Dan Martell - How to Create a Content Strategy That Attracts High Quality Prospects

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here, serial entrepreneur,

00:00:01.880 investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:04.280 In this episode, I'm going to share with you

00:00:06.880 how to create a content marketing strategy that

00:00:09.040 attracts high-quality customers and prospects.

00:00:12.120 Now, you might be frustrated with having people show up,

00:00:15.240 spending a lot of time on content that doesn't actually

00:00:17.920 convert or even attract the right people.

00:00:20.480 We're going to solve that in this video.

00:00:22.440 And be sure to stay at the end, where

00:00:24.040 I'm going to share with you access to my winning webinar

00:00:26.960 method, which will help you not only

00:00:28.880 deliver content to your audience,

00:00:30.920 but actually get you customers through that strategy.

00:00:34.320 Let's get into it.

00:00:48.060 Now, real quick, I've been building content marketing

00:00:50.780 strategies for over a decade.

00:00:52.740 I did it with my company, Flowtown.

00:00:54.360 We built a blog that was generating 350,000 uniques

00:00:57.600 per month, which is a primary channel for our SaaS product

00:01:01.500 Flowtown.

00:01:02.400 Did it again with Clarity, where we got even more ninja

00:01:06.420 and actually got the community to contribute the article.

00:01:09.600 So built a whole content marketing and development

00:01:12.720 process that essentially our experts created the content

00:01:16.620 for the blog.

00:01:17.620 And then more recently, with essentially the Dan Martell

00:01:20.220 website, my coaching business, using content

00:01:23.300 to generate hundreds of new leads every week,

00:01:27.260 high quality, very focused and motivated leads.

00:01:30.700 And it's something that I teach my coaching clients

00:01:32.780 that when we start off, I don't think

00:01:35.120 that you should be spending all your time producing content.

00:01:37.580 I think a lot of people just go full in without a strategy.

00:01:41.440 What I show them is a whole different framework

00:01:44.260 to allow them to spend the least amount of time,

00:01:46.740 what I call the minimum effective dose,

00:01:48.760 in regards to content that's going

00:01:50.500 to generate the biggest results and impact

00:01:53.120 when it comes to generating leads and customers for your SaaS.

00:01:56.660 So let's get into it.

00:01:57.720 Number one, start with your ICP.

00:02:00.980 Now, ICP stands for ideal customer profile.

00:02:04.040 Maybe you've heard the term avatar, core customer,

00:02:06.900 et cetera.

00:02:07.760 They all mean the same thing.

00:02:09.160 But if you get that part wrong, if you

00:02:11.480 don't understand who is your perfect customer,

00:02:14.180 then the rest of it falls apart.

00:02:15.680 So for example, when I start working with a new coaching

00:02:18.120 client, the first thing we do is say,

00:02:19.360 where are you at right now from a monthly reoccurring revenue

00:02:21.740 point of view?

00:02:22.480 Where do you want to be in 12 months?

00:02:24.000 Get excited.

00:02:24.720 Let's set a big audacious goal.

00:02:26.480 Let's make it fun.

00:02:28.180 And then ask ourselves, if we had

00:02:30.260 to hang the business on one customer type,

00:02:34.200 based on the product that we have, the speed to buy,

00:02:37.640 and the unmet needs of their market, who would that be?

00:02:41.720 And we define them.

00:02:42.760 We get really clear on the industry,

00:02:44.540 and the size of the business, and the employee numbers,

00:02:46.920 and their specific pain, and maybe some other technologies

00:02:49.240 that they're using.

00:02:49.740 So we can get really, really, really clear

00:02:52.340 on who that customer is.

00:02:53.520 And then we lock it in.

00:02:54.560 We name them, and everything we talk about going forward

00:02:58.160 in this episode is based on that.

00:03:00.860 If you don't have that, recently I

00:03:02.480 was working with a new client, and they were really

00:03:05.120 having a hard time picking that person

00:03:06.820 because they had such a broad, horizontal product

00:03:09.620 that they just felt like, oh, but if I choose that,

00:03:12.200 then the bigger opportunity could be some results.

00:03:15.140 And all I said is, we don't need to make it a forever decision.

00:03:17.760 We just need to make it for the next 12 months.

00:03:19.940 And all we're trying to do is build up our MRR,

00:03:22.360 build up our revenue so that we can then reinvest in growth

00:03:25.060 and we can broaden our strategy.

00:03:27.100 But if we don't pick today, the rest of the content

00:03:30.300 is not going to support our marketing channel.

00:03:32.800 It's not going to produce the results that you want.

00:03:34.840 So number one, be sure to choose the right ideal customer

00:03:38.060 profile.

00:03:38.840 Number two, five frustrations.

