How to Leverage Content Marketing to Build Trust and Drive Business Success

Picture this—you’ve got an amazing product or service, but you’re struggling to attract the right audience. You post on social media here and there, maybe you’ve sent a few emails, but nothing seems to move the needle. The truth is, your audience won’t find you unless you give them a reason to—and that’s where content marketing comes in. 

Today, we’re diving into the power of content marketing and how you can leverage blog posts, videos, and more to drive traffic, build trust, and convert visitors into paying customers. Whether you’re an eCommerce business owner, a course creator, or a coach, this episode will give you actionable strategies to make content marketing work for you!

Mentioned Resources

Creating Content with AI

-> EP 061: How to Write a Blog with AI in Minutes Versus Hours Using AI
-> EP 086: How to Transform your Productivity & Creativity with AI

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Chapters

• 0:01 Harnessing Content Marketing for Business Success
• 8:58 Maximizing Content Through Repurposing
• 20:42 Building Relationships Through Content Marketing

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:01

So I know most, if not all, of you out there have an amazing product or service. You've been really working really hard on your business, whether it's brand new or you've been established for a while. But we all struggle many times to attract the right audience. You've posted on social media here and there. Probably. You probably sent emails, maybe even regularly, but nothing quite seems to move the needle as fast as you'd like. But the truth is, your audience won't find you unless you give them a reason to, and that's where content marketing comes in. Today we're diving into the power of content marketing and how you can leverage blog posts, videos and more to drive traffic, build trust and convert visitors into paying customers. So, whether you're an e-commerce business owner, a course creator or a coach, this episode will give you some actionable strategies to make content marketing work for you.

Carrie Saunders: 1:00

Welcome to the e-commerce made easy podcast. I'm your host, k Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine-month-old. My main goal To help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry, and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place, so sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. So welcome back to the show. Before we break down the different types of content, I wanna talk about why content marketing is a must-have for any online business, and I wanna help make it accessible to you as well, if you're not already doing this, or help you level it up.

Carrie Saunders: 1:49

If you are doing some content marketing already, it is your digital salesperson. So think of content marketing as your digital salesperson. It isn't something where you're just creating something and hoping it sticks. We want to create highly leveraged assets that help bring in customers regularly. It is always working, even when you're not. Whether it's a blog post, a YouTube video or a podcast episode, high quality content can attract your ideal customers without you even working. They find your content. Your customers find your content when searching for answers. So when you build your blog posts, your YouTube videos or your podcast in a way that, when they're searching, they find your element, the thing that you created as an answer to their solution, it helps attract them to your website and to your services. Content marketing also helps build trust and credibility. Consistently providing value makes people more likely to buy from you.

Carrie Saunders: 2:52

And also think of this. When you go to a person's website, say, you see the word blog up there, you're probably going to be curious and click on it, especially if you're interested in their services, especially if you're interested in their services. But what happens if you see the last blog date of being six months ago or more? You're probably not going to trust that person as much because you feel like, well, if they don't care to put new content on their website, will they even care when I'm working with them? So if you have a blog, I highly recommend you're posting at least once a month on it, and we've talked about this several times on the podcast episode. Same goes for YouTube videos. You know, if you have started a YouTube channel, you have it prominently displayed on your website.

Carrie Saunders: 3:35

We want to make sure that you are putting in a new content. Potentially, once a month is fine. Maybe more often might be more appropriate, depending upon your area of expertise and what you, who you're trying to attract. But having that regular content builds trust and authority. It shows that you care and you want to give back to society as well as it shows you're active in your business. It also helps improve search engine optimization and drive traffic to your website. The more quality content you have, the more the drive traffic to your website. The more quality content you have, the more the search engines recommend your website. It's similar to that visitor that comes to your website If they don't see any new content for a long time, they're going to think your website's stale and unimportant.

Carrie Saunders: 4:19

And Google, bing and the major search engines also see that as well. So if they're not seeing regular updates to your content new content too they're going to start ranking not as high as they did before. It also helps increase conversions. People buy from people they trust. So when they see this content and they see that it's trustworthy, it's helpful, it's regular, looks like you care, it really builds that trust factor in your potential clients. So that can also really help you sell more on your website.

