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Taking Control of Your Future With Network Marketing

Ross Crawford

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur? Do you want to take control of your finances, your life, and your time? Does the thought of paying tens of thousands of dollars in business startup fees or applying for a loan to secure a franchise intimidate you? Can you set accurate goals and stick to them?

If so, there is another option.

In the ultra-connected world of today, it has never been easier to take control of your future. Opportunities abound for those who are willing to work hard, network with others, and think outside the box. With current technologies facilitating and even encouraging an online presence and social connectedness, there has never been a better time to take charge of your network marketing career.

What is network marketing?

Network marketing (or multi-level marketing) is a business opportunity for people who are looking for are looking for flexibility in choosing how and when they want to work and be rewarded for the effort that person is willing to put into succeeding instead of just being paid to show up to work. Some very well-known companies in America can be considered network marketing businesses, including Tupperware, Avon, Nu Skin, Juice Plus, and Mark Kay cosmetics. According to the Direct Selling Association (www.dsa.org), at least 18 million people in the United States are involved in direct sales and network marketing, which added approximately $34.9 billion to the economy in retail sales in 2017.

How does it work?

Multi-level marketing involves the direct sales of a product or products with the participants paid on a commission basis. Additionally, the network marketer can sponsor/recruit other people to join their network and receive a commission based on what their recruits sell. These recruits then pursue creating their own network of sellers and selling their products. The original marketer also receives a portion of the commission from their affiliates’ recruits. This creates a hierarchal network of distributors that can increase sales, recruitment, mentorship, and potential profits.

How are Network Marketing Businesses superior to Conventional Businesses?

There are many ways that a network marketing business is superior to a conventional business. This can include:

Low cost of startup
Ease of entry
Mentorship available
Low Overhead cost
No advertising cost
Flexible hours
Meeting new people
Global Reach
Potential for worldwide growth
Technology Driven
Results & Performance driven
Being your own boss

Generally, the cost to start out as a network marketer is low compared to starting a conventional business. Entry costs generally consist of purchasing a starter kit, product samples, and training materials. This cost can be as low as $100, with the higher range being around $500. This low cost of entry allows the seller to start collecting profits sooner than most conventional businesses, which after startup costs, can take a significant amount of time (months or years) to secure a return on investment.

There are few barriers to entering the field of network marketing. There are usually no educational requirements. In fact, mentorship is often provided, as there is a vested interest in making sure that the new marketer to the network has the skills to move products and recruit additional members to the network. There are no income requirements and very minimal startup costs. The low cost of entry makes network marketing a viable opportunity for almost everyone. Since a network marketer can work from anywhere, there are no rents to pay, no utility bills to pay, no employee costs, equipment maintenance, or equipment upgrades to pay for. In fact, a network marketer can get started using only the phone in their pockets or the tablet in their backpack.

One of the primary (and expensive!) costs of a business is advertising. According to Wordstream, online advertising costs for the average small business using Google advertising are between $9000 and $10,000 per month. Advertising can take a SERIOUS bite out of your profits! Luckily, as a network marketer for an established brand like Avon or Tupperware, that advertising structure is already in place, and the customer has most likely already heard of the company and will have a general idea of the products you are selling. Your part in the process is just to promote yourself and your products using social media, blogs, or word of mouth in your social circles and local venues.

Another giant plus in favour of network marketing versus operating a conventional business is the ability to set your own work schedule. This allows the network marketer to achieve the work & life balance that they desire. The flexibility to choose when and how hard you work is one of the primary attractions that draw entrepreneurs to network and multi-level marketing. This flexibility and freedom to choose are great for stay-at-home moms or dads, retirees, those who are financially stable but looking for a little extra cash, or basically anyone who prefers to not be locked down by the normal 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week grind. Too many people sacrifice quality time with their loved ones or do not pursue their hobbies because of onerous time burdens placed on them by their conventional jobs and worry about their careers. Of course, the more time and effort you put into growing your network and selling your products, the more successful you will be as a network marketer. However, there is no pressure to perform. You set your own goals and create your own sales and recruitment goals.

Getting the chance to socialize and getting to meet new people is another great benefit of becoming a network marketer. Socialization is a key aspect of the business model. This can include traditional socialization, getting out and meeting your customers and recruits face to face, or being focused on using social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other platforms to promote yourself, your team, and your products. Using online resources can increase your reach to customers around the globe. Now more than ever, the world is one global marketplace, with emerging markets and opportunities arising every day. Thanks to the internet and technological advances, the network marketer is not limited to one town, state, or even country! It is even possible to secure your own products and start your own multi-level marketing company, but obviously, this comes with increased costs, risks, and workload than joining an established network marketing company.

