3 Content Marketing Tips with Lacy Boggs
Branding with Friends | Episode 8
Featuring Expert Guest: Lacy Boggs, Storyteller at The Content Direction Agency
Watch or listen to the video interview below or scroll down to read the transcription.
Meet Lacy Boggs, Content Strategist at The Content Direction Agency
Annie: Today I'm going to introduce you to one of my new friends in the business world. If you are curious about how to blog for your business, how to get help blogging for your business, and come up with a dynamic content strategy that's going to keep those ideal clients coming in, you're going to love today's episode. My guest today is the very wonderful Lacy Boggs. Lacy is a content strategist, the author of the best-selling Kindle e-book Making a Killing with Content, and the director of The Content Direction Agency. She helps small business owners create organic demand through content marketing and filling their program in practice without giving Facebook a dime. I love that. Lacy thank you so much for being here.
Lacy: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Annie: Absolutely, I am really glad that Lacy is here today. She's going to be sharing three great tips with you about content marketing. As always we're going to share that third tip right at the end of the episode. Make sure you listen all the way through or watch all the way through to make sure you learn as much as you possibly can from Lacy. She's sharing a bit of time with us today and you want to get every nugget you can from her.
Lacy, I'm so glad you're here. We know a little bit about you now but tell us a little bit more about how you got into content writing and strategy.
Lacy: It's been a long and winding road that's for sure. I started out in journalism. That was my last “real job” before going out on my own. I was working for a hyperlocal magazine here in Colorado and I got pregnant with our daughter. I couldn't quite imagine doing 60-hour weeks and being at the office at 3 a.m. on deadline with an infant.
I left that job and I was a food writer. So I, of course, started a food blog. That's what you did in 2011. I did that for about a year and while the blog itself was very successful. I was able to grow an audience and I was able to build my email list to a thousand people in under six months. I got invited to guest blog for Martha Stewart's web site. I was making no money. I lovingly call it my four-figure year. I think I made nearly five thousand dollars that whole year.
My husband took me aside at the end of the year and he said, I love that you're staying home with our daughter. I love that you're doing this thing online and I need you to make some more money.
It's cool I have a new idea maybe somebody will pay me to do this blogging thing for them. It turned out they would. So that was eight years ago now and I've been doing this ever since. It's grown organically. At first, it was just me writing blog posts. Then I educated myself on marketing because my clients started asking me, what do you think of this? Should I do that? I would say, I don't know. Then as I was educating myself I discovered that I had a lot of strong opinions about it. So, I went more in the direction of content strategist and started hiring my team to help do a lot of the writing. That's where we are today.
Annie: I love it! I think it's funny because as many people as I've been interviewing on Branding with Friends, it ends up that around the 2011-2012 time frame is where a lot of us were leaving our real jobs and figuring out a side hustle. I actually started a partial food blog called Annie Made. It was meant to sell these little things I made for my wedding but I ended up blogging a lot about cooking and my poor husband every time I'd bake something I'd be like wait we have to take pictures before we can eat it.
I had built a following with it and it was one of those things where you know blogging, just blogging, and building audience doesn't necessarily mean an income. So I'm so glad you're here to talk about that today. I think that leads us really nicely into the first tip that you have for our audience. What is the first thing that small business owners should consider about content strategy and content marketing?
#1 Action TIP
You have to know your goals before you dive into tactics or strategy
Lacy: First and foremost, always you have to know your goals for content marketing before you ever dive into the tactics or the strategy. What I mean by that is a lot of times people start a business and they hear you should have a blog. You should have a podcast. You should have videos and so they're like cool let me do that. And they jump into it with both feet but they don't actually understand or they haven't given enough thought to how the blog or the podcast for the videos or whatever it is, is leading to their goals in their business.
Nine times out of ten when you're a business owner your major goal is sales right? Revenue, new clients whatever that is. But a lot of times there's a disconnect between the content we're putting out and the ultimate goal for the business. My big first tip is always to know your goal first. Start with why and work backward from there.
Annie: I think that's excellent advice and this is why I'm always proven right I think with Branding with Friends. Whatever the topic may be social media, SEO, content marketing, it's also the same goal that you have with branding, right?
People say oh you need a logo you just go out and get a logo but if you haven't thought about the strategy of how...what are your goals? Yes sales but not sales from everyone, right? Some people would tell you sales from everyone would a good way to not be known for anything.
Is it appealing to everybody? I always like to say your primary ideal client is the person that's most profitable and most passionate to work with. The people you really love to help, but also the people who can still pay your bills right? There are very wonderful people we love to help that maybe can't keep our lights on from a business perspective.
