So, you’re making content. A podcast, blog, YouTube Channel, online courses, eBooks, music; but do you know how to make your content work for you?
Content development can be tricky enough for many creators without having to worry about their content marketing and their content strategy in this ever-changing online world. Reaching your target audience, managing campaigns, and engaging directly with potential customers can take creators and entrepreneurs such as yourself away from what you excel at - content creation.
Your content development process should not be hindered by worrying about standing out amongst the noise of competitors' marketing campaigns, spending time doing keyword research, and messing around with SEO (search engine optimization). These tasks can sometimes require dedicated digital marketing agencies with costly content development strategies for small businesses and creators. for You need to make your content work for you while you focus on making high-quality content and doing what you love.
We speak to SupaPass founder Juliana Meyer about how her team are helping content creators around the world build a business around their content, with some easy yet powerful tools that make your existing content do all the hard work for you.
The problem with content on social media is it’s so noisy. It’s so distracting and fragmented and it’s hard to hold your audience’s attention when the platform isn’t yours. You should be sending your most engaged audience to your own website. Crucially, once they get there, you want to hold their attention there and keep them coming back again and again.
How can you do that? Make your website the central destination of your online world.
Ensure you have ALL your great content there, all in one place, together. Don’t send people away as soon as they arrive, to watch your content on YouTube or listen to your podcast on another player. Ensure your website has a professional podcast player that works seamlessly across the whole site as your listeners navigate to explore other content; most embedded podcast players don’t do this. (Top tip: The easiest way to do this is with a SupaPass powered website that is free to create and host). Ensure your website has all your YouTube videos, video courses, podcasts, blogs and other content viewable directly on your website - so you don’t have to send people away when they arrive. (This is another feature offered by Juliana’s team at SupaPass).
Juliana says “Often a website feels like a train station; you arrive only to instantly be sent away to social media or streaming platforms. This is crazy when the holy grail of marketing is to ultimately get someone to your website. When they finally arrive you want to keep them there. At SupaPass we help you create a website that provides a compelling engaging experience that keeps them coming back again and again.”
It is important to grow your own email mailing list so that you have control of your connection with your customers, clients, and audience. The problem with social media is you don’t own the relationship with your audience. If their algorithm removes you from the platform you lose all that work in a heartbeat. We’ve seen this happen to countless creators, for no valid reason and with no way back. That risk is too high.
Use the power of social media to grow your audience - but then send your most engaged audience to your own website where you can capture their email address, so you have a way to contact them now and in future, no matter what platform you’re on.
Use your email list to update your audience every time you release new content. (Top tip: With SupaPass this can all be done automatically, with no plugins or setup required). This ensures they never miss an update and saves you time.
A lead magnet is the hook that gets someone to give you their email address so you can begin to engage more deeply with them. Traditionally this might be a free ebook or a free webinar; but we believe there are so many other ways to invite your audience to take this next step in the relationship with you.
You could invite them to tell you what they think of your podcast episode by adding a comment on your website - they’ll register with a free login when they comment, and opt into your email list in the process. You could invite them to join your free community to meet other like-minded people who love your content too. Even better, invite them to download your app, so they never miss your latest content again. Additionally you can give them seamless access to your free content right alongside your premium content, so it’s easy for them to choose to buy your content when they’re ready. By ensuring your content gives value, you won’t need a hard sell for people to buy it. They’ll want it and it will be easy and intuitive to buy it in one click, once they are already in your ecosystem, on your own website and app.
You’re already making amazing quality content, but are you making it work for you? If you’re making a podcast, make a video of the episode so you can use a short excerpt for YouTube and social media, to help you grow your audience. Convert the transcript into a blog post that’s search engine optimized to maximize how people can find what you’re making on Google and other search engines. If you’re making a video course, extract the audio from the file, and turn key snippets into podcast episodes so more people can find your course on their favourite player.
You’re already doing the hardest part - creating original content that moves your audience - now let that content find others who’ll love it too, by creating audio, written, and video content from the same Content Idea - from your “Content Lightbulb”.
This acts to multiply the audience you would get if it was just on one content medium, and will simultaneously leverage the organic search and discovery power of YouTube, podcast players, and search engines like Google. The best content developers can repurpose their good content a handful of times over and extend the life of their content well beyond the average content creator.
Social media is a really powerful way to grow your audience. Whilst you don’t want to build your business directly on social media, you should use social media to increase your reach and find new audiences for your content. Platforms come and go in popularity, and instead of losing momentum when the latest fad passes, you can ride each wave as it comes if your ultimate destination is your own website instead of the social media platform itself. Whether it’s TikTok, Clubhouse, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, build engagement on any of these, but always send your most engaged audience to your own content platform on your own website and app.