Another benefit to becoming a network marketer is the range of technological tools available to help you become a successful seller, recruiter, and team manager. The low cost of web hosting and the ease of creating your own distinct website with a website builder or content management system makes every marketer capable of promoting their products and team worldwide in a very short amount of time after startup. Additionally, there are Customer Relationship Management Apps available that allow a network marketer to manage their products, track messages, store client information, create to-do lists and more right from their phone or tablet. These apps can provide critical data like pipeline information, sales tracking, sales forecasts, and message history to enable marketers to maintain complete control over their business and ensure they meet or exceed their sales targets. These tools and apps can help simplify and streamline your business, allowing you to spend more time working on the life balance instead of working.

Performance drives the results of a network marketer. To be successful, you must produce results. The successful marketer must make sales, recruit other marketers, be self-motivated, and manage your time effectively. Network marketing and direct sales are perfect for the motivated and energetic person who loves getting the results that they strive for. Network marketing is not a field for those who are content to sit behind a desk for eight or ten hours a day performing repetitive and monotonous tasks. Network marketing appeals to those who prefer a challenge and who like to feel rewarded for their efforts. While this can seem to be stressful, the important thing to remember is you set your own goals, dictate your own deadlines, and set the standards for what is considered a success. You are basically in control of your own business.

Finally, we get to what some may consider to be the #1 benefit of becoming a network marketer…you work for yourself. You are in control. You are your own boss. Your success or failure depends on one thing – you. The more you sell, the more profit you make. The more affiliates you recruit, the more profit you make. The entire process is in your hands, and you are only limited by what you can imagine and put into practice. Innovators and those who can think outside the box will excel in network marketing, and the chance is open to almost everyone. Do you want to travel to the United States and Canada in an RV? You can create affiliate networks and sell products while you are travelling from the Grand Canyon to the Smithsonian. The opportunities available for a network marketer are only limited by the marketers themselves.

Free Tools & Resources That Make Online Marketing Easier For Network Marketing Professionals

Ross Crawford

As a network marketing professional in 2018, online marketing is essential to business success so our team here at Pamtree have put together a list of free (or very cheap) tools and resources that can make it easier for you to market your business online. Check out the tools here:

Free Tools & Resources That Make Online Marketing Easier For Network Marketing Professionals

How to take your MLM business Global

Ross Crawford

One of the most incredible opportunities that you get with network marketing is the opportunity to create a global business straight away, without all the usual costs and challenges that come with it.
Being able to build a business globally is one thing, but how do you prospect internationally? Don’t worry; it’s not as daunting as it seems. Although, you must know it will be tougher and more work than simply building in your local area. Some of the things you’ll need to consider when building an international team are:

Time difference – you’ll need to make yourself available to support them and that could be the middle of the night for you, depending on the time difference
Language barrier – getting your message across and ensuring you understand each other is one thing, but you’ll also need to make sure the training and prospecting tools are available in their language too.
Local support – every new business owner needs support in their country, whether that’s attending local company events or working with other business owners so you’ll need to research the support your company provides in the countries you are targeting so you know your team members will get the support they need to build successful businesses.

So, now you have an idea of the effort involved in building a global team, let’s look at how you can prospecting internationally…

Personal contacts – this is probably an obvious one, but your personal contacts are the first place to start. You may be thinking you don’t know anyone abroad, but the chances are you do, you just might not know they now live abroad. People’s lives change for many reasons and we grow older so it’s not uncommon for someone you were friends with at school to end up on the other side of the world as they decided to bring their family up somewhere different. It’s quite easy to find out where people are now with a quick social media check. Or you even try something a bit more interactive and ask the question on social media – for example, post on Facebook something similar to this:

“My friend and I were recently discussing how interesting it must be to live in another country and wondered how long it would take to adapt. Have any of my Facebook friends moved abroad? If so, where and how find you find it?”

Be sure to keep your business out of it, as this stage is all about finding potential prospects who you can start building a relationship with. Only once a relationship is established should you consider inviting them to look at the business opportunity.