What is that goal? Who are we trying to reach? And then we figure out the tactics of how we express that through a brand identity or in your world, what those blog posts should be, what that podcast should be. What is the content that's going to drive that strategy for years to come and connect you to people the people you really can help?
We can all help a lot of different people but it's the people we can help the most and people want to skip that step because it's not the sexy step. Even though it's got an 's' in the front of it, strategy is not a sexy step.
Lacy: Well a lot of times people will come up with what they think people want for content. What they think people want or what they think they can give through content may be different. A really great example of this is that how-to content is generally pretty easy for a lot of us to write. We're an expert in our field and so it feels natural to write a post like how to write a blog post, or how to choose a look, or how to do SEO, whatever it might be.
But if your service is “done for you” the people who want to pay somebody to write their blog posts, or do their logo, or do their SEO don't care how to do it. So there's a real disconnect between the kind of content you might be producing and the kind of audience you want to attract.
Annie: Lacy actually just pointed out one of the big mistakes I made early on in my newsletter and the blogging that I was doing. I have over 100 blog posts at greateststorycreative.com. You were the beneficiary of this information if you were a designer because I did a lot of that having to sort of “do it yourself”. It took me a few years and I got a great newsletter I still remember it from Nevica Vasquez and she works with digital business owners. One of the things she said is exactly what Lacy just said. It's super true this idea of thinking about who your clients are.
My ideal clients are people who don't want to do all this stuff themselves and they don't even have the skillset nor should they. They're great coaches and consultants who are really great at what they do and they need somebody else to take on the creative piece. They don't want to do it themselves.
So even though it's something I knew to write about, again a great example of a content mismatch. I think Lacy's your girl to help you untangle that. I'm your girl that helped you untangle it from a branding perspective.
Especially from a content perspective, goals matter so much. If you take nothing else away from all Branding with Friends episodes, goals, goals, goals. The keyword is strategy. Which I think also leads us to our next tip which lends itself at once you've set your goals what is the next thing folks should focus on?
#2 ACTION TIP
Make sure each piece of content leads people down the road to a sale.
Lacy: I really always try to help people understand that you need to make sure that each piece of content you're creating is putting a little signpost, a little rock in the river to lead people to a sale. My metaphor that I use all the time is to imagine that your ideal client is on one side of the river and the sale with you is on the other side of the river. How are they going to get there?
Each piece of content you create is like a rock in the river to get them across. If you just scatter them in at random, what are the chances they're actually going to make it across? They might fall in and wash away if you don't have them close enough together. if you don't have them the right size and shape right.
When we have a content strategy in place we are making sure that each rock we're dropping in that river is appropriately sized, appropriately placed, so that it makes it really easy to get those people from one side of the river to the other. You do that with content through blogging. When I say blogging, that's my world but it's any kind of content podcast whatever.
Am I doing it consistently enough? Am I choosing the right topics that are going to make people want to buy my thing? Am I helping overcome objections through the topics I'm choosing? Am I reaching out to new audiences to keep my funnel full? All those things are part of content strategy but we want to make sure that every piece of content we put out is part of that little path to lead people to a sale.
Annie: I love the rocks in the river. I never heard it quite put that way and if I ever repeat it again I'm going to give you a 110% credit. If you scatter them you can't walk in a well-paced path, right? There is no path laid out because there's no strategy. There's no strategy behind it.
I think that that's brilliant and you sort of touched on this but could you elaborate a little bit on? You said podcast, you said blogging. But for those of us who just know oh we're supposed to have a podcast or etc. I often find with my clients that they don't even really consider offline marketing as an option. They think business has to be a 100% online. They don't consider the in-person opportunities.
So similarly, in your world what are all the kinds of content for example that you help clients with? Whether that'd be blog posts and beyond. Give us sort of a list or a way to think about it from a memory jogging perspective.
Lacy: I define content marketing as anytime you're having a conversation with a potential client that could ultimately lead to a sale. So anytime you're engaged in some sort of conversation with a client. That could be tweets. It could be Tik-Tok. It could be Facebook Live, IGTV, podcasts, blog posts, emails. I've never done a billboard but I've always thought it would be a fun challenge. Old-school sales letters, if you mail out postcards any of that is content that you're providing with the ultimate goal of making a sale. It doesn't have to be spammy, skeezy used car salesman content. But anytime we are communicating with our audience that's content marketing.
In terms of what we help with, our zone of genius is any kind of ongoing content. That includes blog posts, email newsletters, podcast show notes, we've even helped people script regular Facebook Lives. If they're going Live in their group every week we help them come up with an outline every week to make sure they stay focused. Really any time people are having that conversation we can step in and although we do one-off projects like sale sequences for emails and things like that. We really do focus a lot on that ongoing content because I think that's where people need a lot of help. That consistency and having to churn it out every week can be really daunting especially if you're a very small business. We like to help with that.
