony, and On-Hold. Located in Orange County, CA, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students in person and via Skype, ipDTL or Zoom.