00:03:41.320 This is the way I think about it.

00:03:42.740 Once we have that ICP, that customer profile,

00:03:45.160 we give him a name.

00:03:45.860 Let's call him John.

00:03:46.920 We then got to ask ourselves, for John,

00:03:49.600 What are the five frustrations that show up in his world

00:03:53.840 as it pertains to his job?

00:03:55.420 He could be the CEO, or he could have a role like leading

00:03:57.980 the marketing department.

00:03:59.620 And we've got to ask ourselves, if we were sitting there

00:04:02.360 as a fly on the wall, listening to John complain

00:04:06.360 about the challenges that he's facing in his business,

00:04:09.720 what are some of those frustrations, those challenges,

00:04:12.880 those issues that John might be having that we can help him

00:04:17.660 with with our product.

00:04:19.620 And that to me is the first core area

00:04:22.460 that we need to focus on is what are those five categories

00:04:26.200 of frustrations that John's having, your ideal customer,

00:04:30.480 so that we can start thinking about the types of content

00:04:33.440 that we can produce.

00:04:34.280 Because what we want to do, I call it chocolate broccoli,

00:04:37.340 is we need to produce content that speaks to the chocolate,

00:04:41.760 the need, the frustrations that John has,

00:04:44.760 so that we can create a bridge, which I'm going to share

00:04:47.460 how to do that so that we can present the broccoli,

00:04:50.300 what we know John needs, which is our solution.

00:04:53.240 So if you haven't figured out the three minimum, but ideally

00:04:56.740 five frustration flows that your ideal customer has.

00:05:00.620 So for example, in my business, working with SaaS founders,

00:05:03.660 it's things like churn, pricing, sales, team leadership,

00:05:09.220 and obviously marketing, demand generation.

00:05:12.120 Those are my five.

00:05:13.120 So all my different types of content

00:05:15.060 kind of follows within those five frustration flows,

00:05:18.000 because those are things that I can help them with.

00:05:19.820 But I'm giving them the chocolate first.

00:05:21.560 For example, I know content around top of funnel,

00:05:24.840 marketing, et cetera, is going to produce way better engagement

00:05:27.940 than something around retention and churn.

00:05:30.060 But I also know that that's the chocolate

00:05:32.460 and this is the broccoli.

00:05:34.020 And the reason why we do those five

00:05:35.640 is because our ideal customer profile

00:05:37.460 could be in market for different pains

00:05:40.200 that they're trying to solve at different times of the year.

00:05:43.060 So if we just talk about one of those,

00:05:44.980 then if they're not feeling that frustration,

00:05:46.900 they're not going to engage with our content.

00:05:48.700 But if we can figure out three to five of those frustration

00:05:51.540 flows, then we're going to get John

00:05:53.200 based on where he's at in the cycle

00:05:56.020 of just being frustrated and looking for a solution

00:05:58.620 to solve that problem.

00:05:59.720 So figure out your five.

00:06:00.900 Number three, teach to solve.

00:06:03.180 Here's the way I think about it.

00:06:04.360 It's education-based marketing.

00:06:05.780 It's one of the most powerful marketing strategies

00:06:08.440 because not only do we create a lot of value up front,

00:06:11.180 We actually build authority and thought leadership

00:06:13.940 in our market.

00:06:14.840 And we show our prospects

00:06:16.760 that we know the problem that they're having

00:06:18.800 and how to solve it.

00:06:20.100 So the way I think about it is once

00:06:21.500 we have those five frustration flows,

00:06:23.280 we then want to ask ourselves, what

00:06:25.140 are the 10 types of areas around that,

00:06:28.380 different segments of pains or things

00:06:31.540 that we could share with them to really educate them

00:06:33.880 on becoming better at that area?

00:06:36.520 Or maybe just go deeper on subcategories of challenges

00:06:39.460 they're having around each one of those frustrations.

00:06:41.920 Because if we get 10 for each five,

00:06:45.040 then that's if we publish once a week,

00:06:46.460 that's 50 pieces of content per year,

00:06:48.700 and we create our whole content marketing schedule.

00:06:51.820 So here's a way to think about it.

00:06:53.860 Ask them, OK?

00:06:55.140 Ryan Levesque, one of my coaching clients

00:06:57.140 and a good friend of mine, has a book called Ask.

00:06:59.420 And in the book, he talks about the SMIQ,

00:07:03.760 the single most important question.

00:07:05.680 And it's really asking your clients or your customers

00:07:08.400 or the market, based on this challenge,

00:07:11.260 you pick one of the five, what is the single biggest challenge

00:07:15.060 you have around solving that problem?

00:07:16.440 So around that problem, what is the single biggest challenge

00:07:18.560 you have solving that problem?