Annie: From your perspective, having worked with so many different types of small business owners, people at different levels, how important would you say it is that they have some sort of brand identity before you work with them?
Lacy: Oh super important. Here's a little secret, the only people I've ever worked with that were unhappy with our copy, were the people who didn't know what they wanted in the first place. That is directly a branding problem, that's a messaging problem. While I can help you spin it and make it sound amazing, you’ve got to know what your message is upfront.
I actually love working with people like you or clients of yours, Annie. Because when they come to me with a strong brand platform, message, foundation, it's a thousand times easier for us to come up with the copy. No matter what it's for, whether it's for a sales page or a blog post. It's so much easier when they have a really good understanding of their brand and their brand voice and what that means.
Branding sometimes we think of as logos, colors, and photos. But there's also a voice aspect. How do you communicate? What does it sound like? What are your blog posts? How did they stand out? When you have a solid brand, we can do a much better job emulating that brand voice.
Annie: I think that's a great way to illustrate. Some people may have tuned in and thought well Annie don't you do copywriting? Why are you having Lacy on? I love having Lacy on because she picks up where Greatest Story leaves off.
The work I do with Greatest Story Creative is helping a lot of service-based business owners like coaches and consultants find that brand voice. Not only to find their logo but also their tagline at the same time. It’s about story, as well as their colors, and their fonts. All based on that 'S' word that sexy strategy that we come together on.
I'm helping people get that message, that brand identity together, and then you can work with a partner like Lacy to do that ongoing content. I don't do ongoing projects like blog posts or an email newsletter. But Lacy and her team are fantastic at it right. So that's where we connect and we share this love of branding. It makes both our jobs easier. If we follow these things so you again there’s that 'S' for sexy strategy. Just like you do Lacy, having goals in mind, having that well-founded brand.
For me with my clients, years ago I did not used to have a strategy step. I did a questionnaire and then I started off on my way and for the past several years I've done a creative brief. I don't expect my clients to do it, I actually do it for you. We do it as a partnership. You send me everything, I fill out the brief and then we go over it together to make sure it's correct.
Ever since then, to your point, you've never had an unhappy client that had a well-founded brand. To start with it's the ones that didn't know what they wanted. Same here, I've never had an unhappy client when we have aligned on the strategy, to begin with.
Lacy: It's all about expectations, right? I can't meet someone's expectations if they don't know what they are and they can’t communicate what they are.
Annie: I always like to say I went through this. I had a corporate career at Disney and it was amazing. But it was not all sunshine and kitties and rainbows. It was corporate America and there were moments where I had challenging managers. I remember expectations weren't clear.
Raise your hand if you have ever had a job where your expectations weren't clear.
What I would always say is, if you don't know where the target is you don't know if you’re hitting it. I don't know if I'm a mile away from it. My goal is to hit the target. My goal is to get that A+. My husband would tell you that I am big on A+. I always want the A+. But if I don't know what the grading scale is I have no idea how to be successful.
The Same goes for small businesses when you are assessing your own marketing, when you're trying to reach clients. If you haven't set up what the rules are and what your goals are, what you're trying to accomplish, what makes you happy, what makes you sustainable, you have no idea what target you're trying to hit.
You're just the rocks in the river to use Lacy's great metaphor. That is all amazing and I know we have a third tip coming up that Lacy you want to share with everybody. Before that, I want to make sure people know how to connect with you and I know there's something special that you wanted to share with our Branding with Friends audience. What is that that you wanted to offer from your world of content?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Grab Lacy’s editorial calendar template at lacyboggs.com/brandingwithfriends
Lacy: I thought it would be great to offer, since we're talking about strategy and knowing your goals and planning and all that good stuff. I have an editorial calendar template that I use with all of my one-on-one clients and I've actually expanded it into a full business dashboard for content marketing.
What you get is the editorial calendar which helps you plan out what am I going to say week by week. It also has several additional tabs that help you track it. When you have a goal, you can assign that goal in number and then you can track it and say how am I progressing towards that goal. The editorial calendar and the dashboard we call it the leadership marketing dashboard. I'm putting that together for you guys.
It’s lacyboggs.com/brandingwithfriends. You can get that for free and it comes with the Google Doc and a little video explainer that shows you how to use it
Annie: That's is awesome! Thank you so much for sharing that with folks. If you're new to Branding with Friends all our amazing guest experts offer something great for you to keep putting these tips into action. Take Lacy up on that opportunity.
I think Lacy you make a great point about making sure not only that you're doing it, but that you're tracking. If you don't pay attention, you don't know if you're meeting your goals. Again, it all comes back to that. I'm so glad you're going to share that with us.
