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4 Fundamental Content Marketing Lessons You Can Learn from a Young YouTube Superstar

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:51 AM PDT

I have recently gotten more actively involved in retirement planning and investing for my family's future. In my research, I recently stumbled upon the YouTube channel of a real estate entrepreneur and investor named Graham Stephan. Graham is a young guy—he's only 26 years old—but he's absolutely killing it with his YouTube channel where he offers advice on finance, investing, entrepreneurship, and more. He has over 1 million subscribers, and for good reason.

Usually I am skeptical of internet gurus. We've all seen these shady "get rich quick" schemes and people promising to teach you how to make lots of money online. Graham Stephan is something different and better than all that. He's knowledgeable, credible, and fun to watch, and anyone who's an entrepreneur or who wants to get better at marketing themselves can learn something from him. 

Here a few reasons why I believe Graham Stephan is successful on YouTube.

1. He understands content 

Graham Stephan's video content is unique, and he actually delivers substantive commentary and compelling insights; you can tell that he's put time and effort into every video and he's really trying to give you something "real." Most marketers out there rehash the same stuff they have heard elsewhere. The world of content marketing is getting overrun and polluted by too much mediocre content—spammy, insincere, and recycled content that doesn't really help improve your life. I’ve read and seen way too much content, where afterwards I’ve felt like I wish I could have that time back.

2. He is transparent 

In each of his videos, Graham starts by asking viewers to “like” the video if we like what we see. And he flat out tells us why: the YouTube algorithm rewards interactive content, so if we want to support his videos, "like" them. The thumbnails in his videos have silly faces, and he is upfront and says that he does the silly faces for clicks—he's actively trying to engage a bigger audience, even before they click the thumbnail on his video.

He lets you know why he does everything. This is a refreshing change from other online "gurus," who often act like they have secret superpowers or a mysterious black box of manipulative marketing techniques. Graham is more low-key: "Hey, if you enjoyed my video, why not help me out with a like?" 

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3. He's professional 

While most “finance gurus” out there record themselves talking into a laptop camera in their plain home office, Graham Stephan’s videos have high-end production value. He started creating YouTube videos for fun because he enjoyed camera work and video editing, and he was spending 40 to 50 hours per week making videos, even though they weren't making any money.

You can tell that Stephan puts a lot of thought into the creative side of YouTube video making. His videos have slick editing and clever cuts, and even if he is just recording a video of himself at a laptop in his kitchen or home office, he uses intriguing camera angles and soundtracks to make the videos entertaining. 

4. He demonstrates credibility

You know how so many financial and business gurus are slick talkers who pepper their speeches with weasel words and BS? Graham is not like that. When he makes factual statements, he will show the supporting evidence. And with opinions, he provides his logic behind them. He's really quite self-effacing and open about his own mistakes, struggles, and learning experiences. He's open about his vulnerabilities—he has a video where he talks about his struggle with social anxiety. Perhaps most importantly, he shows the math behind his successes. 

For example, in this video on how he became a millionaire by age 26 by working in real estate, he explains step-by-step how he got started in the real estate industry, why he decided to skip college, how he built relationships with real estate agents and found a niche in the market where he could make money even though he was young, how he gradually started making sales and making big commissions on million dollar homes, and how he started investing in his own rental properties. He shares the real numbers at every step of the way, and he's believable—because he's not exaggerating, he's not being shady, he's just being real.  

Will Graham Stephan's career path work for everyone? Well, of course not—not everyone has the same strengths as Stephan, not everyone can get into the lucrative but competitive Southern California real estate market, not everyone likes to spend 50 hours a week making YouTube videos for zero money, and not everyone can be—or wants to be—a millionaire by age 26. But what almost ANYONE can learn is how to improve their marketing skills.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t know Graham Stephan, I have no affiliation or business relationship with him, I have no financial stake whatsoever in people clicking his videos. I'm just really impressed by his work and I wanted to spotlight his videos as an inspiring example of content marketing at its best. 

RELATED: 12 Small Business Podcasts That Will Help You Sell More

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5 Choices That Can Make a Business More Successful

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:39 AM PDT

In business, there are always choices. Should we do this or should we do that? If we do this, what impact will it have on our bottom line, employees, or customers? If we choose a different approach, what effect will it have on our reputation, branding, or goodwill? If we disrupt the market, will it end up in the long run being positive or negative for our business?

