In ecommerce these days, a good content marketing strategy is key.
To give your audience a reason to engage with your brand beyond just your products, you need to be a part of the conversation that is already happening in your market.
How?
I sat down with Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzMetrics and a super smart guy, to talk about content marketing…
And he shared his formula for creating engaging content that builds your personal brand, your company brand, and increases sales.
Here’s what Dennis had to say.
The Bridge Between Brand and Sales
A lot of people — motivational speakers, authors, coaches, entrepreneurs — are trying to build their personal brand…
And a lot of other people are trying to grow their company by driving traffic and generating sales.
But there’s something that brings these two groups together.
When you have a mission (i.e., something you stand for), and you have a product that you sell, the bridge between driving brand and sales is engagement.
The “3×3 Method” for Content Creation
Here’s a trick for creating engaging content that will bridge you personal brand and your company brand.
You start by creating a 3×3 grid of what you stand for personally. Each of these 9 squares is going to represent a one-minute video: You’ll have 3 “why” videos, 3 “how” videos and 3 “what” videos.
Your “why” videos are things in your life that inspired you to create goals and take action. For me, when I was 18 I wanted to compete professionally for Nike, so I dropped out of school to pursue that goal (true story).
Your “how” videos are how you went about achieving that goal.
And your “what” videos are what your company offers as a result of that journey. How you share your learned expertise through your business.
Now take those 9 videos and put them on your personal Facebook page (or your Public Figure page).
Next, you create another 3×3 grid for what your company stands for. Another series of “why,” “how” and “what” videos that you’re going to put on your Facebook business page.
Because when you show that your personal goals are in alignment with your company goals, and you’re able to use social media to tell your story passionately, then people will buy into your vision.
That’s why you start with your “why” — why you do what you do. People buy your why. They don’t buy what you sell.
And when you can share your journey in a progression of 3 “why” stories, 3 “how” stories, and 3 “what” stories…
Then you create a natural continuum of building relationships.
Turning Your Content Into Evergreen Marketing
Next, you use remarketing to direct people through your sequence of videos.
When you collect an email, when someone watches a video on Facebook, when someone is pixeled on your site…
All these people go through an evergreen sequence of your personal content, and that creates amazing power because your personal brand gives power and awareness to your company, which is where people buy.
That’s how you bring the two together; that’s how you go across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.
You’re always looking for the next step in the relationship with your customer, and this 3×3 evergreen marketing strategy helps you build that relationship continuously.
Engagement is the most important thing that marketers can focus on. It’s how we can compete with larger brands, and how we’re going to win in the long run.
Ultimately, your strength as a brand is the sum of the positive and negative relationships you build with your customers, your community, and your employees over time.
That is your long-term competitive advantage.
Highlights:
0:25 The bridge between driving brand and driving conversion is engagement
0:36 Create a 3×3 grid of what your company stands for
1:38 When you show that your personal goals are in alignment with your company goals, people buy into your vision
3:36 When you have your goals, content and targeting, that goes across every channel
4:14 Your strength as a brand is not what you say, it’s the sum of the positive and negative relationships with your community
Dennis Yu is the Chief Executive Officer of BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company which partners with schools to train young adults. Dennis’ mission is to provide education at no cost to students.
Click Here For Video Transcript
And there’s actually something that brings both of those together, because when you have a vision and something that you stand for, a mission, and you have something that you’re selling, the bridge between driving brand and driving conversion is engagement. You do that by creating a 3 by 3 grid of what you stand for personally. You create a 3 by 3 grid of what your company stands for. And each of these 3 by 3 grids has nine components in them. You have three that are why, three are how, and three that are what. Nine one-minute videos.
So, imagine you have a series of goals. You have stories. When I was 18, I wanted to compete professionally for Nike and I dropped out of school. True story. That starts with a story, that opening. And the how is what did you do based on that story, that frustration, that thing that you had to do overcome? I got a mentor. I got a job at American Airlines. I was a paperboy. I started an agency to be able to help other people that are doing eCommerce. What is it that you did? What did you do and how do you share that expertise? That’s the how layer. And the what is what you sell. Therefore, I have an agency, and I sell packages that do digital marketing, right? I employ a lot of young adults and train them up, and that’s how businesses are able to fund our education program, right? You’re talking about what you’re actually able to do.
When you show that your personal goals are in alignment with your company goals, people buy into your vision. It’s like Simon Sinek, “Start with why.” Why do people do what they do? They buy your why, they don’t buy what you sell. So, when you’re on social media and you’re able to passionately tell your story, people believe in what you stand for, and therefore, they buy into that. And when you can tell that in that progression of three why stories, three how stories, sharing expertise, three what stories, talking about what you sell, it’s a natural continuum in building relationships. About you as a person, that you put on your Facebook public figure page, about you as a company, that you put on your Facebook company page, business page, and then, you remarket.
Remarketing is if people who watch video one, I’m going to sequence them into video two, three, four, five, or six. Anyone who watched video four or five, I’m going to sequence them into five, six, or seven, right? There’s all these remarketing sequences, which is stitching together the journey. That’s how you bring those two together, and as you start to build a library of different stories that are evergreen.
When you’re interviewing your customers. When you’re saying thank you. When you’re sharing something that you learned from Ezra Firestone, because he’s just got tons and tons of nuggets of gold that are coming out. Then your customers, and your partners, and your employees are building your brand for you. The more you share, the more they’re gonna reflect that back, the more you get content into your content library, the more you’re able to pull out what we call the greatest hits.
Your greatest hits personally are gonna live in that 3 by 3. Your greatest hits from a company standpoint, which is like a mega AB test, are gonna live over here in your business’s 3 by 3. And that creates amazing power because your personal brand sequences power and awareness over to your company, which is where people buy.
And that’s how you bring the two together. That’s how you go across LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, email, apps. It doesn’t matter, because when you have your goals, content, and targeting, that goes across every channel, and it’s remarketing sequences. You collect an email? That’s remarketing. Someone watches a video for 10 seconds on Facebook? Remarketing. They come to the website, that pixel fires? You remarket to that.
You’re always looking for the next step in that relationship, and that’s the most important thing that marketers can focus on. There are those that are so busy trying to sell and they’re so busy trying to push out potato chips and flavored soda water, right? CBG brands. But that part in the middle, the engagement, the glue that ties those items together, that’s how marketers are gonna win in the long run, that’s how they build those relationships.
And ultimately, your strength is a brand. It’s not what you say or what your ad agency says is a clever jingle, it’s the sum of the positive and negative relationships you build with your customers, your community, your employees over time. That is your long term competitive advantage. That is how you’re able to use search, social, email, apps, offline, all those channels together. That is the heart of the most effective evergreen marketing you could ever have.
