EP NC4 3 – Creating Your Content Marketing Roadmap To Attract & Convert Audience With Lyndsay Phillips

 

Marketing is one of the most important things in business that we get right. Yet, so many real estate investors struggle with it. It’s time to get over that fence and mark this as day one of your new marketing plans. Scott Carson has on the show Lyndsay Phillips from Smooth Sailing Business Growth to share her strategies for Creating Your Content Marketing Roadmap. She puts out some tips on automating and leveraging your marketing so you don’t get overwhelmed and become a slave to it. Breaking it further down, Lyndsay talks about social media, taking one piece of content in multiple ways, and communicating and building relationships with your audience. Follow along as you start your journey to attracting and converting with this episode.

 

Listen to the podcast here:

Creating Your Content Marketing Roadmap To Attract & Convert Audience With Lyndsay Phillips

If you’re listening to music, it’s picked that way because a lot of people feel like, “My marketing is a mess. I feel like a loser because I haven’t done it on a regular basis.” We all have that mental mind screwing with ourselves for our business, but let’s face it. The beautiful thing is you can always start. You make this day one of your new marketing plans and a new way to create a roadmap as we like. I couldn’t think of anybody better to talk about this aspect. We are honored to have my good friend Lyndsay Phillips joining us from the Smooth Sailing Business Growth Business Solutions. This lady is phenomenal and I am looking forward to this presentation. We’re honored to have you, Lyndsay.

How’s it going, Scott?

I’m doing great. How about yourself?

Good. I love sharing tips on content marketing. It’s my favorite thing.

Do you want to share a little bit on how you got into what you’re doing or your background? Is that part of your presentation too or no?

A little bit. I had two jobs and they were part-time making $11-ish Canadian. I had small kids so I wanted to work part-time and stuff. I had a business years ago but then the Canadian dollar what kaput. I wanted to get a better lifestyle, work online, and have my own business again. I started as a VA part-time and then I was burning the candles at both ends. I went, “Screw it, I’m going in.” I quit my job and started with the VA firm. I made way more money. It was still part-time because my kids were small. I went full-time and it grew organically.

It was too much for me by myself. I started to hire teams, we grew, I niched down to content marketing, and then grew even more. How I got into the real estate part of it is, for some reason, I attracted real estate investors, helping them market their business. I saw that they struggled with marketing. You guys know you’re investing inside out and I would never even know what to do. I niched down but made an extra side niche, if you will, of the business. I’m dedicated to helping real estate investors to market their business.

I should have had you on beforehand but I was honored to have you on our show. It’s an absolute joy to see what you’re doing for the people out there. Do you want to take questions throughout while you’re going or you want to save them until the very end, Lyndsay? What would you prefer?

I was going to say I love participation. I love having a conversation instead of me talking to you.

NC4 3 | Content Marketing Roadmap

Content Marketing Roadmap: Content marketing is any way that you get your knowledge out from your head to other people.

 

What is one of your biggest fears when it comes to marketing? What’s your biggest handicap you could say that stopping you from doing and take an action real fast?

Marketing is time-consuming. I’m not going to lie but I have some tips here on how to automate and leverage some of those pieces so that you’re not a slave to your marketing. Diversify five years. I love how there are different parts of real estate investing. You don’t have to zero-in on one and it gives you many options. Let me know what other struggles you have when it comes to marketing because I want to help.

I work with streamline and automate marketing content. I can talk about content marketing in general because some people get stuck on what it involves. Content marketing is any way that you get your knowledge out from your head to other people and you’re serving other people. Marketing does make you nervous. It can feel overwhelming. There are a lot of pieces. There are blogs, podcasts, videos and live. The marketing world, online space, and social media changes all the time. It can feel overwhelming.

Maria says, “Lack of knowledge is not good with technology. It gets hard to use some social media sources when not tech-savvy.” You got to spend some time with it, Maria. “I get confused with the page and concepts on LinkedIn or Facebook.” I get that. I understand that. We’ll talk about that some. “Marketing makes me nervous. I’m in the construction street as an estimator.” Alex says a big struggle trying to have a unified look across posts and platforms whether that’s email or social media. It takes some time to go through and build your uniformity and design across the same space.

I am CEO and Founder of Smooth Sailing Business Growth. We’re a content marketing firm and I have Real Estate Investors Marketing as well. I’m a speaker. I’ve had numerous podcasts. The one I have is the Real Estate Investors Marketing Show. Check that out. I’m also the host of a Real Estate Investors Marketing Facebook group. You can go there at REIMarketingGroup.com.