The decisions we make may at times seem obvious and easy, but carefully thinking through our options is a necessity for growth and survival. Consider the following five choices that can change a business:

1. Focus on competitors or customers?

Certainly, every business needs to know its competition. What is their pricing, marketing, distribution, products or services, after-sales assistance, quality, refund policy, etc. Meeting the competition head-to-head, however, is generally not the key to success.

On the other hand, if a business does not have customers, it really does not have a viable business. So, perhaps, the focus should be on customers. Give them what they want in the way of pricing, delivery, customer service, quality, etc. More satisfied customers will mean more business. All of a sudden, it becomes the competition trying to figure out how to beat you and your business rather than you trying to figure out how to beat the competition.

2. Be a follower or leader?

As a business owner, do you prefer to be a follower or leader in your business segment? Whether your business is retail, wholesale, manufacturing, service, technology, or professional, you have a choice: follow what other businesses are doing or be a leader on the forefront of new ideas, new product or service offerings, a different approach to customer service, or a unique value proposition.

Being a follower might be a more conservative route to go, but will it provide the key elements necessary for you to achieve your goals and objectives? Taking the leader approach can certainly involve more risks, but the rewards can also be much greater.

3. Impede or facilitate employee morale?

There is no question that employees are the most valuable asset of any business. Without motivated and dedicated employees, a business is destined to remain mediocre. When owners and managers do not place a high importance on employees, morale is impeded and growth is stymied.

When management understands the important link between employees, customers, and growth, it will facilitate employee morale with good communication, open-door policies, opportunities for growth and advancement, and individual respect. Facilitating employee morale is not accomplished by accident, but through focused and deliberate actions.

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4. Nonexistent or existent company culture?

A company culture is hard to precisely define. It's an atmosphere that prevails within a business about how employees behave, how they interact with each other in and out of work, and how they deal with outside parties, such as customers and vendors. It is about their beliefs, and can even be how employees dress, hours worked, and office configurations.

When there is no real, cohesive culture within a business, employees do their job and little else. When the workday is over, everyone goes their separate ways. Conversely, a culture can contribute to the success of a business. A culture that embraces the vision of business affects in a positive way how employees work and act.

Although every business will have its own culture, a positive culture is essential for success. When employees feel valued with a sense of belonging and loyalty to a business, company value increases.

5. Deny or empower employees?

When there is no opportunity for growth, employees feel stymied in their current positions, which creates a lackluster business environment. Denying employees the opportunity to do things on their own, to implement new ideas, or to try and fail, creates a monotonous situation that destroys any ingenuity that might exist in the workforce.

Empowering employees, however, creates excitement, turns ideas into reality, generates efficiencies, and inspires everyone to reach for higher plateaus. When employees have the power to do something, try something new, or make decisions on their own that are in line with company goals, they become more committed and confident in their work. Empowering employees is a key element in creating a long-term, profitable, sustainable business.

Which is more important?

Every action in a business has some type of consequence. When making a decision, consider wisely what will produce the best results, not only for the short term, but for the long term, as well. It can often take just as much effort to produce a negative result as it does to produce a positive result. Direct your energies, therefore, into those areas that have the potential to produce the most positive business results.

RELATED: 5 Lessons I Learned About Business by Playing in a Band

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The Most Common Mistake Companies Make With Social Media Marketing

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:33 AM PDT

By Rachel Frederick

Social media can be an incredible form of marketing—and this is not news. It has the potential to reach a large audience, it's mostly free, and it's a great way to enhance your brand. Yet it's so easy to get caught up in the “posting roller coaster” without any real clarity around whom you're posting for and why they're following you in the first place.

If you're struggling to get the conversions you think you should be getting, a lack of clarity and focus is likely the biggest reason why.

What if we start thinking of social media not as marketing, but instead as "maintenance marketing?" As in, social media is most successful when it supports what you're already doing outside of the platform. Social media will never stand on its own as a marketing tactic. While an interesting post or two might attract followers and a few likes and comments, focused branding, consistent messaging, and a predictable posting schedule is what retains them. In other words, branding is step one, content is step two, and social media is step three.

Start with a solid foundation, position yourself as an expert, and then promote what makes you amazing. I'm guessing this is not the first time you've heard that you need to build a solid foundation, and that if you're missing that foundation, social media has very little chance of helping with your profit margins. Yet so many brands are posting just to post without a content strategy to back it up.

