Lessons

Lesson Info

Content Strategy That Matters

Content is the number one way you can get people uh kind of expecting and anticipating that next big thing that you have coming whether it's an old product that you're re releasing or talking about it fresh way or whether it's a brand new product that you're releasing for the first time the content that you create you're blogged posts your instagrams your pins your facebook updates your twitter updates all of that content that amazing amount of content that we create online we can leverage that to prepare people for our upcoming product release so that instead instead of surprising everyone with an announcement beyonce style way get customers that have been waiting eagerly to buy our products and that's a really powerful thing I'm gonna talk about exactly how you do that in just a few minutes but let's talk about what we talked about yesterday let's review what we did yesterday yesterday you discovered the destination for your launch conversation and our content strategy and our launch...

conversation there really it's the same thing I use a lot of terms interchangeably here and I apologize for that now but try and stick with me so the content strategy is your launch conversation and it's all leading to the point that we created yesterday your before and after your key insight and your hypothesis and the story around those things which we called the lead so that destination gives us a place to create content from so that instead of just kind of mentioning something here mentioning something, they're mentioning something over here you're actually leading people down the path toward that product that you want them to purchase and that's, what makes your launch feel inevitable and consistent in the best possible ways it makes? I sense you guys ever felt like your launch activities just haven't really made sense yes okay that's something that I hear all the time it's like well, I know I'm doing everything right but it's not it doesn't make sense it's not really working this that we covered yesterday that's how you make it make sense that's how you know where you're navigating people tio you have tohave the destination in mind, so I hope everyone went home yesterday and worked in their workbooks and got that stuff all nailed out. I heard some great things on twitter about rewrote my product description for this or I changed the way I talked about that fantastic I was so glad you guys got results like that just from day one now we're going to take it to the next level. So as I mentioned, your lead is the story that tells your customers about their before and after where they are right now where they would like to be and it also brings in your key insight which is your expertise it's your expert understanding it's your creators view on what it is that you're offering and why what you're offering bridges the gap or unlocks the door between the before and the after and of course, we tied that together in the hypothesis, key insight plus after equals hypothesis, and that whole story was the lead. Now there we go, what's the difference between a lead and a launch? Ah, lead is a short story, essentially launch is the entire novel okay, makes sense. The lead is the short story launches the entire novel. The lead is sort of a reminder story when people get to your sales page or they get to your product description or they see that ad at the end of the product launch at the end of the product launch. Yes, it triggers all of the things that you've talked about already in the launch launch conversation. The content strategy behind the launch is a much longer period of time you break down that story into different parts, and in our second segment today I'm going to break down all of those parts for you. But this launch conversation allows you to create mo mentum anticipation and, you know, just to kind of a general level of expected nests for that product release, whether you're talking about the product or not, your kind of planting the seed of the bat lead story throughout the launch conversation so when people click through to the sales page or your product description they're like yes, this is what I've been waiting for so instead of being like right, I don't know what is this? Oh she's she made a product we're crazy there right there they're anticipating it even if they don't know that it's turning into a product they know that they love what you're saying and you've built up all this trust over the period of this conversation that allows them to a a big yes when they click that link or that button instead of myrrh all right, so that leads us to our first quiet power strategy for today and this is one of my favorites slow bird people who leverage quiet power strategies used a slow burn you can do a lot of maneuvering with the slow burn you can cover a lot of territory with the slow burn and what's best about that is it saves fuel right? And whose fuel are we talking about here? We're talking about your fuel and one of the things that I bothers me to no end is the amount of stress people feel around launching or releasing a new product or releasing an old product right there's so much and it's almost like it's almost like the cool thing online right? The cool thing online is to be totally stressed out about your lunch I've eaten pizza every day for a month. I haven't washed my clothes in two weeks. My kids haven't seen me in seventy two hours. Why? Why slow burn, slow burn even as you know, if one of your aspirations is to do a bigger and bigger and bigger lunch, even as you do that you can implement a slow burn so that instead of being stressed out, you feel the ease of launching you feel the same kind of ease that your customers feel you're not putting them on edge, you're making them feel more relaxed, right? Because the edgy or you feel about your launch don't don't pretend that doesn't come out in your content or in your communication with them. So the edge here you feel the edge here they feel and I don't know about you, but my customers don't want to buy when they're feeling edgy, that's pretty much the worst position I can put them in. It works for some people but it's not gonna work for you guys. It doesn't work for me and those of you out there. I know it's not gonna work for you either. We're not those kind of marketers, so why not build that ese and comfort into your launch by leveraging ah slow burn here's the other thing about this customers need time to make decisions again kind of the hot idea online and it's been this way for years is that if you do your launch right when you open the door to your car door when you open up your cart when you say hey it's available there's this a lot of orders that comes through and yes, sometimes that happens but just because that doesn't happen doesn't mean there's anything wrong I've had highly successful launches that didn't sell anything on the first day um I think the better and better you get at leading up the mohr and more likely it is that when you do open that cart you do get people coming through right away, especially if you can create that launch conversation that makes people really anticipate what it is that you're putting out into the world. But keep in mind that your customers need time to make decisions either they're going to take that time after your cart opens after you announced the new product or they're going to take that time while you're building