We’re talking about creating your content marketing roadmap to attract and convert. What we do with content marketing is whether it’s podcasts, blogs, sales funnels, we help strategize and plan and create content. We publish it, we promote it, we analyze the data and we optimize. All those things rolled into one. What we’re covering is how to map out your avatar. Some people are like, “What the heck is an avatar?” It’s not the blue guy that is in the movie. It’s who you want to target, your ideal prospect, your ideal client, that perfect person. We’re going to help map out the avatar then we’re going to talk about where to start.

That’s where some of you feel that sense of overwhelming because you want to know what content to create and where to post it. After all, there are a ton of options. We’ll cover that. We’ll talk about how to multiply your content. Once you create a blog or a podcast, you can multiply it, recycle, leverage, and reuse. I’m going to show you the nitty-gritty of what we do for ourselves and our clients. We’re going to take it up a notch and show you a few extra tips to attract more people.

I’m going to give you even more social media post ideas so that you will not be sitting there stuck, wondering, “What the heck am I going to post?” A lot of you think that almost every day and then we’re going to create the roadmap for consistency. I pull all that stuff together so that you’re not going day-to-day or week-to-week so you can plan it out, help automate it and scale it so it doesn’t feel so time-consuming. Why on earth do we have to do content marketing in the first place?

One of the biggest things is people over complicate it a lot to start off, Lyndsay.

They feel they have to do everything. You don’t. You can start small and go out. You want to make sure that you’re getting your people over to your website so that they understand who you are, what your services are, and how you can help them. Content marketing helps you attract traffic to your website. Obviously, you’re going to share your blog and podcast. It’s going to direct people to your website. From there, you’re going to grow your list and to be able to nurture them. You’re going to convert traffic to paying customers.

Attract and convert. Two big words. You’re going to build your brand and build your authority platform. You want people to know you are the go-to person for this. You are the best solution. You’re using content marketing also, which is left out of the puzzle quite often. Content marketing helps you build stronger relationships. Especially with real estate investing, that’s the name of the game. It’s a relationship, trust, and credibility. That part is huge. You’re using it to increase your exposure so that you’ve got your little circle but you want more people. You want to extend your reach everywhere. That’s why content marketing is crucial.

We touched upon some of the challenges a little earlier. I want to know what you find challenging about creating content marketing. Whether it’s social media posts, blogs, podcasts. What are some of the challenges that you experience? I know one person said that it was overwhelming. They felt like content marketing was hard to do because there are so many options. That was one of the challenges even understanding like, “What the heck do I talk about? What am I going to type every day? What pictures am I going to make?” That’s one of the struggles that people have when it comes to content marketing. If you are fearful or worrisome about the tech because there are all those apps to learn. ActiveCampaign, InfusionSoft, and Canva, God knows what else. Some people may feel like they’re bothering people.

No way. You’ve got to think about it as you’re serving people and you’re helping them. Alex says, “Developing compelling visuals to go with the written media.” Even the tech, being creative and creating it. It can feel like a challenge to create it all. I find it from my experience that a lot of the challenges are consistent. You’ll notice that some people post for a week and they’re all crazy and active. All of a sudden, two weeks go by and there’s nothing. Consistency is key and creating that content. What the heck am I going to write? Which what you guys said, implementing it. The technology, understanding the strategies involved, and feeling of overwhelming. Honestly, where the heck do I start? We’re going to help you with a couple of those challenges.

Let’s start. Who are you targeting? If you don’t know who you’re targeting, you’re not going to know where to go, what to do, what content to do, and how to attract them. It’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping it sticks. We need to think about who you are targeting. I use the weird word, avatar. This is where you need to map out the avatar. It is helpful to take a piece of paper, think about your best prospects, clients, JV partners, team members, or whatever that may be.

Think about your favorite ones. The ones that were easiest to work with, brought you the best ROI, and write down all the points. Do a total brain dump. Think about their goals and values. What’s important to them? How old are they? Are they a 50-year-old male? Are they couples in their 30s with young kids? Is it someone that is in the corporate business, they want to go away with the corporate, they want to get into notes and have passive income instead? Is that someone that wants it as a side gig?