Carrie Saunders: 4:55

So I want to now go into the different content formats that we could do, because everybody's a little bit different on what format they're comfortable producing in. You know you might be more comfortable writing a blog post. You might be more comfortable doing a podcast like this, you could be one that would be even more comfortable being in front of a camera and doing a YouTube video. So we want to look at some of the different types of ways you can produce content so that you can find the one that works for you. And then we're also going to be talking about now what. Maybe you want to repurpose it, maybe you want to expand it elsewhere too, so we'll talk about that too.

Carrie Saunders: 5:30

So blogging is one of the foundation, core elements of content strategy. It can be the thing that you do and it can be perfectly fine. So if you're great at blogging, if you're great at writing, and even if you feel like you're mediocre, I encourage you to try blogging, because the more you practice, the better you're going to get. Just like you know, when I started this podcast, I felt a bit awkward at first, of course right Because I hadn't really done. I had never done podcasting. I'd done plenty of lives on Facebook, but I'd never done podcasting. So the more you practice on it, the better you get. So even if you feel like you're only mediocre at blogging, even if you feel like you have some good ideas, then go ahead and do it, because I bet you are going to get better and better the more you do it. And we also have a great episode on how to have AI help you write that content, especially if you're like me, where you have these creative ideas but you get stuck fleshing out like, say, the outline or something, and AI is great at creating that outline for you that you can then speak to and write to. So it is a great way to drive consistent content your website because it is living on your website. That's the one great thing about blogging is it lives on your website.

Carrie Saunders: 6:41

So when you're creating a blog, there's a few things you want to keep in mind. You want to make sure that you're trying to solve a problem for your client. So what is your audience actively seeking out? What are they searching for? Think about some FAQs. You might put up how-tos and guides. Think about the subjects you might write around that and then start writing blog articles that are a bit deeper into those subjects and that can draw people in. And then I want to make sure you're using keywords wisely. So when you're creating these blog posts, think of one main topic. It's kind of like you're writing to your English teacher in school One main topic per blog post and that one main topic should have some keywords in it that your audience would be searching for when they're searching on the internet. So make sure you sprinkle those throughout your blog post appropriately, and we have some other episodes on search engine optimization that can help you fill that out and get a little bit more detail there.

Carrie Saunders: 7:40

Also, we want to make it scannable. A lot of people actually most people, the majority, pretty much all people out there will not read an article on the internet unless it draws in their attention first, and that's what I mean by scannable. We want to have those really compelling headlines and you want to break up your blog article with several headlines and have them be compelling to draw that reader in, make them want to actually read the paragraphs that are underneath those headlines. So first we need to make it scannable to draw them in and then they can observe your great content that you've created. You also want to include a call to action. So what should they do next? They get your great article and they're like, wow, this is really great. This is something I see people forget to do.

Carrie Saunders: 8:27

At the bottom of your blog, at minimum, make sure you have a call to action. Do you want them to subscribe to your newsletter to get more of this great content? Do you want them to buy a product or service? Download something? Make sure you have one clear call to action in each blog post. Also, in your blog post, we want to make sure that you are making about the audience and not you. So make sure you're not focusing on you and that you're focusing on helping your audience. So that's one really great key that helps build that trust.

Carrie Saunders: 8:58

And then we'll talk about repurposing. But we can totally repurpose blogs, especially in the emails, social media posts and also in the videos too. So if you're not already creating regular content, I want to encourage you to pick one of these that we're talking about today and then, once you're comfortable with that, then expand to repurposing it as well, and also make sure we're not writing a bunch of fluff. It's always quality over quantity Every time. You can have a great short blog post article that, hands down, does much better than one that's five, 10 times its length. So make sure it's quality over quantity every time. And if you're stuck about what to write about, use your customers' questions as blog posts. What do they usually ask you. What are they asking you in email, what are they asking you in Messenger or on sales calls? Turn those into content. That's a great way to draw more of those people who are already reaching out to you in needing your products or your services.

Carrie Saunders: 10:09

So then, the next topic we're going to talk about is video content. It is one of the great ways to really create that regular content out there for your potential audience, and it can be a really fast track to engagement. The reason being is that videos generate 1200% more shares more, you know, shares across social media and all the things than text and images combined. So think about that. If you're capable and brave enough to create video and I know some people a little afraid of it, but, like I said, practice makes perfect you are going to be able to get a lot more widespread shares than other people. So whether you're on YouTube, instagram or TikTok if it's still around that's been a bit up in the air so lately Video is the most engaging form of content. We're consuming it a lot anymore. So if you are able and, you know, willing to put forth the effort to really create video content, it can be a really great idea for your business.

