Gentle Marketing, Strong Writing How to naturally attract new customers and create raving fans – without selling your

soul or pretending to be something you’re not.

Seven Oaks Consulting – www.sevenoaksconsulting.com

What do you want for your business? Obviously, you want to make money. To make money, you need new customers. You also need repeat business. But in order to have both…you need to get the

word out that your business exists. That’s where many business owners stumble. And, we’re sorry to say…fail.

What Do You Really Want?

The Excuses

Does any of this sound familiar? • “I hate marketing.” • “Marketing is all about hype. I’m not about that.” • “I can’t be a phony. I hate phonies!” • “Salespeople are slimy. They make you buy stuff

you don’t want.” • “Marketing just wastes money.” • “I don’t have the time to promote my business.” • “Well, I ran an ad in the newspaper last year and

it didn’t work, so I don’t do any promotions now.”

But What’s Really Going On?

• Lack of knowledge…business owners aren’t trained in marketing, sales or promotion. They know they need to promote their business, but they aren’t sure how.

• Lack of confidence…they may have good ideas, but aren’t sure they’ll work. They may lack confidence in their abilities to know, understand and enact successful marketing campaigns.

But What’s Really Going On?

You feel like you don’t know what to say to promote your business, so you copy what you see others doing…and it feels wrong. It feels like you’re wearing someone else’s shoes, and they don’t fit.

It’s time to make a choice.

You Have Choices Will you… • Buy into the myth that marketing = hype? Or… • Explore the alternatives?

Consider the Alternative ATTRACT the right customers by

providing them with exactly what they crave….

CONTENT MARKETING The alternative is called…

Content Marketing Is Attraction Marketing

Like flowers attracting bees, content marketing attracts the right customer, and creates loyal fans, by giving them the information and knowledge they crave about your business, products, services and industry.

Content Marketing Is Gentle Marketing

• Content marketing provides your customers with the information, resources and more to attract them to your website.

• A website rich in resources, information, entertainment and education attracts and engages customers.

• You become their “go to” source for information on a topic….

• …and change the casual site visitor into a loyal FAN

Content Marketing Use Is Growing

• 91% of B2B (business to business) marketers use some form of content marketing (http://www.toprankblog.com/2012/11/100-b2b-content-marketing-statistics-for-2013/)

• 9 out of 10 B2B marketing organizations used content marketing in 2011 (http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/6539/2012-content-marketing-benchmarks-budgets-and-trends)

• Marketers spend, on average, 25% of their budgets on content marketing of some form (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/12/2012-b2b-content-marketing-research/)

Content Marketing Is Gentle Marketing

• Content marketing is education marketing. • Good selling is really the process of educating the

customer about the benefits and features of a product or service.

• When someone learns, listens and remembers, your job as a marketer is complete. No hype needed.

• Cuts through the cacophony and clutter of advertising…and consumers are tuning out ads.

The Gentle Marketing, Strong Writing Content Marketing Cycle

Research Topics

Develop rich, multimedia

content

Post and share links

Encourage participation, fans, follows,

likes

Review results.

Repeat what works.

Types of Content

• Long Form – Case Studies – eBooks – White papers – Articles – Videos – Presentations – Books – Other

• Short – Blog posts – Infographics – Social media posts – Micro sites – Other

CENTRAL IDEA

Long Form

Short Form

How Do You Begin?

• Know who you are – and more importantly, what you do for your customers (features, benefits, advantages).

• Create a master list of concepts and ideas. • Break down the concepts and ideas into 12

monthly topics.

How Do You Begin?

• Determine where your target customer (‘niche audience’) goes for information and join the conversation or find ways to get in front of them.

• Learn what types of content they like – videos, articles, blog posts, funny pictures, what?

• Research key search engine terms and infuse/tag your content.

• Get creating! • Get posting! • Share!

How Do You Begin?

• Measure the results. • What worked? What didn’t? • Repeat what worked…get rid of what didn’t. • Keep going… • Build your audience. • Build traffic. • Keep going!

But That’s Too Much Work!

You have a choice (remember?) You can keep things the way they are now… …or try something different to get different

results. If you aren’t a strong writer, work with a good

content marketing firm or freelance writer who can convey your unique insights to your target audience.

About Seven Oaks Consulting

• Founded in 2008 by award-winning writer and marketing expert Jeanne Grunert.

• Works with small businesses, entrepreneurs, others.

• Clients include education companies and entrepreneurs, media and publishing companies, health and wellness, marketing agencies.

• Offers content marketing, website evaluations, writing services and “gentle marketing” mentoring and coaching.

Jeanne Grunert President, Seven Oaks Consulting

• 20+ years experience as a writer, marketing expert and entrepreneur.

• Education includes M.A. Writing and M.S. in Direct and Interactive Marketing.

• Known for her warm, candid style and ability to bring clarity to tough marketing challenges.

• Recipient of the Lester Wunderman Award of Excellence in Direct Marketing.

• Founder of two companies. • Gardens, play classical piano and

rescues cats in her spare time.

About the Images

All images in this presentation are © 2013 by Jeanne Grunert.

Photo of Jeanne Grunert by John Grunert and used with permission.

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Seven Oaks Consulting www.sevenoaksconsulting.com