What are they thinking about? What are their goals? Is that someone that wants to create a legacy for their family, someone that wants to put their kids through university, wants to retire early and travel the world? Thinking about their lifestyle and characteristics. What are they’re thinking? What their daily life is like? What their pain points are? If they’re like, “If only I had this, I could do this.” Map out and get as granular as possible. It will help you think about what language you use, what you post, and all that good stuff.

You want to ask yourself these questions. Where are your prospects? I’m going to use the word prospects but it can be clients, JV partners, or team members. It can be anything but I’m using the word prospects. Where are your prospects hanging out? What medium do they prefer? How do they learn? What topics resonate such as going into those pain points again and solutions for them? We’re going to go into these in a little bit more detail. Where are they? Are they on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat? I had a client once and everyone was doing Snapchat and he was like, “We got to get on Snapchat. We got to get a profile going and post there.”

I’m like, “Your peeps don’t even know what Snapchat is.” Why invest the time posting, setting up a profile, and managing it if your ideal client is not even hanging out there? There are ways you can survey your clients, list, or audience and find out like, “What social media platform are you on all the time?” You can even know from your own experience of being in the various platforms or you can even do some R&D and look at the industry leaders or people that are you’re mentoring after or want to model and find out where are they active? Where are they getting the most engagement and most responses? Don’t be afraid to do a little bit of spying but don’t tell anyone. You want to know where they are. With real estate investing, a lot of them are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. It’s growing. You’ll see Scott doing well in Instagram and crushing it on Facebook. You can see where he’s getting the most action.

Lyndsay, on the survey we sent out to people, I wanted to bring this up. When I asked people what social media platforms do they use, LinkedIn was number one, Facebook was number two, YouTube was number three, Instagram was number four, Twitter and a few others came in fifth. That’s not a surprise for that but those who are curious about where to post, there you are.

NC4 3 | Content Marketing Roadmap

Content Marketing Roadmap: You have to start somewhere. You don’t know what you don’t know until you dive in. Don’t expect to be perfect right away.

 

Thank you for that. Feel free to jump in when you have a good insight there. Don’t feel you have to be everywhere all at once. Start with 1 or 2, build up those audiences, and then you can add another one on. I don’t want you to be in that frame of overwhelming. The next question that you want to ask them is how do they learn? Everybody learns differently, especially with the age brackets. If your audience is 50 or 60 or whatever and they aren’t into podcasts then don’t invest the time in a podcast and guests, unless you’re trying to get in speaking. There are other strategies involved there too.

Are they readers? Do they love reading? For me, I love reading. I absorb information better when I’m reading. Another one of my clients, we did a survey and we found out that the bulk of his audience was on YouTube. We knew Live Facebook, pre-filmed Facebook videos or webinars were key to attracting, engaging, and reaching that audience. Think about that part of the avatar. What topics are going to attract that avatar? If they are in the corporate field and they are wanting some passive income, then you’re going to talk their language. You’re going to talk from an emotional standpoint of having that job and doing the 9:00 to 5:00. You want to get ahead but you don’t want to do more hours.

You don’t want to like, “You still want to spend time with your family.” How can they do that? Get involved with note investing. They can joint venture with you so that they don’t have to do all the work. You have to paint a picture and you have to speak to them about what’s going on in their life, what their emotions are, what their problems are, and how you can solve them. You’re going to create topics, tips, and content around that because that’s going to attract them and going to convert them to say yes to you as the solution.

I have to throw something here. We’ve done a lot of heavy work on our avatar. For those that are trying to figure it out, what we have found is our primary people that take action are 45 to 65, homeowners, college-educated, making $75,000 to $250,000 more per year, and interested in real estate. It’s split almost right down the middle 50/50 men and women, which is funny. They’re spending time on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as we saw those surveys already there but they’re also interested in real estate, retirement, cash flow, tired landlords, fix and flippers that can’t find deals. They buy stuff or subscribe to around 2 or 3 different magazines on real estate, entrepreneurship, housing, and stuff like that.

Thank you for that. Let’s create content. You can host a podcast. You can be a guest on a podcast. You can write blogs and articles. You can create pre-recorded videos. You can go live on Facebook, live on IG, live on YouTube. There are different methods that you can create content like the foundational content that I’m going to show you how to multiply, leverage, reuse, and recycle. I want to go over the overview of what those pieces are. Now we’re going to multiply your content.