Join and contribute to online communities in those countries – to make new friends in new countries you’re going to have to socialise, but don’t worry, this can be done online. Join communities where you can meet new people such as Facebook or LinkedIn Groups. You will even find that on Facebook there are lots of groups for specific countries or even cities – try searches for ‘Entrepreneurs COUNTRY’ or ‘Mums COUNTRY’ and you will see there are lots of different types of groups that come up. Have a look through and see which ones you might be able to add value to and build relationships on. Once again, remember, the focus is on building new relationships and not sharing your business opportunity, that comes later.
Visit that country – another option is, of course, to visit that country, that could be a holiday or even a temp/perm move there. It all depends on you and what you want from life – if you want to live in another country then why not move there and build it when you’re there? But for many of you that’s probably not the most appealing or viable option so try making friends with locals when you’re on holiday; make the effort to get to know people and start building a relationship then connect with them online and continue investing in the relationship even when you return home. If you do this, a hot tip is to make sure you continue developing your relationship as soon as you return while you’re still at the forefront of their mind.

Now you’ve read these tips, you should be ready to start seriously considering building an international business. If you have any other tips for growing a global MLM business, please share them in the comments below.

How to build a successful MLM business in 8 simple steps

Ross Crawford

Building a business of any kind is tough, and a lot can be learnt through experience, but what if you could learn from others who have ‘been there and done it’? Here, we take our learnings from several successful network marketers and summarise them into 8 simple tips to building a successful MLM business.

1. JOIN A COMPANY WITH PRODUCTS/SERVICES YOU WILL USE, AND YOU BELIEVE IN

When most people see a network marketing business opportunity for the first time, it’s the first time they have been introduced to the MLM industry. With the MLM industry offering significant income potential and the offer of freedom, it’s easy for people to focus on those and believe that the company first exposing them to the industry is the right company for them. It’s rare for a person to go and research other companies in the industry to find the one that offers the products or services it most believes it, but this research will pay off as you will find it much easier sharing products/services and a business opportunity that you are genuinely passionate about.

2. IDENTIFY AND UNDERSTAND WHO YOU ARE TARGETING

The key is in the name – network ‘marketing’. Marketing is a key part of growing any business, and in particular, an MLM business, and marketing is all about delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time. To achieve this, you must first identify who you are trying to target and understand their behaviours and interests. This means, don’t try to offer everything to everyone, that approach won’t work.

3. SHARE YOUR PRODUCTS/SERVICES AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL

This is an obvious one, but it’s extremely common for business owners to focus on either their product/services or the business opportunity and forget about the other. But, to grow large successful MLM business, you need to focus on both, and that means talking about them EVERY DAY!

4. BE GENUINE

Don’t be one of the reasons the industry gets a bad name; be sincere and genuine in everything you do; your approach, the information you give and your personal experiences and results. False claims or exaggerations of any kind will not help you, your business or the industry.

5. DON’T BOMBARD YOUR CONTACTS

Bombarding your contacts will only ruin your chances of them joining the business or buying your products/services. Focus on sharing your successes as well as case studies of your products/services and let your contacts ask you about questions. Create curiosity, and they will ask you to tell them more; far more effective than you forcing it upon them.

6. SET CLEAR GOALS FOR ALL ACTIVITY

Every successful business started with goals, and MLM businesses aren’t any different! Having goals enables you to track progress and hold yourself accountable so make sure you set clear achievable goals for all of your activity; events, prospecting, team trainings, etc…

7. SELL SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS

We understand you’re trying to sell your products and services, but remember to sell them as a solution to a problem. This approach is super affected and, it keeps your conversations with your contacts super relevant. Listening to your contacts’ problems and offering them solutions will make the sales process seem effortless.

8. DEVELOP DUPLICATABLE PROCESSES

The whole MLM industry relies on duplicatable methods so make sure the tactics, tools and processes you use in your business are easily duplicatable so you can train them down as you grow your team.

Hopefully, you’ve found these 8 tips for building a successful network marketing business useful. Please feel free to share them with your friends.

If you’re not doing this, your MLM business will fail!

Ross Crawford

If you’re in multi-level marketing (MLM), you probably know the name Eric Worre. Eric is ‘the motivational MLM coach’ and is frequently sharing stages with some of the world’s most famous and successful celebrities. Well, in one of his videos, he brings up the quote that “It doesn’t matter what works, it only matters what duplicates”. Eric then goes on to explain that you may be the world’s most skilled networker, being able to network with the president, high-level celebrities etc… however, this is completely irrelevant if your MLM team can’t duplicate these results.