Lacy, I'm so glad you were here today. I think we have one last tip. It was something about special about traffic. Tell us a little bit more about your last tip today. The last thing we want to leave our small business owners thinking about.
#3 Action Tip
Focus on building organic traffic.
Lacy: I saved this one for the end on purpose. I think a lot of times online business owners get swayed by shiny objects and fancy tactics. A lot of times people think they need a really elaborate funnel that starts with ads and goes through emails and does all these different things in order to make sales. Those all work in certain circumstances. I'm not throwing shade at marketing funnels. Because we build those too.
What I want to impress on people is focus on also building organic demand for whatever you're doing. By that, I mean demand that comes to you without you having to pay for it.
I know you said you did an SEO episode with Meg who I love. SEO is a big part of this. Writing the content with humans in mind first, but search engines in mind as well. We want to be there when somebody is searching for a way to solve their problem. We want to be the search result that comes up.
There is an organic demand. They're already excited and want to solve that problem so the more organic content you create be that blog post or whatever it may be, the more likely you are to be that person who shows up in Google's results. This is a long game.
Paid demand, paid traffic and organic demand are two sides of a coin and we use them at different times. They're two tools that we can use. When you need traffic fast, you have more money than time that's when paid advertising happens. When you need traffic consistently over a long period of time and you have more time than money, that's when organic demand is what we want to focus on. I don't want people to forget about it because as you said before it's not that sexy right. To think, okay I'm going to blog every day, every week.
Annie: That's the challenge I think you and I have, Lacy, is to convince people to realize that strategy is with a capital 'S' as in sexy. It's going to bring you everything you want. It doesn't feel like it's the fun step but it is the fun step. If you think about all the joy it's going to bring you, all the beautiful clients, all the happy experiences, and the money coming into your bank account.
Lacy: I have I've got the receipts on this. I have a client that we worked together for four years and she was able to generate an average of 5,000 leads a year, hot leads just from organic traffic. She was keeping an average of 750 paid members on her membership site with zero advertising. That was enough to pay her, make a great revenue, pay two employees, and pay me. All with organic traffic.
I know this can be done and I think it's just not as exciting as, oh turn on the ad and suddenly we have a bazillion people. But ads aren't magic right? You still have to get that second click and that's when content comes in.
Annie: I think there's also this assumption that everything is very passive. That if you pay for it, it’s passive. That's so not true. It's sort of the lie we've all been sold about passive income. I love that you talk about organic traffic and wanting the demand to be there. Someone's seeking you out and I would say that that's probably true beyond just the world of search engines.
It's something that's really on my mind. I'm working on a second book right now and one of the things I want to talk about is that you want a business that's in demand from ideal clients, not demanding of your ideal clients.
If I get one more lukewarm call or lukewarm email or lukewarm messages from people I've known that are suddenly like, “hey do you want to hire me?”. They don’t even ask if I have a problem, they just tell me I do.
My favorite is just got a LinkedIn message asking if I had trouble with my eyes. It's someone that specializes in aging and I'm like oh my god I'm turning 35 in a couple of weeks. By the time this episode has aired, I'll be 35. Do my eyes look like they had problems?
It goes back to this notion of being in demand versus being demanding of your audience. You really want people who are looking for you.
People who search for Lacy Boggs are going to be a better fit than people just looking for content writing, or content marketing strategy. You've raised your visibility through your work and through doing episodes like this.
I do it through speaking, you've done it through writing and blogging. I want you to be thinking about what are some ways that would be nice if you didn't have to lukewarm email people and people came looking just for you.
What if you listen to some of today's tips and start thinking about that sexy strategy, that's where you're going be. You don't want to be demanding and turn people off. You want people knocking down your door.
Even going through the Coronavirus crisis, I'm having people come to me even during that and still being an in-demand business and that's where you want to be. You don't come across like you are bugging people. You want people to come in to bug you so you can help them and add the value that you have.
Lacy, thank you so much again. I'm so glad that you were here on Branding with Friends.
Lacy: My pleasure thanks for having me.
“Branding with Friends” Episode 8
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips to use content marketing to grow your service business:
Know your goals for your content marketing first and foremost.
Make sure whatever you are writing about is going to lead to a sale. Set up those nice rocks in the river path.
Last but not least is focus on organic traffic. Place a high premium on that because that is what is going to help you have consistency in your business over time in terms of clients that you really want to work with.
Dive deeper into branding and growing your greatest business with Annie Franceschi:
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To learn more about content marketing or to seek Lacy’s help:
• To grab your free content calendar, visit: lacyboggs.com/brandingwithfriends.
• Follow Lacy on Facebook.