If you don't have a story to tell, content to promote, testimonials to share, or a business promise worth shouting about, social media won’t help you much in the long run. Let's back up for a moment, shall we?

Who are you?

Within moments of landing on your Instagram feed, Facebook page, or LinkedIn profile, your visitors should be able to tell who you are. They should be able to tell what you do and why you do it. If they can't, they won't stick around for very long. First, find your story, then use imagery, quotes, fonts, and colors to back it up.

So many small businesses are focused on keeping up with their competition that they fall into the shadows. They become followers instead of leaders. Find your story. Find your voice. Find your brand. There is a reason why authenticity is so overplayed right now—it's a very real, very usable marketing tactic.

Who are your customers?

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, your core audience is most likely within a five to 15 mile radius of your location. This means that shouting about your amazing cupcakes across all of social media may not be the best use of your time.

Your audience is closer than you think and they're already paying attention. Don't get caught stressing about finding thousands of followers when 300 loyal, local ones will serve you just fine. In other words, don't spend time and money promoting your products and services to Los Angeles when your customers are in Chicago.

The same concept applies to online businesses. Because you have a more widespread audience, it's crucial that you get super focused on your niche market. If you want to make a lasting impact on your customers and clients, write every blog post, every podcast script, and every email as if you are talking to one single person.

Who is your perfect customer? How much money do they make? What is their family status? What types of hobbies do they have? Create an ideal avatar and market to them. You'll be amazed at the clarity that starts to come into your marketing efforts.

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What happens after you promote your content?

Unless you have a customer journey mapped out, social media will not bring you the leads you need to make a sale. It happens time and time again where businesses post similar content day after day after day.

What is a customer journey? It's the plan you create to get people off social media and on to your website, or into your store. Likes are not conversions and content is rarely a direct sell to a cold audience.

  • Focus on providing value with your content so you become a notable resource.
  • Tell your business story so people begin to like and trust you.
  • Give more than you ask, but don't forget to make the ask. Once people like and trust you, they'll expect the sales pitch—this is your chance!

Without a clear, defined customer path, from brand awareness to asking for the sale, social media will be a large waste of your time.

Are the job demands worth the outcome?

With the 24/7 accessibility of social media, it's increasingly common for businesses to fall into the trap of making themselves available 24 hours a day. Set expectations upfront that you are a) A real person, and b) have a life outside of your business.

While it's not uncommon to have one person watching social media accounts 24 hours a day, no one should be asked to give up their entire life for these free advertising platforms. It's important to give yourself—and your employees—time to rest, unplug, and get away from work once in a while.

As a business owner, make sure you're setting reasonable expectations and keeping an eye out for any burnout. This is true for both yourself and your employees. More importantly, make sure the outcome justifies the action. What are the metrics by which you measure a successful social media campaign? Do you need to post multiple times a day on multiple platforms? Probably not.

The good news is, marketing continues to consistently be about two things: building relationships and solving problems. How do you make people feel and how are you serving them? If you build your business around these two concepts and use social media to maintain expectations and maintain the life of the amazing work you're already doing, you'll find incredible success.

Can you build relationships on social media? Sure. Can you gain a following? Yes. Is social media a useful part of a modern comprehensive marketing strategy? Absolutely. Do you need to post several times a day on multiple platforms in order to make a difference in the world? I'll leave that up to you.

RELATED: Could Your 'Facebookonality' Be Hurting Your Business?

About the Author

Post by: Rachel Frederick

Rachel Frederick is a marketing coach for small businesses in the health and wellness industry. She teaches business owners how to focus their messaging, develop a consistent brand, and automate processes so they can spend more time doing what they love and less time in front of a screen. Read more about her at www.thewellbalancedbusiness.com .

Company: The Well-Balanced Business
Website: www.thewellbalancedbusiness.com
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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4 Timeless Branding Tips for Busy Entrepreneurs

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:24 AM PDT

By Kady Sandel

Entrepreneurs often are overwhelmed by the sheer number of strategies available to grow their businesses through branding. Should you learn Pinterest SEO? Do you need to adjust the colors on your landing page to improve your bounce rate? Is it time to look into billboard advertising?

But it doesn't have to be so confusing. By becoming aware of a few key branding concepts, business owners can learn to cut through the noise and focus exclusively on initiatives that will help grow their companies.