Carrie Saunders: 11:08

So there's some ideas that you can do for video, and one of them is behind the scenes. A lot of customers are really interested in what happens behind the scenes. Show your process, your workspace or your team. Customers want or buy from humans. They don't buy from businesses. So when they can relate to you because they see your behind the scenes work, that can really help them build that trust in you. Also, how-to tutorials are great. Teach something valuable about your industry or what you're serving or your products. It's really great to just draw that in, that there's people in, because a lot of people are searching for how-to blank. So whatever you're selling and serving, you can put that how-to whatever it is in your subject matter in the title for your video. So it's a great way to get natural searches to you.

Carrie Saunders: 12:05

Customer testimonials is another thing you can do for videos. Nothing builds trust like a real customer story. So having videos on it and even better if you can have a video interview or have your customer do their own video that makes it even more trustworthy. So customer testimonials are a great video resource for you. Also, live Q&As Engaging directly with your audience and answering their questions live on video really shows that you care. So there's a really great option for video that you might not think about and I actually hadn't really even thought about it much until I started writing this podcast episode. But live Q&As are a great way to really just engage their audience and encourage more questions and more feedback and that's going to actually create a snowball effect and you'll learn even more about your potential clients out there than you had before.

Carrie Saunders: 12:56

So some things we want to make sure we're doing when we are doing videos is we want to keep it short and valuable. A great video can be less than five minutes. It could be less than a minute too. A great video could be 20 minutes. It could be 40 minutes. It really just depends on the subject. It could be 20 minutes, it could be 40 minutes it really just depends on the subject. But you want to have it as short as possible for what you're trying to do. So we don't want to just keep talking for no reason in your video and keep it going for longer, because long videos you're just going to bore them and they're going to leave and jump off the video. So make sure it's concise and as long as it needs to be, but again, it could be 40 minutes if that's what you really need to show or demonstrate what you're trying to show or demonstrate, so don't feel like it can't be longer either. Just want to make sure you understand, not to make it long, just to make it long.

Carrie Saunders: 13:48

Also, adding captions is a must. I know, especially for me, many times I'm not watching video with the sound on, and a lot of other people also don't watch video with the sound on, and it also helps to make it more accessible to all people. So making sure that we are adding captions or using something that can put captions on it for us is definitely a must. And then I want to make sure that you're using a strong hook. The first few seconds must grab their attention. That way, it keeps them hooked and keeps them wanting to watch more.

Carrie Saunders: 14:23

And I want to make sure that when you're creating videos, don't aim for perfection. Authenticity beats overly polished content. So make sure you are being you. So be brave. Don't worry about what others think. It doesn't matter what you do on the internet. There's going to be people that criticize you, no matter what. You could be perfect, and you're still going to get criticized, because many times, people who criticize have something that they're upset about in themselves, and that's how they express it. It just comes out and they criticize other people. So don't worry about being criticized, don't worry about being perfect. Just be authentically you, and then make sure that you're doing a call to action in your video too.

Carrie Saunders: 15:06

Tell them what to do next. Make it really brief. Don't make it super like long and chunky and clunky, you know. Make it pretty brief, but tell visitors what to do next. They may love your content, but we all are so decision fatigued. That little nudge of what to do next really helps their brain take that next step, with them having to figure out okay, well, what should I do next? I like this person. Now what? Give them? Tell them what to do, and also don't post without repurposing. So this is kind of a key.

Carrie Saunders: 15:38

So turn those videos into blog posts, where I want to kind of weave all this together. You could turn your blog posts into videos and then you could. Or, if you start with a video format, you could turn those videos into blog posts. Why not repurpose it? You could turn the videos into podcast episodes and social media clips. It's really easy to take a video anymore and create little shorts for it, and you can post it on all the other social media platforms as well. So I want to challenge you today Can you record a 60 second video introducing yourself and your business and post it on your favorite platform? That's like my one little challenge for you today, as I want you to pose create a 60 second video, introduce yourself and your business and post it on your favorite platform. I want to see what it does for you. And then, finally, I want to talk about something we've glanced on.