Recycle, leverage, and reuse. People think that they cannot recycle a topic. Let’s say you are creating a topic about how to build a chocolate cake. You can write an article on that and all the steps involved. You can create a video and record a podcast on that same topic. You do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to topics. Don’t feel that if you do an article on a specific topic, how to create more curb appeal of your fixing and flipping or whatever the topic may be. If you put out a video next week on the same topic, they’re not going to be like, “Didn’t you do an article on that?” They’re not going to do that. I guarantee it. Know that everyone learns in different ways. Auditory, visual, and reading. Reuse and recycle that topic. You can even do another video on a slightly different tangent on that same topic. Write down a ton of topics and go create some awesome content.

Let’s have a piece of content and leverage it further. I have some real estate investing clients that do this. He records a live video on Facebook. I’m going to show you some tools. Repurpose.io is an awesome tool and it pushes live Facebook video right to YouTube. It can even strip the audio to create a podcast episode and then we can also get transcripts and you can embed the video on your website to make a blog post for it. You can also convert the video to the IGTV size. There are ways to leverage one piece of content. This one client of mine, he does one live Facebook and then we make a ton of content from that one video. For those that are overwhelmed or feeling they need to be masters of creation, there are some wicked tools and strategies that you can leverage one piece of content multiple ways.

The other element is reusing. I call this creating snackable bites. Let’s say you have an article, video, or podcast. It’s full of information, tips, quotes, statistics, whatever that may be, information that is serving your audience. You’re going to take bite-sized pieces of that information and create separate standalone posts. This allows you to take one piece and multiply it. I’m going to show you exactly step-by-step. Here’s an example. I did a podcast with my buddy, Aaron, How To Get Booked On Podcasts As A Guest Expert.

One of those tips is creating a one-sheet, how to prepare for the show you’re pitching, and so forth. This is one piece of content that I created. I took one of those tips and created a post. I have a graphic I created in Canva and the post that I created. You can add more hashtags and do all that good stuff but I don’t want to go too into the weeds. I shared one of the tips. Have a one-sheet tip. This is crucial when you’re pitching to a show host. I used another tip and created a quote graphic. This is a quote that I said during the podcast and you can fuzz the words and it doesn’t have to be exactly what was said in the podcast. You notice that it’s branded, it’s a shareable image and then I share that on social. I resize it using Canva, click a button, a couple of adjustments, it takes 30 seconds. I can resize it for Instagram and Facebook Stories. That way you’re everywhere.

You’re pulling out those quotes. Don’t forget about engagement questions. For every piece of content that you create, you can ask questions that relate to getting feedback from other people. Pitching to be on a podcast can be daunting. What have you done to feel prepared and boost your confidence? What is your favorite podcast that you’ve been featured on? Share a link in the comments. One-sheets are a great tool to get booked on more podcasts when pitching podcast hosts. If you have a one-sheet, share. There are tons of great designs. Someone might see it and want to book you on their show. These are ways to get people to comment, share their opinion, share their own podcasts, their own house that they’re flipping, a success that they’ve done with a deal, a tool that they’re using or they may love paper source, whatever that may be. You want to get them to share and comment.

Engagement is key not only for Facebook algorithms but also for building those relationships and then looking at you as an expert. I made these three up. It took me ten minutes from that one podcast. For those engagement posts, don’t feel that you have to make a fancy branded image. You can grab any image that is stock from Pixabay. If you’re in Canva, there are images and Unsplash. There are tons of different resources for images. I did this post, use that generic image thing, so easy.

One of the easiest things that people with real estate investors out here is taking pictures of the properties you’ve bought through your rentals or properties you made an offer on. Don’t include the address if you don’t control or do anything with it. That’s one of the easiest things out there. Go take a screenshot or a before and after photo. That’s always a great thing and easy to use as well too.

Let’s take it up a notch, peeps. You can use GIF. If you’re doing engagement posts, any posts, or Facebook, it always has a little GIF button. You can pull it right from there. You don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t have to download it. You don’t have to upload it. It makes it fun. Who doesn’t love a good cat GIF? The other thing to take it up a notch is emojis. My favorite site is EmojiCopy.com. You can search, if you want to fire, raised hand, happy, sad or microphone, whatever it may be. It shows up, you copy, paste, done.

When people are scrolling through a feed, emojis are going to capture attention. You can even use emojis for bullet points but don’t go like bananas and have ten in there. It’s a way to take it up a notch and grab someone’s attention as they’re going through the newsfeed. Infographics are huge. I love them. They are time-consuming, I’m not going to lie there, but you can pick a few points from your blog or your podcast. Canva has amazing templates. All you have to do is change the color, plug in your tips and you’re done. Keep it simple, make sure there’s not a lot of text. It’s easy to read and they do stand out. You can even add these to your blog and podcast posts to beef up the posts themselves and add that extra content.