Here are four reliable and timeless branding tips for busy entrepreneurs:

1. Start with a brand strategy

Think of a brand strategy like your business plan: it's a document that outlines your company's branding goals, traits, purpose, and voice that will be conveyed through your branding and marketing efforts. Your brand strategy will also include crucial demographic and psychographic information about your target audience. Most business owners skip the important step of developing a brand strategy, and only later do they realize how much it would have helped their company.

When I was a graphic designer, entrepreneurs would often approach me and say, "I need a logo." They would search online for generic logos in their industry and ask me to replicate what they found. But how can a designer create a logo that appeals to your target audience if you haven't defined that target audience? How can a website visually express the key traits of your brand if you haven't identified those key traits?

It's best to work alongside an expert when developing the details of your brand strategy, as an outside trained eye can quickly identify gaps and opportunities in your branding that you may not be able to see from close up. Many companies that move forward without a branding strategy may find themselves needing to rebrand in the near future. While a rebrand is a viable option, it can be time-consuming, so it's in your best interest to establish a brand strategy as early as possible.

2. Delight your target market

Companies with successful brands know this secret: your branding needs to be completely tailored to your target audience. This means that your brand colors should not be based on your favorite colors. You need to choose your business's colors wisely based on color psychology and how your target customers will respond to them on a subconscious level.

Similarly, if your target market doesn't listen to podcasts, your business should not expend time and resources into starting a podcast—even if podcasts are the hot marketing tool of the moment.

Many entrepreneurs create an ideal client avatar and stop there, neglecting to include that ideal customer's desires and pain points in their promotion strategy. To successfully reach your potential customers and turn them into buyers, your business needs to focus on creating content that delights your target audience . . . and then putting that content in places where they will find it.

Inspire your potential customers. Impress them. Speak their language. Leave them excited to learn more, and eventually they will open their wallets to purchase your products or services.

3. Use brand stories to streamline your content strategy

Gone are the days of sitting down in front of the computer every day and wondering what type of content to write for your business. You can use the idea of brand stories to organize your posts and generate new content ideas while staying aligned with your brand.

First, come up with three distinct traits that you want your target customers to associate with your business. As an example, let's say you own a wedding dress resale shop and you want your customers to correlate your company with the following:

  • Unique styles
  • Great prices
  • Eco-friendly and recycled

Each of these traits constitutes a brand story. The next step is to think of three possible content ideas for each brand story. In our wedding shop example, here are three content ideas that correspond with "Unique styles":

  • A photo of a bride wearing one of your dresses at her bohemian wedding
  • An infographic on how colorful wedding dresses are becoming more popular
  • A behind-the-scenes video tour that demonstrates your unique gowns

If you repeat this exercise with the other two brand stories, you suddenly have nine new content ideas to engage with your audience. To reduce the time spent on creating content even further, consider using a social media tool like Buffer that can schedule your posts in advance.

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4. Maintain consistency

As your business grows, the number people involved in maintaining your brand will also grow. Whether you hire a social media manager, a freelance blogger, a printing company, or simply a staff member who wants to make a slide deck, you will run into situations where your team has questions about how to portray your brand. Brand guidelines and brand boards are two key tools that help preserve brand consistency and ensure your brand has a cohesive voice and appearance across all platforms.

A brand guideline is a written document that outlines the rules for your company's branding. Examples of what to include in your brand guidelines are logo dimensions, rules around logo usage, and precise company fonts and colors (including hex codes). These brand guidelines will prevent team members from doing things like warping the size of your company's logo or creating a social media graphic in an off-brand color.

On the other hand, a brand board is a representation that showcases how your company should look in all visual communications. Your brand board will include some of the same information as your brand guidelines, but it's more of a quick guide that designers can glance at rather than a full written document. Brand boards typically include elements such as your company's fonts, color palette, logo, and stock images to reflect what types of photos should be used on your website and social media.

Final thoughts

Branding is more complicated than simply selecting the perfect combination of colors, fonts, and strategies, and when we add in factors like trends, new technology, and ever-evolving social media platforms, branding can seem downright confusing.

Rather than getting lost in the details, entrepreneurs can focus on these four branding tips to build a long-term framework for their company. As you work to build a brand strategy, serve your target market, share your brand stories, and maintain consistency via tools like brand guidelines, your company's brand will become more cohesive, strong, and memorable.