00:07:19.840 And then you use that to create the articles around that.

00:07:22.860 And the reason why, I'm going to tell you in the next step,

00:07:25.460 is we want to really kind of explore

00:07:28.320 the pains of our customers around that frustration

00:07:30.880 from their words.

00:07:32.360 Too often, we create content based

00:07:34.480 on what we think they want.

00:07:35.980 We use terms that they don't use.

00:07:38.280 We talk about things at a very detailed and technical level

00:07:41.940 where they may not be at that level.

00:07:43.600 So we need to make sure that we use their language, their world

00:07:46.040 from the market and use that to drive the content strategy

00:07:49.880 itself.

00:07:50.380 So these are the headlines of the blog post or the videos

00:07:53.060 that you're going to produce.

00:07:54.180 Number four, offer a bribe.

00:07:56.700 So the big thing, no matter what kind of content

00:07:59.260 you produce, right, once you get the five frustration flows

00:08:01.480 and you have this content strategy,

00:08:02.780 kind of high level, the 10 articles for each one of them,

00:08:05.540 You then got to ask yourself, what content bribe can I

00:08:08.960 create, right?

00:08:10.100 What I call, in my world, a beacon lead magnet.

00:08:12.360 That's what I teach my coaching clients.

00:08:13.920 What can I create that allows anybody

00:08:17.540 that has one of those five frustrations the solution

00:08:20.660 to that frustration?

00:08:21.660 And here's why.

00:08:22.520 So if it's, let's say, churn in my world,

00:08:24.980 I have a framework called the Churn Buster Cheat Sheet. 1.00

00:08:27.440 So anytime I talk about retention

00:08:30.020 or increasing your expansion revenue

00:08:32.300 or anything around kind of pricing, et cetera,

00:08:35.600 I'm always going to offer the churn buster cheat sheet 0.99

00:08:38.400 because that is the bribe for that piece of content that's

00:08:43.460 going to fit the best.

00:08:44.760 The reason I share this strategy with you

00:08:46.800 because I think a lot of people just produce content,

00:08:48.800 just continue to produce content, lead magnets, blog

00:08:51.020 posts, et cetera, without a strategy.

00:08:53.120 This framework's going to allow you

00:08:54.380 to spend the least amount of time to get the biggest impact.

00:08:57.520 So for me, the best lead magnets, or what I call beacon lead

00:09:00.780 magnet has, really, first part of it is that it's sage, OK?

00:09:04.540 And I got this from my buddy, Taki Moore.

00:09:06.000 Sage means simple or short, actionable, goal-oriented,

00:09:09.860 and easy.

00:09:10.900 The days of the 75-page e-books or the ultimate blog post,

00:09:14.580 that's great for top of funnel. 1.00

00:09:16.140 But if we want to get somebody to download something

00:09:18.060 we know can get them a result, just give them

00:09:20.040 the checklist, the blueprint, et cetera.

00:09:21.960 Short, actionable, goal-oriented, and easy.

00:09:24.560 Three parts, though, when we design this lead magnet.

00:09:28.100 First part is position your product.

00:09:30.540 Talk about who you are as an author

00:09:31.980 and the product that you've built and how it helps clients.

00:09:34.320 So that's the first page.

00:09:35.660 Then you talk about solving the problem that you've promised.

00:09:38.540 You made a promise for why they're downloading this thing.

00:09:40.620 Give it to them.

00:09:41.340 That's the middle part.

00:09:42.720 And then at the end, you want to have a call to action,

00:09:45.000 essentially saying, if you're having this problem,

00:09:48.120 you've probably tried all these things.

00:09:49.920 Our product will help get you these results.

00:09:52.160 Click the button to start a trial or to schedule a demo.

00:09:55.680 In the beacon lead magnet, in the PDF,

00:09:58.320 you need to have a call to action that

00:09:59.640 clicks into your trial or your demo.

00:10:02.680 So that way, think about it.

00:10:03.860 We have top of funnel content that's

00:10:05.680 producing really great information to help them.

00:10:07.980 We have the call to action on that post

00:10:10.080 to download our lead magnet, our bribe.

00:10:13.080 And then in there, we have a call to action

00:10:15.180 to get them into our trial or demo.

00:10:18.200 That is why this process works so effectively.

00:10:21.700 And number five, write for you.

00:10:24.100 Now, I'm not going to give you the template

00:10:25.760 for how to create a great blog article and what's involved.

00:10:28.340 But I will say this.

00:10:29.600 Too often, I work with clients that come to me

00:10:32.360 and they have a blog, and I look at the content

00:10:34.560 and I go, who wrote this?

00:10:35.460 And they're like, we hired a writer and we stopped

00:10:37.840 about two months ago, just wasn't producing anything.

