Tips for Exceptional DIY Marketing & Content Writing
As a business owner, you may feel underprepared to tackle some pieces of your business. Whether it be the finances, marketing strategies, or how to onboard team members or freelancers, we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
It’s hard to expect you to be good at everything!
So today, we’re going to help you conquer just one piece of your business:
Email Marketing & SEO Blogging
Whether you end up outsourcing most of the content creation, or you prefer DIY marketing, understanding the principles behind email marketing and SEO blogging is important as you look to grow your business. They are both great tools to allow you to deeply engage with and educate your customers with meaningful information about your company, your brand, and your products and services.
Let’s start with the basics!
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is just as it sounds: intentionally emailing your audience regular newsletters in an effort to build trust with them so that they eventually turn around and buy your product or service!
Ways email marketing takes shape includes:
- Sales/Email Funnels: A sequence of emails that gradually allow your customer to get to know you before they eventually decide to make a purchase are a MUST in a marketing strategy. Watch this training to learn more!
- Event Reminders: Emails are essential in educating your audience on an event coming up and reminding them of said event. You can build hype with a series of emails.
- Education: Your audience doesn’t know what they don’t know! Email marketing is a great avenue for education, giving them a peek behind the curtain and allowing them to get to know your craft and want to be a part of it.
- Sales: Of course, your emails should also include the occasional hard sell where you ask them to make a purchase. Occasionally, you can draw them in with a sale or exclusive deals.
- Welcome Emails: We couldn’t leave out welcome emails! These are in fact the FIRST email you should send your customers when they join your email list. It’s a confirmation that they successfully joined your newsletter, and now they have your email as well. This email is also a good place to provide them with resources, allow them to get to know you, and serve as just a general hello!
Email marketing allows you to engage with your customers directly. You are in their inbox, and even if they don’t read every word of every email, you’re allowing yourself to stay top of mind.
What is SEO Blogging?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Blogging is writing strategic content with the goal of answering the questions your clients are asking while also improving your website’s ranking on search engines like Google.
Most blogs have an educational focus and should be written with the customer in mind. SEO blogging is no different! But, when blogging for SEO, you’re also using strategic keywords with the hopes of your website showing up towards the top of the Google search and being seen as a trusted source.
Common blog topics include…
- Answering common FAQs within your industry
- Giving the history of your business
- Highlighting products or services and why they’re important
- Busting common myths or misconceptions in your industry
- Educating your customers with relevant tips or tricks
- Case Studies
SEO blogging allows you to keep your business “living,” and shows Google and your visitors that you are active and education focused.
How do they work together?
Guess what?
Once you start one of these tactics, the other is not far behind! As a business owner, you don’t have time to write brand new, totally unique content every time you sit down to put together a new email newsletter.
Our big tip for you is REUSE, REUSE, REUSE!
Start by writing your SEO blog, then use that content to inspire your email newsletters. You can even pull chunks of text from that blog, or use the blog itself as a newsletter. You may feel like you’re repeating yourself, but people actually need to see the same information about seven times before they make the decision to buy. So go ahead and strategically simplify your life by repurposing your content.
Oh, and you can use that same content to inspire a number of social posts, too. 😉
How often should I put out content?
In terms of frequency, a good rule of thumb is to commit to whatever you can stick to.
Consistency is a huge player in boosting engagement and SEO. You don’t want to overcommit and quickly burn out.
If you’re starting with nothing and just making the leap into blogging and emails, try once a quarter. Then, once you have a few under your belt, try to work your way up to one blog and one newsletter per month. Then, if you’re knocking them out, stick to monthly blogs but start email marketing every other week or once a week.
Essentially, find a system that works for you and STICK TO IT.
Why Email Marketing & SEO Blogging are so Important
Okay, the big question.
“Does this all even matter?”
Yes!
“But why does it matter? I feel like my inbox is overloaded with emails!”
So are ours! That’s life in the 21st century. We know it can feel like a waste of time sending emails to your clients when their email inboxes are already so full. However, it’s absolutely NOT a waste!
If you are ONLY relying on your website or social media or even just word of mouth to bring in customers, you’re missing out on huge growth.
The Benefits of Email Marketing
- Staying top of mind
- Staying connected
- Being a fail safe when social or your website goes down (it’s happened before, it can happen again!)
- Providing an opportunity for your audience to respond right back to you
The Benefits of SEO Blogging
- Keeping your website “living”
- Elevating your page and content on Google search
- Answering your audience’s questions BEFORE they ask
- Position yourself as a leader in your industry
It can feel daunting to take that jump, but we assure you that both of these tactics will transform your marketing whether you hire out or choose DIY marketing.
If you DO want help, the Oakes Creative House team is a call away. We offer FREE 30 minute discovery calls to help you nail down how we can help. We can be an advisor to your DIY marketing (check out our FREEBIES), or take on your blogging and newsletters entirely, if that’s more your style.
Wherever you go from here, you’ve got this!
Happy writing!
