Why Content Marketing is Important in Dominating Your Consulting Niche
Yesterday, I was planting and transplanting a bunch of flowers at my house and a thought struck me that almost made me drop the shovel.
I’ll tell you about that in a minute (I know, I’m a tease). But first, a little backstory…
You may not know it but, in addition to being a long-time educator, consultant, speaker, and now business coach, I’m also an avid perennial flower gardener.
And, if you’ve never grown perennials yourself, you’re missing out on a lot of life lessons.
For example, one thing I’ve learned about perennial gardening is that it’s never done.
Now, that may come as a shock to some people. After all, perennials (as opposed to annuals) are supposed to be the “set it and forget it” type of flowers–plant them once and they come back year after year.
If only it were that simple!
In fact, whenever someone asks me about my perennial gardens (that’s right, “gardens,” plural–I have one in the front of the house and another all along the fence at the back of our yard), if they say something like, “I should plant perennials at my house. That way, I wouldn’t have to fool with them every year,” I know that they don’t know the first thing about perennials.
The truth is, while the majority of perennials will come back every year, some won’t and will need to be replaced.
Plus, sometimes you have to divide flowers that have grown out of control. Which means you have to transplant the ones you divided out.
And there’s always the deadheading…and the weeding…and the mulching…and the watering…and…
Well, you get the idea. If you want great-looking flower beds from March to October, you have to put a lot of time and attention into it.
And you can’t just spend an hour or two in your gardens on the weekend. Oh no, do that and you’ll have a bunch of dead flowers and an eyesore on your hands in no time.
No, the only way to have a beautiful perennial garden spring to fall is to spend a little time working on it every day. And I mean. Every. Day.
Consistency is the key. I’ve found that if I can get out to the garden for even 30 minutes a day, I can keep everything in tip-top shape.
OK now, back to my “Aha” moment yesterday that almost made me drop the shovel…
It’s All About Consistency
I realized that working in my garden is just like creating content for an audience of followers in your business.
When you’re trying to grow your credibility and authority in your field and build an audience, there’s nothing like creating consistent, free content.
It doesn’t matter what vehicle or platform you use to deliver your thought-leadership content. It could be a blog. It could be a podcast. It could be a YouTube channel.
The key is that you show up consistently (at least weekly) in the inboxes and feeds of your ideal clients and customers.
If you show up consistently, your people will start to expect and look forward to seeing your next piece of content. And when that happens, they’re hooked.
And then you’re just one good offer away from turning followers and email subscribers into paying clients.
In the days ahead, I’ll be sharing some more detailed thoughts about how you can do this in your consulting business. But for now, could you do me a favor?
If you’ve struggled to produce consistent free content for your audience of ideal clients, what has been your biggest challenge to making that happen?
I’d love to hear what you’ve tried, as well as what has worked and what hasn’t.
Just drop your replies in the Comments.
To Your Success,
Willy
CEO, Ed Consultant Marketing
P.S.–If you know that you need to start providing consistent content for your audience, but feel like you don’t have the time to do so, we should talk.
We help our coaching clients create systems and processes that streamline their content marketing work and leverage repurposing so that one piece of content becomes multiple pieces of content across various platforms.
Interested? Go to our 1-to-1 Business Coaching page.
And if that still sounds like more work than you’d like, we offer ghostwriting services where we do the work for you and your name goes on the finished product.
Sound good? Head over to the Custom Content Solutions page to learn how it works.