I’m going to give you another tip. If you do a blog and then you do a video on a related topic, you can embed that video in the blog itself to add extra content, visual appeal, they see you face-to-face, it will even build that relationship further and develop that level of trust. Adding images in podcast posts, add more images, content, and videos to level it up. If you’re creating these images, you can use them in different ways. I said a lot there about multiplying your content, recycling it, reusing it, and how to take it up a notch.

Let’s talk about a couple of things. You talked about blogs or podcasts. For somebody who has started, that might seem a little daunting. What would be the easiest blog or vlog, as I like to say, that people could start with there, Lyndsay, to get the creative juices going? What are 1 or 2 things?

You have so much knowledge in regards to your area of real estate investing or note investing. Let’s talk about due diligence. You know about due diligence pieces of note investing. You can write an article about what you know or your favorite strategies for due diligence and mitigate risk. You can write an article on that, do a video about it, or even one of the pieces. If you have sources of where to go get notes and some of your connections, you can share some of your wisdom and mistakes that you’ve done. Don’t feel that you always have to be perfect and professional because what happens is when you’re sharing some of the mistakes, people relate to you, and then they’re going to see how you overcame that.

NC4 3 | Content Marketing Roadmap

Content Marketing Roadmap: If you have the word conversation in your head while you’re on social media, it will make a difference in how you communicate with people.

 

You have a dialed-in. You know what you’re doing. They’re going to trust you even that much more. Think about FAQs and questions that you get all the time from people. You have such a huge knowledge base in your head. You can write an article on any of those pieces. If you’re not a writer, you can talk it out on audio and it can convert to text. As Scott says, do a video, get transcripts, turn that into a post with the video and the text. There is a ton of copywriters out there or writing services. If you give them bullet points and information, they can write the article for you. The only thing I suggest with that is to make sure that you add in your own stuff and your voice.

A lot of my blogs on my site I have written but 1/3 of it I’ve had written for me but I always add in my own voice, an extra little tip and I’m like, “I wouldn’t word something that way.” I’ll change it up, add pictures, and stuff like that. There are tons of different topics. As a little secret, if you Google notes articles, you will see from BiggerPockets, other sources, or industry leaders, you will see topics that they have created. That will give you ideas. Don’t plagiarize, clearly, but you can write your own version of that topic.

The same with if you’re doing keyword research or if you go to YouTube and you type in a topic that relates to notes investing, fix and flip or whatever you’re doing, you can see a bunch of different topics that come up. Another great place to go is Amazon. If you Google in Amazon in the book section or note investing, you will see all these different books and topics. You can even look in the reviews to what people say and their feedback and that might get the juices flowing in regard to topics to write as well.

That’s a good one, Lyndsay. They’re going to Amazon, go to the trillion-dollar guy, Jeff Bezos, to help us find another search engine out there and find some cool things.

By reading those reviews, it’ll tap you into the avatar even further. I always love using this analogy. Someone was selling face cream and then in the reviews, it said, “My skin was bumpy before. It made my skin feel smooth. I felt youthful. It felt more elastic.” You’re going to use those words in your marketing because that’s exactly the words that your avatar is using, “No longer have bumpy skin, make sure it’s smooth.” You can play into the mind and a language that your avatar is using. That is next-level stuff.

You may not know this. We have a social media challenge every time we do this. We do daily award winners. We do a big grand prize at the end. This whole event can be taking nuggets from each speaker or a top nugget and turning in the best of note people. That’s what I learned at camp.

Take a screenshot and share it. That’s a great tip.

Tamara is asking, “Can you recommend copywriting services? I tried 1 or 2 in the past and they weren’t great.”

My buddy, Aaron, who’s a real estate investor copywriter, but he is maxed out. I have two writers on my team. You’re welcome to reach out to me. I know another girl. I can’t think of her contact information right now but she’s in the real estate investing sphere and she invests and she’s a good writer. I’ll have my contact information at the end so feel free to DM me or join my Facebook group at REIMarketingGroup.com. You can ask those questions in my group.