Eric then proceeds to say that a large group of individuals doing something simple is greater than one individual doing something sophisticated. It’s like this, one secret services solider may be more well rounded and well trained than the average military member. If there was a one on one altercation you’d probably pick the secret services individual to win. However, if you added one, two, three more normal soldiers, the odds would quickly turn in favour of the military rather than the special services. This shows the combined efforts of a team rather than the above average efforts of an individual. If you’re a great networker but your ability is down to your natural personality and traits you were born with, its probably best to create an educational programme that can consistently create more good networkers, even if they’re not up to your level. It’s best to have your team take your training and have 80% of your ability. Because a team of 10 people having 80% of a top networker’s ability is worth incredible value.

So, how can you achieve these results that can be duplicated?

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

Creating content that allows each member of your team to learn the skills and develop their knowledge in the areas they need to. Educational content also allows you to scale up quickly, and scaling up requires minimal time/effort.

TECHNOLOGY

Invest in a good system for managing elements, or all, of your MLM business. A good MLM app will mean you have everything you need in one place, from wherever you are. Even better, get your team to use the same app and your business will multiple. This will allow your team to see exactly what you do and duplicate it themselves, resulting in higher efficiency, faster scaling & more results.

Eric talks about some of the things that MLM business owner’s want, including Freedom & Sustainability. By using the Pamtree MLM App, your team’s activity is all in one place, meaning you can visibly see what’s happening and stay on top of things, identifying and drop in activity that may impact your business in the long-term. This helps to ensure that your MLM business is as sustainable as possible. By teaching your team what you know, you’re ensuring freedom, as they can go and reach new prospects, growing your team and allowing you to focus on your business.

In short, if your team can’t duplicate what you are doing every day, your MLM business isn’t going to work long-term. Make your processes repeatable & ensure your team have the right training and technology to get the results you want.

Thank you for reading this blog. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed it. Please make sure to check out our other blog posts – and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn & Twitter.

The Advertising Model MLM Business Owners Are Using To Succeed!

Ross Crawford

For many entrepreneurs and leading MLM business owners, advertising is a massive part of their day-to-day activities. The forward-thinking network marketers have to check on their current ad’s to make sure the performance is what it should be; they make alternations to keywords and audiences that aren’t performing as expected. It’s very time consuming, however, when you’ve finally tested every segment of your ad (e.g. title, copy, image etc…) and found the perfect recipe, boom! You’ve got digital gold dust! The spend on that ad can be increased and you can sit back and watch it smash your objectives. What a great feeling, months of trial-and-error have now got you to the point of near perfection.

So you’re probably wondering, how can I achieve this? Well, that’s what we’re about to tell you.

THE RIGHT PLATFORM

Finding the right platform is absolutely key to running a successful ad. There’s no point advertising in a gardening magazine if you’re selling protein powder. Just like there’s no point using high-cost methods such as TV for a product/brand with no loyal audience or high profit margins. You have to choose your platforms wisely. If you’re a business-to-business product or service, try LinkedIn or Google Ads. If you’re business to consumer, try Facebook or Instagram; maybe even Google Ad’s. If you’re selling t-shirts with French bulldogs on, Instagram would be the place for you. If you’re trying to get prospects for your MLM, Google Ads might be the best solution as it will target multiple different websites.

TRIAL AND ERROR

You won’t create the perfect ad on your first attempt. It takes time and hours and hours of testing and analysis data to see what performs best, which keywords are most efficient, what title is the most catching, which image draws attention, what copy sells on an emotional level, which call-to-action springs people into the ‘buy now’ gear. We recommend using a budget of around £5 per day whilst you’re testing different segments of your ad’s. This way you’ll get accurate results without using up all your budget. Remember, once you find the perfect ad, you’ll want all the budget you can use! To help find what’s performing best, we recommend split-testing, otherwise known as A/B testing. Split-testing where you create the same ad, but the only difference is the part you’re testing (e.g. if you’re trying to find out which title grabs peoples attention, you’d have two different titles on the A & B ad’s, but everything else would be identical). This way you can really see what’s more effective. For MLM ad’s, the text and description are equally as important as the image, as you’re not selling a product, but a job to a prospect.

SCALE

Once you find the perfect ad, after multiple trial and error periods, scale it up! Get all your ad budget behind it and ride it until the wave dies out, then rinse and repeat (repeat the trial and error period again). For MLM, we’d recommend setting up different ad’s for the different departments of your business; to prospect, try LinkedIn and Google Ads. Trying to sell your products? Instagram & Facebook might be a better fit. If you’re looking to run paid ads, it might be worth seeking the help of a specialist Facebook Ads agency, as they’ll know how to take your business to the next level!