RELATED: Unfold the Branding Power of the Company T-Shirt

About the Author

Post by: Kady Sandel

Kady Sandel is the CEO and Brand Strategist at Aventive Studio. Kady has designed logos, websites, and visual identities for a wide range of companies, and she now helps businesses scale through strategic brand development.

Company: Aventive Studio
Website: www.aventivestudio.com
Connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn.

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How Whole-Brain Thinking Can Make You a Better Business Leader

Posted: 29 Sep 2019 11:18 AM PDT

Maintaining agility in a competitive world demands a knowledge of management. We need to look through the lens of history to see what has worked in the past, and we want data to assist in our future decision-making. We also must find reasonable ways to manage our company with informed perspectives of what has worked (or not) and what type of flexibility and new concepts are warranted.

I recently scoured a research report by Accenture—Striking Balance With Whole-Brain Leadership. Through interviews with more than 200 C-suite leaders and over 11,400 customers and employees, it looked at the thinking styles found in organizations and compared them with the styles valued by customers and employees. Not surprisingly, the two didn't always match up.

The focus of the research was management qualities that are either left-brained or right-brained. The takeaway? We need to develop a greater whole-brain approach to our organizational leadership skills.

Just the facts, please

Since most people reading this report are C-suite leaders of the left-brain persuasion, let's look at two relevant details:

  • 89% of C-suite leaders have degrees in traditionally left-brained courses of study: business, science, and technology. These fields of study focus on the value of statistics and data, which are critical for decision-making.
  • C-suite execs who adopt a whole-brain approach to company leadership see, on average, revenue growth of 22% and higher profits of 34%.

With these research results, a whole-brain approach is certainly worth considering, but we need to understand what is driving the change—businesses facing disruption, both externally and internally. For our purposes, internal disruptors are employees who value a broader whole-brain approach to management. This group, dubbed Pathfinders, is bold and looking for positive change with the goal of making their companies better.

The report identifies large differences between the perceptions of goal-driven Pathfinders and the perceptions of C-suite executives. When people were asked which leadership qualities are important for high-level business executives, the obvious left-brained qualities of organization, leadership, foresight, and planning were in sync. Both the dynamic Pathfinders and the C-suite executives value those abilities and consider them important for business success.

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In contrast, when right-brain attributes were considered, there appears to be a huge gap. Pathfinders expect C-suite executives to demonstrate high functionality in areas attributed to right-brained qualities: intuition, inclusiveness, creativity, and empathy. However, the C-suite executives did not rate these qualities as high.

For C-suite managers trained to make data-driven decisions, this type of internal disruption of expectations regarding leadership can be a bit intimidating. We can see that we are limited, not only by our own training, but also by our view of what is needed in the organization. It is a time for self-reflection (yes, that's a bit right-brained) and action to effectively address organization leadership needs to meet disruption head-on and remain relevant in our markets.

Become an ambidextrous organization

Given the tendency for corporate management to be trained in left-brain analytics, turning to disruptors like Pathfinders can offer companies a right-brain perspective. Pathfinders will push for change, demonstrate creativity, tend to believe in social responsibility, and still offer those highly valued critical skills. If we can collaborate with them, they can bring value to a company.

Becoming a company that is flexible in its thinking will help develop elements on both sides of the brain. That is not to say that a C-suite manager will become empathetic, but a good leader will find ways to incorporate an appreciation for whole-brain management. Here is how:

  • Train internally to develop a broader skill set to broaden employee thinking styles. Developing flexibility will create a more diverse and resilient company.
  • Hire different styles of thinkers. Fill in gaps from the outside to improve management capabilities within.
  • Ally with Pathfinders. Eschew traditional paths; instead, listen and incorporate this value group's ideas. This doesn't mean a lack of traditional structure but, rather, a more open path for getting good ideas implemented.
  • Use internal prospects with whole-brain finesse to take on growth projects and exemplify what works to create growth and profit. As others see the thinking being rewarded, they are more likely to broaden their brain abilities in the workplace.

With so many interviews on this topic, there is substantial information to digest. As a company, our success is dependent upon broad thinking strategies that complement our own analytical styles and those of our value Pathfinders. Choosing to take a whole-brain approach to decision-making and leadership will pay off with more engaged employees, higher revenues, and greater profits.

RELATED: What's a Strengths-Based Culture? A Look at Today's Hot Management Trend

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