During the 2013 Problogger conference, I attended a session called ‘Selling Stuff’ run by Shayne Tilley. Tilley hasShayne Tilley been involved in selling 30 million worth of ebooks – this guy knows his stuff – so when he talks you listen! He started the session, getting all of us to stand — I’m that awkward person who cringes at the thought of audience participation — so I cringed and bit my tongue, and it was only on reflection that I realised how powerful his exercise was. Tilley got everyone — let’s say 100 people to stand. He said these are the people who visit your website. He then asked the left side (where I was sitting) to sit. Phew my participation had ended! He said us on the left represented the people who visit a website briefly and then leave never to return. He then asked the back four rows on the right to also sit. These guys represented people who visit your website, explore it for a few minutes, and then leave. You get the gist of it, the next four rows were asked to sit, then the next four rows were asked to sit, until we only had two people at the very front standing. These two people, out of the entire audience represented the people who visited a websites, and went through to make a purchase. Tilley used this exercise to clearly demonstrate how important it was, to not only get people to your website, but to keep them there, and to get them to return repeatedly, and to part with their hard earned cash and make a purchase.

With this realisation in mind, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss the importance of Content Marketing. Adam Wallace Founder and Digital Marketing Director of Content First, has developed an informative presentation called ‘The Secrets of Profitable Content Marketing’.

Wallace breaks down the importance of content marketing, for attracting people to your website, and in turn converting them into paying customers. As Tilley demonstrated it’s not as easy as you would think. You can have a great product, but your website needs to attract as many people as possible and get them to open their wallets – preferably as wide as possible!

Jump to slide number 9 in the presentation ‘What magnetic forces can you use to attract customers’. Do you understand where people are currently coming from to visit your website? Through analysis I found that a random quote I had about Albert Einstein on my own site was attracting people researching Einstein to my web-site – which really was not helping either of us! Can you build on what is currently attracting people to your website and expand your potential net of customers? In fact do you even know how to attract more people to your website?

Leap across to slide 15 in the presentation ‘Write a Short, Sweet & Memorable Slogan’. Wallace highlights that the slogan should be memorable, differentiating your brand and include key benefits of what you have to offer. Polaroid ‘The fun develops instantly’ — remember those clunky cameras that took grainy photos. You’d wait for them to develop and have a giggle. Great slogans capture the essence of a business. A business I’m closely aligned to, Xero online accounting software has the slogan “do beautiful business”, and whenever I’m working on reports for clients, I almost feel like framing the reports, they are so crisp clear modern and beautiful. It really is beautiful.

Fall across to slide 16 which is my favourite slide of the presentation – Use Magnetic Headlines. It includes examples of how to generate magnetic headlines which almost inspires blog post, articles and discussions! As a writer, I know sometimes the headline comes first, and once I have the headline, the rest of the article falls into place.
Take for example “How to Explore Barossa With Children” could be recreated into;
  • How to Explore Xero with your Business Coach…
  • How to Explore your Balance Sheet with your Banker…
  • How to Explore your Profit and Loss Statement with your business partner…

Of course you would turn the headings to suit your own requirements, but you can see how they sound interesting, and how they will attract the right sort of person to your website. Great content will keep them there, will encourage them to bookmark you site, will make them trust you to open up their wallet and spend with you!

The next few slides in ‘The Secrets of Profitable Content Marketing’ presentation show the real results of side by side offers and calls to actions. Take a look and see if you can work out which website you’re attracted to, and what works in his presentation — in some cases lifting click through rate 2666%. How can you use this in your own online presence?

On slide thirty six, Wallace includes the technical definition of Content Marketing:

Content Marketing is turning your insights and advice into campaigns that change people’s minds and incite action.

Take a look at the slide and how he presents that definition — not in simple black and white. In keeping with the rest of the slide deck, Wallace uses grey hues and bold orange visuals, which he keeps consistent throughout the presentation and his business branding.

Wallace goes on in to explain the definition in a nutshell

[Tweet “Content Marketing is the art of winning business without pushy selling.”]

I hate pushy slimey sales people so this sentence really resonates with me. Wallace goes on to further explain this concept with the next few slides, explaining what content marketing is and what it can do for your brand.

Then in the presentation Wallace introduces an 8 step Content Marketing plan, you can adopt in your own business.

Parachute across to slide 53 to work your way through the eight steps, or land on slide 89 for the summary,

and work your way backwards. I especially like slide 73 The 21 types of content we all crave.

Being a numbers person, I guess I always like the pieces laid out in front of me.

Finally on slide 92 we have a recap of what Wallace has told us about Contents Marketing. It’s quite an epic and informative presentation — a perfect example of content marketing CONTENT MARKETING! If you find it useful, you might find yourself revisiting the slide presentation a few times, mulling over ideas in your head, absorbing what you need to know about Content Marketing and how you can use this concept to turn your website into a cash cow!
[Tweet “I’ve just read a dissection of “The Secrets of Profitable Content Marketing”]
Shayne Tilley
http://shaynetilley.com/
ProBlogger Conference – click through to access a virtual pass to the conference (affiliate link).
Adam Wallace Content First.com.au
Disclaimer: 
I paid to attend the Problogger conference.
I’ve been both a client & customer of Mr Wallace and always impressed at how he rides the bleeding edge of technology.
Before I realised how mega-awesome and accomplished Mr Tilley was I chatted to him at the ProBlogger conference — I’m not worthy!