The key message to this blog is that you MUST find the right platform for your business objective. MLM can be extremely competitive, give yourself the edge by selecting the right tools to leverage your time and efforts. You could also run ad’s to promote your social media content. This will grow your business & personal brand, and will ultimately lead to a growth in your following. This will allow more people to see your content and eventually people will start reaching out to you.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this blog the please leave a comment below.

I can’t build rapport with Prospects!

Ross Crawford

If you’re an MLM business owner then recruiting is going to be a pretty major part of your job. However, many people struggle to ever build up the rapport with their prospects that they really need. This can be down to many different variables; people being more awkward, different personality types, different hobbies etc. But there are tips on how to help the rapport building when prospecting.

Tip number one; open questions. Have you ever have a conversation with someone and they’ve just given you one-word answers? Think back to it now, did the questions you were asking only require a yes or no? Most likely! Too many people keep conversations shorter and rapport on hold by asking simple yes or no questions. To build up better report, reword your questions so the individual can actually put some personality into the answer. It also requires them to elaborate, and that gets the conversation going! This is also brilliant advice for any sales calls!

Tip number two; listen & care! So many times people are having conversations just to get a specific piece of information, they don’t listen to the other topic of discussion, and they certainly don’t care! This comes across as plain rude! If you’re speaking to a prospect and they’re telling you about their current working situation or any other piece of personal information, listen to them carefully and care about what they’re saying! This will help massively with rapport building, as many times, people just want someone to vent to.

Tip number three; elaborate. This follows on from the two previous tips. If you’re listening and actually caring about what the individual is saying, follow up one of their one-liners with an open question. For example, if someone is saying how much they hated their last job, don’t just say most people do, follow it up with something like “what was it in particular that you didn’t enjoy?” This will make them feel like you’re listening to them and show them that you care.

Tip number four; find common ground. Try and find something you both have in common, ideally before you first make contact, but if not, the sooner, the better. This is a brilliant way to get the conversation going in your favour. An example of this is calling one of your prospects who you can see from Facebook loves mountain biking, you may not, but you could have a quick Google search and find one topic to talk about for a few minutes relating to that. This will be worth its weight in rapport.

Hopefully, you have learnt some helpful rapport building tips and strategies! Please leave any comments/feedback in the comments sections below.

How Social Media that transform your Multi-level marketing business

Ross Crawford

I imagine most of you have a social media account or have at least heard of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Well, there’s a reason they caught on like wildfire; anyone can post their thoughts for the whole world to see, and it didn’t take long for businesses to captivate on this.

This is where Network Marketing comes into it, you can directly contact your audience or reach them via a post. It allows you to build a loyal audience, develop a brand and easily gets testimonials for your business.

First of all, you should know, you have two different target groups; those who know of you/your industry & those who don’t. This means your content will be covering the whole spectrum and your chances of engagement will increase drastically. To do this, you should create content that meets the needs of both those groups. However, you should concentrate most of your social media efforts on the group that knows of you or your industry. Focusing your social activity in this area will earn you higher engagement rates as they have more interest in your posts as they want to understand your business.

Secondly, you should develop a social media strategy so your content can be consistent. Perhaps on Mondays, you post about motivation, on Wednesday you post advice and on Fridays you post facts. The key to social media is to stay consistent. It takes time to build a following and even longer for that following to start engaging. And don’t forget to look out for trends on social media, like ‘Motivational Mondays’ or ‘Throwback Thursdays’. Piggybacking on popular trends can really help you grow your followings.

Thirdly, you should start a blog. Starting a blog is an excellent way to fast track your online presence because you can direct your social media followers to your blog/website. It also means that you own this traffic and are in full control of the content displayed. It also allows you to add data capture elements; perhaps capture a prospect’s email and contact number so you can follow up with them?

So once you’ve built your following and have visitors to your blog/website, this is where you can start engaging with them on a one-to-one basis, offering them help/advice on your products or services, or you can even begin prospecting with anyone who seems keen.

You must take full advantage of the visitors you receive because they are sharing expressed interest. Something you could do is film a short introduction video of yourself explaining what it is you do. Show them how you can help them and what they could gain from joining your Network marketing business, you could even ask your team to film short testimonial videos and put those in for added validity. The whole idea of using social media for businesses is to build an audience and then get that audience to a place online where you can control what happens, and not face any social media companies rules/algorithm changes.

