In this Blog Post, I'm going to be sharing 5 steps to dramatically affect your personal branding, digital marketing skills, and authority online.
Developing a successful online business is partly about developing your personal branding, increasing your “digital marketing skills” and building authority within your niche.
One marketing method that many people often overlook is Content Marketing.
Of course, paid advertising is one of the quickest ways to get your products to market for new Online Business Owners. If you take a look at many of the top online marketing professionals, their business focuses on their hub which is their blog and web pages.
I spoke to Ray Hidgon who explained how he has generated millions of dollars with his blog over the past few years…
Press Play to watch the short video.
Many Online Business Owners are overlooking the importance of content creation or at least capitalizing on their own online real estate.
Many Business Owners prefer paid advertising for lead generation because of the fast results. Learning SEO skills and content marketing is highly effective as we learned from Ray Higdon, so let's look at the steps to take to model Ray's results.
Step #1 – Building your Personal Brand by Building an Online Presence
Building your personal brand is about getting your message to your audience.
How many times have you reviewed a product or service before you purchased it? Did you research the person selling the product and carry out any due diligence?
Chances are that you may have if the marketer wasn't known to you.
I remember researching some of the top marketers when I first started. People like Derek Gehl and Andrew Reynolds were big on the scene.
Both Gehl and Reynolds had their own websites and online presence. In my mind, this made them credible and established know, like, and trust me to buy from them.
Remember that your target audience is looking for solutions to their problems online.
The first thing that you probably did before you bought a product is a Google search. That search showed you the most relevant and optimized blogs and websites. So it makes perfect sense to stake your claim for your own online real estate and present the solutions for your target audience.
Step #2 – Be Authentic – Building Your Brand
If you're going to have any chance of success online you have to be genuine and authentic.
The Internet is littered with people who are faking it, from their digital marketing skills to income claims. The term ‘fake it until you make it' may have worked in 1989, but today, faking anything is a sure path to failure.
Your audience wants to see the real you, not another Online Business Owner trying to be a guru. If you're a newbie reading this, then I know the real you may not know much. But trust me, the real you is better than fake you any day of the week.
The simple answer to building your brand as a beginner is to adopt the Learn, Do, Teach method.
When you learn something new, implement it into your business and you'll be in a position of experience to teach what you've learned to others. Teaching gives you credibility, just as long as you teach from your own experiences.
The trouble with ‘Learn, Do, Teach' is too many people are stuck in perpetual learning mode. Never make the leap to actually building their business in the first place, so they're not in a position to teach or generate any credibility.
A good rule of thumb is to teach what you know and keep it simple… Have you uploaded a video to YouTube? Have you bought your own domain name? Have you set up your own Facebook page? If you have then teach it, because people are looking for what you know, and teaching will give you credibility with those people while building your own confidence.
Step #3 Digital Marketing Skills
There are many different digital marketing skills you can learn to build your online business.
To keep things simple, all we need are three easy steps:
- Attract qualified people into leads
- Develop those leads into customers
- Develop those customers to increase the lifetime customer value
The simple rule of thumb when learning digital marketing skills is to pick one method that resonates with you and your brand.
If you are familiar with Facebook then Facebook advertising may be the digital marketing skill you want to learn. Maybe it's Twitter, Snapchat, Linked.in Solo Ads, and Banner Ads, in fact, the list is almost endless, which is why you need to pick just one digital marketing skill and master it to get leads and sales for your business.
As I mentioned above, paid advertising is the quickest way to get leads, once you have a clear definition of your target market, which is key. Success in converting leads into customers will require a follow-up system in place to warm your audience and develop know, like, and trust with them.
Blogging and content marketing is a digital marketing skill that requires knowledge of search engine optimization and SEO skills. Once that marketing skill is learned, it's a highly effective way to generate leads and customers.
This is because a well-written blog post ‘pre-frames' the product or service that you're selling. Furthermore, it can be an effective piece of the follow-up system to warm your cold market audience.
Remember the fortune is in the follow-up…
Step #4 – Give Value
If you want to build your online authority then give value to your target audience.
Value can be defined as the tools, information, and advice that provide solutions to people's problems. Value can be something simple such as how to upload a video to YouTube, how to create a Facebook Page, or buy a domain name. Increasingly people are expecting more, so give them more. Produce high-quality content and see your leads and customers increase as a result.
Your daily tasks should be motivated by how you can give more value to your audience, and improve their experience with you.
Step #5 – Building Your Marketing Collateral
I must admit, it took me a while to understand the importance of building my own marketing collateral.
Over the years I've attended many marketing events around the world and had my picture taken with the top industry professionals. However more recently I decided to interview many of them about their core speciality to give more value to my audience. (Just like my interview with Ray)
Interviews can give you instant credibility by association as long as you ask the right questions and give respect to your interviewees. Ask pertinent questions that your target market wants to learn about, and format your interview with an introduction, a middle, and an ending.
A little time planning your interview will serve you well to get it right the first time while adding congruence and identity to your own branding.
You'll find is that most of the leaders will offer you their time for an interview, and if you get it right it may lead to joint ventures and more.
Interviews with the likes of Ray Higdon will dramatically boost your credibility in the eyes of your audience and give you valuable content, for your content marketing strategy.
So where do you go from here?
If you're a new Online Business Owner, the most powerful thing you can do is document your journey.
This way you are being your genuine self and no one can copy you. Your audience may not interact with you at first, but they'll be watching and monitoring your progress.
When you remain consistent with your marketing and you pique their interest, is the moment they reach out to you and the magic happens.
