116. Brian Clark — Co-Founder of Copyblogger — On Content Marketing, Empathy Maps, And How He Built An Eight Figure Business With No External Funding!

Links Mentioned:

• Click here to download the podcast shownotes
• www.websavvy.com.au
• callashroy.com
• www.copyblogger.com
• copyblogger.com/empathy-maps/

Related Episodes:

• 003. Jon Morrow (Copyblogger) On How To Use Blogging To Build A Highly Successful Business Online
• 073. Darren Rowse — Problogger Founder — Shares His Secrets Around Prolific Content Creation, Podcasting, & Facebook Live (Part 1 of 2)
• 074. Darren Rowse (Problogger) Shares His Blogging Success Secrets (Part 2 of 2)
• 075. Joe Pulizzi — Founder of Content Marketing Institute — Does Your Content Fit Into Your Buyer’s Journey?
• 107. Sonia Simone CopyBlogger Co-Founder on How To Be A Prolific Content Marketer (Part 1 of 2)
• 108. Sonia Simone CopyBlogger Co-Founder on How To Be A Prolific Content Marketer (Part 2 of 2)

Books Mentioned:

• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? – Seth Godin
• Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync – Seth Godin
• Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses – Joe Pulizzi
• Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less – Joe Pulizzi
• ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income – Darren Rowse
• Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

Key Insights

1. Corporations are leaving a lot of money on the table because the traditional marketing methods are well and good. But in today’s world, there’s not enough need to be targeting our customers almost at an individual level, and to do that, we need to really understand our customers by creating: 
   1. Customer avatars; and
   2. Empathy maps
2. Automated marketing technology like sales funnels and automated sequences to drive business growth are great, but they’re not enough. It is important to resonate with your audience at a human level first and the marketing automation tools help to make that process more efficient BUT you still need to resonate with your audience as human beings.
3. When it comes to being the best, it’s not necessary that you be the best in the world, you just need to be the best for your audience. This is an important distinction when it comes to creating valuable content (and offers) that convert your audience into lifelong customers. 
4. Good content connects emotionally with the target audience and then delivers a transformation after having made that emotional connection. 
5. Recurring revenue is probably one of the most understated and underutilized strategies in business. It’s a lot cheaper to sell more products to your existing customers than it is to go out and acquire new customers.

Action steps

1. Create an audience avatar describing your ideal customer. 
2. Create an empathy map around your ideal customer. 
3. Develop a recurring revenue mindset and look at introducing ways to offer more products and solutions to existing customers rather than trying to acquire new customers. 
4. Solve your existing customers’ problems as well as you can by creating products and content that emotionally connects and delivers a transformation. 
5. When creating a content, aim to connect with your audience on a human level especially if you’re somebody who’s really drawn to sales funnels in marketing automation.