up to the release so that when you do release the product they're much more likely to buy right away all right, which again means you are more at ease if you could beam or confident that people are going to buy right away if you get those sails right away, you could be more confident in the whole rest of the launch, which means that your communication again it's full of comfort and ease instead of anxiety and ah kind of energy I'm just going to keep making that sound ticking off the audio guys so remember that your customers need time to make decisions and not so good the thing I want to cultivate a customer base a client base of thoughtful decision makers and so I want to take my launch activities and make it easier for them to be those kind of decision makers that sound good cool so let's talk about what goes wrong when we don't do that alright what what the kind of launch misfire looks like I'm going to talk about how or I am I'm talking about right now how launch is really like a story arc is everyone familiar with the story arc there's exposition there's rising action there's the climax there's the falling action and then there's the resolution so your launch should work exactly the same way you wantto create ah conversation so you want to start the conversation that's a such essentially exposition there's rising action climax falling action resolution so pretend this is our story arc this blue line here what in the icy launch go wrong this is what most often happens there's an announcement your exposition and then boom there's a climax which is the product release and then people are you know they keep reminding people that the products out therewith content marketing more block post more emails some guests blogged posts over here maybe a media mention over there and then instead of resolution the launch just putters out there's no finale there's no ending there's no acknowledgement there's no law and at the end of the launch, right. So the story feels just kind of weak and along with the story feeling kind of weak sales end up being really weak how I would like just to see a show of hands how many of you have launched the product with this kind of story arc before? Okay, just about everyone think he was actually launched a product before? Yes, so have I is a mess. So this is not the story art we want to build this is the story arc we want to build slow burn right slow burn up to the climax so the content market air the content marketing becomes your exposition and rising action content marketing is your exposition and rising action it's, where you set the stage for the conversation that you're talking about where you broach the subject. You know, if you were having a calm if you were literally sitting and having a conversation with someone about this how you bring that topic up that's what that's what your starting point is content marketing is your way of having a dialogue with your audience some of us have audiences that have actual dialogues with us where you might get comments or you'll get e mails in return and you can you can almost even build your content marketing kind of on the why working with the feedback that you get, it really feels like a dialogue for others of us me included most often there's not a lot of two way conversation we kind of have to imagine the other side of the conversation but as we do that our content marketing builds and builds and we start to build momentum, build anticipation some of these words you're going to hear me say about thirty different times today and it's because I really want you teo laser burn them into your brain all right anticipation mo mentum that's what we're going for today that's what your content marketing becomes then there's a product release the product release is the climax that's where the story changes that's where all the cards have been dealt how many analogies can I use for this so content marketing builds up to the climax of the product release then you're falling action is your active selling period your mo mentum is naturally going to die off here that's what goes wrong in the other in the other story arc right you climax too early your attention your mo mentum starts to die off but if you're actively selling if you're using direct sales pitches, you don't need so much of the mo mentum you just need a clear call toe action people know what's coming next right it's not a surprise anymore they're just looking for additional information they're looking for that resolution right? And so all you need to do is kind of direct them to the place that they need to go to get that that's your product right so that's active selling that's the falling part of the story are and then finally your resolution is the final pitch it's your last chance no and not every product comes off the shelf at the end of every launch but there's some urgency that you've built into the launch that makes your final pitch hey, this is the last chance for the bonus this is the last chance at this price this is your last chance for free shipping. This is the last chance on the early bird for the conference whatever it might be that's your final pitch and that's your resolution it's now or never yes, we just have a point of clarification about the dipping it's not necessarily that it's dipping right it's just that it's coming to a conclusion, right? Yes, yes, yes that's a great way to look at it yeah, but it will feel feel like it did yet dipping is I don't want to give the illusion of dipping but at the same time you want to anticipate that it it will feel different at the end on dh that's okay andi it's just to keep up what you've done so far you need to become more and more clear essentially mohr and more direct remember stories are service sales are service this is your opportunity to be of service in that final part of the conversation okay so as I've been saying a good product launch feels inevitable and expected but still exciting that's where the mo mentum comes stan okay the example I want to give you for this is the release of every single harry potter book saved like the first two or three okay before people really realize that harry potter was his awesome as harry potter is right I used to work at a border spokesman music store okay and the first let's see I was there for the book six release yes I was there for the book six release and you know we all got dressed up I was nymphadora tonks in case anybody wants to know I put pink stuff in my hair and I are yeah of course there was no doctor talks anyhow s so we were I was there for this product release right? Everyone knew this book was coming we had been telling people about it forever we've been creating so signs we've been creating displays, we've been, you know, just talking to people about it in the store, building momentum. But did that make that night that product release party? Well, while we were there till two or three in the morning, checking people out with their books, do that make that any less exciting? Absolutely not. I mean, there was a pervert raid when the books came up to the registers. It was amazing. Your launch could be the same way you can make it so that everyone knows what's coming so that it feels inevitable and expected, but so that there's a parade when you release your product, that's, the whole point behind the content marketing. So this two five, how are we feeling about understanding this particular story? Arc? Great, awesome.