00:10:40.700 And I ask them a simple question.

00:10:42.140 Would you read the content your writer wrote?

00:10:45.500 And they go, no.

00:10:47.340 If you aren't the first consumer of the content,

00:10:53.000 then don't produce it.

00:10:54.800 To me, it's right for you.

00:10:56.520 You write it because you really enjoy the research

00:10:59.220 and understanding the problem so that you

00:11:00.840 can use that to connect with the customer better,

00:11:02.640 so you can make better product decisions.

00:11:04.480 So you solve it, you write it for yourself,

00:11:06.660 and look at it as almost like producing content

00:11:09.520 to learn more about your customer's pain, right?

00:11:11.700 Because I really believe we need to fall in love

00:11:13.160 with the problem.

00:11:14.040 We don't want to fall in love with the solution,

00:11:15.600 because that's going to change around.

00:11:17.840 But then if you do that, great, because you're hopefully

00:11:20.880 writing something you would read because you wrote it.

00:11:22.880 Other than that, you hire writers to produce content.

00:11:25.400 You need to make sure that they produce stuff

00:11:26.980 that you would want to read.

00:11:28.220 Because if you don't want to read it, trust me,

00:11:30.200 your prospects and the visitors don't want to read it either.

00:11:32.740 It's just information.

00:11:33.820 It's not marketing.

00:11:34.900 So I also believe there's a zen diagram between information

00:11:37.940 and marketing content, right?

00:11:39.460 So information content is just like about.com.

00:11:43.340 Content marketing has a call to action.

00:11:45.760 And that, to me, is the key differentiator.

00:11:47.960 It has a CTA.

00:11:49.560 So on the blog post, at the top third,

00:11:51.740 you want to have a call to action

00:11:52.940 to download your lead magnet.

00:11:54.220 On the bottom, you want to have a big image of it

00:11:56.140 with a big opt-in form so they can download it.

00:11:58.640 And if you do that, not only does it

00:12:01.060 attract the perfect ideal customer profile,

00:12:04.120 you can also use it in your sales process

00:12:07.000 to help prospects understand how your product can serve better.

00:12:11.220 So it's even great for top, middle, and bottom

00:12:13.540 of the funnel content for your sales team

00:12:15.880 or to use in your trial campaigns

00:12:17.860 to really engage your customers.

00:12:19.340 Incredible strategy, simple, minimum effective dose,

00:12:22.300 essentially the 80-20 rule applied to content marketing.

00:12:25.240 So quick recap.

00:12:26.140 Number one, start with your ICP, your ideal customer profile.

00:12:29.560 Number two, figure out their five frustrations

00:12:32.820 that you can help them, that your product can help them with.

00:12:35.560 Three, teach to solve.

00:12:37.540 Make sure you ask them their challenges

00:12:39.160 around those specific frustrations

00:12:40.840 and educate them to build great marketing content.

00:12:43.480 Four, offer a bribe.

00:12:45.460 We need to create something that is short, actionable, goal

00:12:48.600 oriented, and easy that's going to get them to give us

00:12:51.180 their email address.

00:12:52.860 And number five, we want to write for you, essentially for us.

00:12:57.120 Either we write it because we're excited to learn,

00:12:59.240 or B, that something you would want to read.

00:13:02.160 As I mentioned at the beginning, I

00:13:03.380 want to share with you access to an incredible training

00:13:06.160 called the Winning Webinar Method.

00:13:07.860 Recently, one of my clients, Trevor,

00:13:09.900 used this webinar strategy to add an extra million dollars

00:13:13.500 in new ARR to their business in six months.

00:13:16.660 And the neat part is I've always trained my clients

00:13:19.660 to do it for top of funnel marketing,

00:13:21.360 but Trevor used it for selling his existing customers

00:13:24.720 through an upsell strategy and a cross-sell.

00:13:26.620 So it works for both lead generation, adding a ton of value,

00:13:30.340 and also getting you new customers,

00:13:31.740 as well as expanding your revenue to existing customers.

00:13:35.340 It's awesome.

00:13:35.900 Click the link below to get access to that.

00:13:38.160 If you like this video, be sure to smash the like button.

00:13:40.540 Subscribe to this channel.

00:13:41.940 And leave a comment and let me know

00:13:43.420 what part of this framework was the most valuable for you.

00:13:47.500 As per usual, I want to challenge you

00:13:48.940 to live a bigger life, and a bigger business,

00:13:50.820 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:13:55.140 Perfect.

00:13:55.980 It's good, eh? 0.98

00:13:56.820 It's just ridiculous. 0.98

Dan Martell - July 15, 2019

How to Create a Content Strategy That Attracts High Quality Prospects

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