Carrie Saunders: 16:30

Some while we're going through this podcast episode is repurposing your content. Some, while we're going through this podcast episode is repurposing your content. We want to work smarter, not harder. So, whether it's a and we didn't dive too much into podcast episodes and creating those on the show today but what you know, you could pick. You know. Do you feel more comfortable creating blog posts? Do you feel more comfortable doing a podcast episode? Do you feel more comfortable doing a video? Pick which one you're most comfortable with, start with that one and then explore expanding that one piece of content into one of the other forms. So let's repurpose that content. So one piece of content can turn into 10 or more pieces of content. So I want to help you stop creating from scratch Every time. We want to be smart.

Carrie Saunders: 17:20

People consume content in different ways. It's okay If your blog posts and your video are on the same subject and you're saying practically the same thing in both of them, because some people are video watchers, some people are readers, so it's okay. So take your blog posts. You can turn for example's okay. So take your blog posts, you can turn. For example, you can turn your blog post into a LinkedIn article. You can take your blog post. You can pull key tips out of it and put it on Instagram posts, maybe put it on a pretty graphic that matches your brand colors. So, if you're writing blog posts, you can record a video sharing the same information. You can maybe even add a bit more of a visual twist to it if you'd like. If you'd like to go that far with it, it could be something you'd work towards as well. Let's say, when you're also one of those bloggers, you can send your blog post, or a snippet of it, to your email newsletter, teasing them and then having the link back to your website to read the rest of the article.

Carrie Saunders: 18:14

You can also take your blog post and break it into short form videos. You can create little short form videos from your blog posts. Take a paragraph, a sentence or two. You know, hopefully, your paragraphs are short. Let me mention that real quick. Make sure your paragraphs are pretty short when we're writing blog posts too, because people don't read a whole lot of words at a time on the internet. So you can take one of those little paragraphs that's like two or three sentences long and create a little short form video and put it on social media.

Carrie Saunders: 18:41

So if you're already writing blog posts, I want to challenge you to take your most popular blog post and turn it into a video or a podcast episode and see how. See how that feels. You don't have to publish it. Don't get too pressured. You don't have to publish it. Don't get too pressured. You don't have to publish it. I do challenge you to publish it, but you wouldn't have to. But practice that. How does that feel? Does it feel pretty good to repurpose that content and reuse it and say, oh, this effort already put in it's going to extend farther. I'm getting more bang for my buck for this effort. So I really challenge you to do something like that this week, okay.

Carrie Saunders: 19:14

So final thoughts why content marketing matters. What's the best part of content marketing? It works long term and works for you when you're not working. So a blog post from a year ago can still bring you traffic today. A YouTube video from years ago can generate new leads today. So if you're not using content marketing yet, I would encourage you to start small, like I said in the beginning, pick one format blogging, videos, social media posts could be a podcast too. If you'd like more information on that, make sure you reach out with us. Reach out to us. We'll also link to our great episode with Crystal Prophet, who is my podcast teacher, so you can learn more about podcasting if that's interesting to you.

Carrie Saunders: 19:59

And then I want to make sure that you're consistent. So pick the format. Pick how often. I would recommend at minimum once a month, but really, when you're getting started, I want to get you really in the habit of it, so once a week would be even better. Be consistent. Make it a non-negotiable.

Carrie Saunders: 20:17

When I started this podcast it was not negotiable. Every week I was going to release an episode. So make it. You know, set yourself a goal and a deadline and a consistency that your schedule, that you're going to stick to Make sure it's reasonable. You know I had to think, can I do this podcast every week? And I was like, yes, I am committed, I am going to do this podcast episode every week. So make sure you're doing that.

Carrie Saunders: 20:42

And remember content marketing isn't about selling all the time. It's about building the relationship, trust and authority. So if you do that, sales will naturally follow. So just remember that. All right, so that's all we have today for this week's episode of the Ecommerce Made Easy podcast. I hope this is super helpful and encouraging and will get you on your way to creating or making your own content marketing even better, or making your own content marketing even better. If you have any questions for us, be sure to drop us an email at podcast at bcsengearingcom. There's also a text carry button at the top of the show notes in your favorite podcast app, so feel free to click on that. It goes directly to me and you can text me. And if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out and you can always find our show notes at ecommercemadeeasypodcastcom. And we will see you next week.