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Many content creators use their podcast and streaming platforms as the top of the funnel, where you find new audiences to enjoy your content. The aim being to ultimately upsell your other services, whether that’s your courses, books, tour tickets or expertise. This is a really effective way to find new audiences, and if you’re always sending them to your own website, it doesn’t matter which platforms you’re using or when those fads pass - you can use them all and maximise your growth!
Why do you create content? When your audience connects with what you’re making, what is the journey you want them to take to become your superfan? What is the ultimate action you want them to make?
Perhaps you’d like them to hire your services, buy a ticket to your tour, book you as a speaker, or purchase your book, course, or product. Whatever you’re making, create a journey (aka funnel) to take your audience on to build a deeper relationship with them and turn your listeners and followers into superfan customers.
The best way to do this is to create one destination for every action, so that they can find everything in one place, and discover all your talents, products and creations within one website and app. Once you know the ultimate ‘Call-To-Action’ you want them to make, you can work backwards from there, with every path leading to your own website and app where all the magic can happen in one place.
Who is your customer? Who are your fans? Do you know? This is vital information to know for any content marketing plan and should be the basis of all of your business goals. You should keep this data at the front of your mind whenever you create a piece of content.
The best way to know who your audience is, isn’t about what demographic they are (age, gender, location, etc) but why they love you and what they connect with. This is a far more valuable insight. The best way to learn this is through an engaged community where your audience gives you active feedback on your content, tells you what they loved, and what they’d like more of.
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Give your audience a voice and listen to what they have to say. Then you can make more of what they connect to most. This can often become different to what you originally set out to make. It’s sometimes something small that happened by chance that becomes the most successful content you’ll ever make. Create a space where this serendipity can thrive and where you can actively learn what resonates and hits that special message. The best way to do this is by inviting your audience to comment on your content and share it with their friends.
Using activity analytics you’ll see which content is most popular and which users are viewing your content the most. This gives you valuable insights into what you should be making more of and who you should be making it for. If you direct your audience to engage on your own website, with your SupaPass powered website, not only can you see which content is getting the most activity, but you can also see who is viewing your content the most. Additionally you also have their email address directly, so you can reach out to your most active members to find out why they love your content and what they’d like more of.
Your superfans are the lifeblood of what you’re making, and you need to know who they are to learn how to build an even deeper relationship with them. You also want to find others like them to grow a content business that matters, and has impact and meaning for your core audience.
Whether you’re making premium content products (courses, audiobooks, albums) or content as a hobby simply for people to enjoy, you’ll need paywall functionality on your website, so you can let people pay you when they want to.
Instead of sending your audience to other platforms like Patreon and Kofi to support your work, you can add a paywall directly on your website. Unlike third party patron donation sites, on your own website you can earn and keep 100% of the money without giving some up as revenue share (Top tip: you can also keep 100% of your money on a website powered by SupaPass).
Tools like SupaPass enable you to set this up within two minutes on your website, so you can collect the money automatically directly to your own bank account via Stripe, without delay or revenue share. You can set up subscriptions for your members or one-time-payments for products, courses, books and TV-series.
Create a membership subscription within minutes on your own website, so you can build a community directly and grow the ultimate fanclub for your work and content business. It’s never been easier to create your own digital paywall, and by using tools like SupaPass, you won’t need any coding or design expertise for creating your own Netflix or Spotify style site within minutes.
If you want to create the ultimate experience for your audience you need your own mobile app for all your content in one place. Your audience has high standards; they’re used to consuming content on apps like Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime and Apple. So how do you compete with that?
For the first time, that level of technology is available for anyone to easily and affordably create for your own brand, on your own app. You won’t have to struggle with code or plugins, or use complicated website builders like Wordpress or Wix to create your own platform.
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The team at SupaPass have made it possible to create your own mobile app and website with no code or design expertise needed, so you can give your audience a Netflix or Spotify style experience on your own website and app.
With your own mobile app you can stand out above your competitors as the leading expert authority in your niche and elevate your brand above your competitors. You’ll be able to engage with your audience more deeply, with a constant presence on their phone home screen, so they keep coming back to your content again and again. You can send push notifications automatically whenever you release new content, and cut through the noise of social media or poor inbox open rates, by always getting to the front of your audience’s phone.
Combining all these steps creates a simple and effective ecosystem for you to build a business around your content, that will save you time, multiply the impact of your content, reach many more people, and invite them into your ecosystem so you can deepen your relationship with them in a natural and meaningful way.
The team at SupaPass are passionate about making this affordable and easy for every content maker, no matter how big or small.
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Make your content work for you, and spend more time creating and executing ideas with high impact, with these 9 simple yet powerful secret sauce ingredients to build a business around your content.
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So, you’re making content. A podcast, blog, YouTube Channel, online courses, eBooks, music; but do you know how to make your content work for you?
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“The boundless sense of the possible” - we’re on a mission to make 2021 even better for our entrepreneurs and creators, after accelerating their growth tenfold in 2020!
Save time and cut through the noise by ensuring your audience never misses an episode!