You’ve got the content, you’ve multiplied it, leveraged and reused it. There’s more to content than that. You also want to have other social media posts to stay consistent and connect with your audience. I’m going to go over some of the social media myths. “I should only post content about my industry or I should hide the personal side of myself.” I’ll give you a good story. I was talking to an investor. He is a pilot and he does real estate investing. He felt like he had to have it separate and he didn’t want to talk about him as a pilot. I’m like, “Leverage it and use it. Do a video of why you’ve got your pilot outfit on. You cooled it up a notch. Pilots like you or have high-end jobs like that, that’s your avatar. You want to play into that and connect with people on that level.”

You mention in your posts, “I landed in Madrid. I’ve been talking to my property manager and we closed the deal and we did this.” Whatever it may be. Slide that in and do pictures of your everyday life. Have a picture of you in the pool in the backyard if you took the Friday off. That shows lifestyle, “Kicking it back on a Friday with a drink.” It shows that you’ve got passive income, what your lifestyle is like because you are in the world of real estate investing and they see that results through you. Embrace the personal side of yourself and it cannot always be about the industry.

Let’s go to a couple more. “No one wants to hear my journey or my story. If I don’t post about my services constantly, I won’t get any business.” Even talking about that pilot, people want to know his journey and story. They want to know how you got into real estate investing, what your background is because they’re probably like you. They’re going to connect with people that they know, like, and trust and that they can relate to. I’ll never forget this. I remember years ago, I was doing some work for a service business industry. All his posts were all like, “If you have a problem with your pipes, call us.” That’s all it was. I’m like, “If I was looking for a plumber or whatever, I went to their Facebook page and that’s all I saw, my thought is, ‘They’re in it for themselves. They don’t care about me. All they care about is the sale.’” You have to have that nice balance.

“Posting won’t bring me any ROI. It’s not effective. I should only share my own material.” For me, I share other people’s material. If I find an article or a video that I found interesting if I find something that’s relevant and helpful to me that’s going to serve my audience. Whether it’s BiggerPockets, Scott’s videos, or anything, it’s okay to share other people’s stuff. It shows that you care and are up-to-date on what’s going on especially now with COVID and what’s happening in the space. I know things are going to change and things are going to become more opportunities in the note world. There are tons of articles that are addressing that and what’s happening in distress properties. Share that information, share the news. It shows that you’re serving and that you know what’s going on.

This is the other big one. People think, “I didn’t get business from that social media post.” It’s bigger than that. We talked about that at the beginning. It’s showing yourself as an expert. It is branding. It’s building an authority platform. It’s pushing traffic to your site, building relationships, nurturing people. It’s all rolled into one. One social media post is not going to bring you a deal, so to speak. It’s a full, bigger, all-encompassing strategy. We talked about a few so I’m going to give you some bonus social media post ideas. Scott gave a great one on sharing pictures of what’s going on in your daily life and properties that you’re working on.

Talk about a deal that you close or showcase your accomplishments. If someone gives you some feedback like, “You helped me out,” share that. Share what’s going on in your daily life. I mentioned industry news from different sources. There are FAQs that you get constantly. People ask me the same questions about social media content and content marketing. I cover those on social, in videos, in my Facebook group and so forth. I’ve mentioned this before. The ups and downs that you’ve had. It’s okay to share those. It’s okay to share your journey. My posts years ago, the SEO on those are crap. They suck and I’m not going to lie. My first few videos I did were horrendous and an embarrassment, but you have to start somewhere. You don’t know what you don’t know until you dive in. Don’t expect to be perfect right away.

People want to relate to you on a human level. People want to know that you’re not perfect. When I’m on social and I see posts of the perfect entrepreneur, all posed, modeling and their life is perfect, they’re crushing everything, I’m like, “It’s too good to be true.” It turns me off. I want someone that I can relate with and enjoy their company and like. Have you read any good books lately? Share books and articles that you’ve read. Ask a ton of questions for people. If someone’s done something nice lately, thank them out loud on social media. Who doesn’t love Throwback Thursdays? Who doesn’t love cats and minions? I share them all the time. You got to show your personality.

One of the things you talked about, you said by sharing articles, there are a couple of articles that I get a lot of Default Servicing News, DSNews.com, HousingWire.com, Google housing, real estate or Yahoo real estate trends. Those always have great articles. USA Today often has some great housing stuff that’s going on too. Those are great things to share that can help prime the pump for you.

It’ll even sometimes spur ideas for more content or you can pull out little tips from different articles, not just your own. If you don’t have any blogs yet, you can take little snippets, stats, whatever from that. Tamara says she sets up Google Alerts for relevant topics. I don’t even do that. Here’s a point to illustrate something too. I know a real estate investor and she’s in motorcycles. She leads different trips and groups and stuff like that. Some people may think, “Let’s leave that to the side that they don’t need to share that.”