Hopefully, these tips have helped. If you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments section. Also, please feel free to share any ideas for future blogs, as we love to hear your feedback.

Exactly What MLM Pro’s Say in their First Prospecting Messages

Ross Crawford

When it comes to prospecting, there are things best to say and things avoid. In this article, we’re focusing on the things you need to cover if you want your prospecting messages to get results.

A variety of approaches work, though these depend on the type of person you are prospecting and what they will engage with. You know your prospects best, so you can decide what works best for them, but here are some of the proven approaches.

THE DIRECT APPROACH

The direct approach is to ask your prospect directly if they would like to take a look at the opportunity, for whatever reason you think could be of interest to them – increased income, the opportunity to travel, having more time with the family, and so on…

Here are some of the direct questions MLM pro’s use in their prospecting messages:

“I’m not sure whether this will be for you or not, but would you be open to exploring additional income opportunities?”

“Have you ever considered a part-time income to supplement your job?”

“Would you consider a second income stream, if I was to share an opportunity with you?”

“Would you be interested in finding out how you could start a part-time, home-based business and work toward replacing your full-time income?”

“I recently started a new business that’s currently expanding in your area. Would you be interested in taking a look at the opportunity if I was to share it with you?”

THE INDIRECT APPROACH

The indirect approach is to ask your prospect whether they know someone who might be interested in extra income, an improved work/life balance, more family time, etc, with a view to them then suggesting themselves. The indirect approach can be a very effective method, as they won’t feel like they are being sold to as you’re not directly approaching them. Instead, they may see the opportunity for themselves and put their name in the hat for consideration.

Some example of prospect messages for an indirect approach are:

“I’m sure you’re happy with your current job but do you know anyone that might be interested in earning an extra income, working flexibility around their current commitments?”

“I know you enjoy your work but do you know anyone that might be interested in a new career, something with flexibility so they can work around their lives?”

“I’m sure you’re happy with your career but do you know anyone who would benefit from being their own boss and running their own business?”

“I know you’re happy with your current job but do you know anyone who’s looking for a new money-making opportunity?”

Using the questions above will hopefully help you master prospecting in your MLM business. Remember, don’t be afraid to test different messages to see what works best with your prospects.

Good luck with your prospecting! Feel free to share your feedback with us below.

How to Build a Successful Network Marketing Business for the Long Term

Ross Crawford

You may have heard stories of network marketers having overnight success and, yes, this can and does happen. But it’s a minority, that’s for sure. Whether you’re just getting into network marketing or whether you’ve been in the industry a while, if you’re looking for a long-term solution, here’s how you should set up your network marketing business.

IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Firstly, stop and think about who exactly it is you are looking to target. This will depend on which company you are working alongside and which products or services you are offering. There will be niche groups within the target audience for that industry. For example, if you’re selling health and wellbeing products, you might decide to target beauticians, personal trainers or people focused on weight loss. Each of these audiences will be interested in and attracted to different types of content, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not work as effectively as a targeted approach.

RESEARCH TOPICS OF INTEREST

Once you’ve identified the audiences you want to target, make a list of the types of topics and themes they will be interested in so you can start planning a tailored content strategy to attract them. As you may not be an expert in the area, it’s worth researching online and creating a list of ‘content sources’ – places where you can go and educate yourself to inspire the content you plan to create.

CREATE AND TEST DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTENT

After you’re clear about your audience and the type of topics they’ll be interested in, as well as quality sources for inspiration, it’s time to look at the types of content you can create to cover the topics. Here’s a list of some of them:

Videos
Pod casts
Interviews
FB lives
Case studies
Infographics
Blog articles
Social posts
eBooks

It’s a good idea to create and test a variety of content types to see what works for your audience. Video is extremely popular at the moment!

COMMIT TO YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY

Once you have your content plan in place, you’re ready to go, but remember, this is a long-term commitment so stick with it, constantly researching your target audience to understand them and their problems and present solutions to them. Commit to this for long enough and you’ll soon build up a steady stream of inbound leads to prospect. The key is to focus on them – how can you help them, not how can they help you.

To be seen as an expert or specialist in any industry, it takes time. So stick with it, learn and improve and you too will become a truly influential professional in your area. Your business will benefit as a result.