In actuality, it’s showing that you’ve got an active life. It shows that you’re pretty darn cool, but it also shows you as a leader in a different space. It shows that different part of you. Not being afraid to show your personal stuff because you can spin anything. I go camping in my trailer. I can spin it like, “Entrepreneur lifestyle. I get to take a week off. My team is handling everything. Enjoying life.” If you did want to put that spin on it. Success tips. I am sure you learn something every day, including me, about Google Alerts. I can even later say, “Tamara shared this awesome tip on setting up Google Alerts for relevant topics.” Now, I’m going to search for how to do it because I don’t know how, find that information and I’ll share it with my people because if I want to learn it, so do other people.

You have to get in the mindset of everyday things that you’re doing, take for granted, you know and are going on in your life, share it. Don’t be afraid to use old content. If you’ve got blogs from a year ago, there’s good info in there and it’s evergreen, recycle the heck out of that. It’s still good content. We’re going to map it all for consistency. I have two different ways. One I do for me. One I do for my clients. Option one is you can map it out by the week. You know you’ve got a new blog or podcast, whatever it may be. You want to do quotes, tips, share things that are funny, a motivation, those snackable bites that we worked on earlier, and then you can map out. Monday, I’m going to do a blog, a quote, and a tip. Tuesday, I’m going to share an outside post. I’m going to do something funny. I’m going to share another one of my blogs. Wednesday, I’m going to take a snackable bite of one of those blogs and I’m going to do an inspiration post. You can Google real estate investing quotes, business quotes, or mindset quotes. The world is your oyster on Google. Fridays, you can do a tip and then something funny. It’s almost like a blueprint.

Now that you know what your formula is, you can create a draft. Week one, Monday, I’m going to share this blog. Twitter has got 280 characters. It’s a little bit different. We do a different post for Twitter and Instagram is different as well but then you write out your blurb and then you put the picture in. You can create a whole draft. We do these for clients, they approve it, and then we schedule it. That is one way. This way is a little bit more time-consuming but it’s an option now. Here’s what I do. I have blogs, podcasts, and videos. I have a template.

My team takes it, creates a bunch of posts, got the graphics, and schedule it. I know that is consistently going out all the time. For snackable bites, I need twelve in a month. I might do two a week randomly schedule them out. I want to create six quotes. I go to my blog, go to my podcast, go to my video page, and pull out little snackable tips. I steal stuff from Facebook while I’m sitting on the couch on my phone, I’m scrolling through and I’m like, “That’s freaking hilarious.” Especially dad jokes. They’re the best ones ever. I save them and then I put them in my Google Drive. My team takes all those funnies that I stockpile, they write a post and post it. I don’t even have to think about it.

Sharing other people’s content. I stockpile or I’ll go to some different resources and share those. In my head, “I need twelve tips, six quotes, and six funnies.” That, to me, is a lot easier because the first of every week, I’ll find six funnies or my team does it for me. They’ll take six funnies and then go right into the social media scheduler and schedule them out. The quotes and the snackable bites, I do create. I do secretly love Canva even though it shouldn’t be in the weeds, I do love creating them. I want to do something I enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, get someone else to do it.

That’s how you map it out. Canva is the bee’s knees. If you don’t have Canva, you have to have it. There is a free version. The paid version is cheap. Tons of great features. I go into Canva, I do twelve or however many engagement posts. I do twelve tips. I did this and it took me 20 to 25 minutes. Right in this little note thing, that’s where I type what I want the post to be. I add emojis in there. You can copy and paste them in. I put in the hashtags, but my team deals with the hashtags so that I don’t have to do that part. I do the part that I like. That’s the beauty of being the boss.

You do them and then you put in your calendar to pre-schedule them. You go to your Canva, download it, copy, paste, put it in your scheduler, done. With Canva, if I’m making these all square and I need some that are like a Twitter size or something, I hit the resize button, make an adjustment, download it. The text stays there but my team adjusts it for Twitter anyway and I don’t have to deal with that. This way, I don’t have to deal with the pieces that I don’t want to do. For my clients, we do it all. They approve the main content and we post it all for them so they don’t have to worry about it. Canva is huge. If I haven’t done a live video on how to do this, I will.

I’m in Canva every stinking day and I love the ability to hit the resize button and pick exactly what you want it to fit for. Whether it’s a YouTube thumbnail, Twitter post, an Instagram post, it’s easy to do. You might have to make a little adjustment here or there but it’s fricking stinking awesome.

You got a file for your logo. All you have to do is drag your logo over to brand it. I don’t over branding because then it looks contrived. I like having some posts where it’s like the image by itself. As if I grabbed it from Google. Sometimes I like to have it here with the color and it’s branded. I do use the logo especially if it’s a sharable tip or a quote from my type of thing. Don’t feel that you need to brand the hell out of everything. You don’t. You do want to take branding into consideration so that you’re consistent. You don’t have to go crazy. Any questions on the roadmap and creating that consistency?

Basically, you’re going to create your own routine. You’re going to create a blog, video, or podcast. You’re going to leverage, reuse, recycle and multiply it into little pieces. You’re going to fill out your template and create the draft or use Canva and then you’re going to pre-schedule them. What we do is the first week of every month, it’s content building and content creation for the following month. You always want to work ahead. The team recycles and reuses it. We proof the team, proof me. In the third week of the month, it’s pre-scheduled. For the month after, you get a week off, and then it’s the month all over again. This is how you build that routine. It doesn’t have to be onerous. There are pieces you can outsource and then you’re consistent.

NC4 3 | Content Marketing Roadmap

Content Marketing Roadmap: Doing a video allows people to see your face and personality. It’s instant trust.

 

Some of this is like the bones. Your tips, snackable bites, blog and videos, that stuff. On your day-to-day, you’re going to have those spontaneous posts where it’s like taking a picture of yourself, this is what I did, asking a question or something that you learned right then and there. You have to have those spontaneous posts like, “I need to be on Facebook ten minutes a day or fifteen minutes every two days.” Put it in your calendar or it’s never going to get done. Any other questions on the map and creating that routine?

One of the things that I did a few years ago is I did the whole mapping thing but instead I did a 30×30 as I called it. There are 30 different things I could do on a monthly basis. There are roughly 30 days on average. I would go through as you did. I was like, “I’m going to do this on Monday,” check these off on the boxes that I do during the week. It made the posting so easier. It gives me a schedule. It gave me a habit. Eighty percent of sales, we all know happens after the fifth contact. Many people will post once or they’ll share something else but they don’t comment on it. They don’t give their insight. If you’re sharing a post, that’s great. Take the time to, “Here’s what I thought about this. What do you think?” Leave an open-ended question to ask but getting a habit of sharing on a regular basis because people will see something once and they’ll forget about you in ten minutes. That’s why you’ve got to hit them on multiple platforms multiple times.

Absolutely. Here’s another bonus tip. Don’t be afraid to share what you do on social. If you go live on Facebook, share it on other platforms. If you did some exclusive content on Facebook or did a Live on Facebook, share it in an email to your list and link to that because you can even share a cool quote and then write a quick email to expand on it and then pushing people again to Facebook, “Make sure we’re connected on Facebook so you can get more fun quotes,” or whatever it may be. Reusing it in different ways, in different avenues and sending it out on all those platforms. Don’t forget email because email is very important as well. That’s a whole another topic.

I’m sorry to say but the work doesn’t stop there. There’s more. You can’t post then forget it. You have to engage, respond and communicate. If people are liking or commenting, answer back, like what they said. Even DM them and say, “I’m glad you liked that. Do you want more information on X, Y, Z? I’m happy to send you something.” The more conversations you take off in the DMs or direct messages, you can convert that to a phone call and make that relationship even stronger. You have more potential to convert them through that way. The people that are following you, go on their pages, comment on their posts, like their posts. I know it’s time-consuming but you can’t expect it to be a one-way relationship.

It has to be back and forth and having that ongoing conversation. They feel like you know what’s going on in their lives and you’re a part of their lives. That’s how you’re going to bring them through that sales funnel and build that stronger relationship. It’s crucial. If you carve out, let’s say, 30 minutes on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, don’t think of it as a nice-to-do. Think of it from a sales and customer support perspective. It’s a have-to-do.

That’s a beautiful thing. With what we do, people are like, “You responded. It’s not a chatbot or something automatic.” I don’t mind communicating with you on Instagram. If you think about Gary Vaynerchuk, we all have man-crushes on. Even some women have man-crushes on Monday. He started off with Twitter by responding to people on Twitter on a one-off. He still does it to this day. I’ve had a few conversations back and forth. Other real estate investors, things you can follow, love to connect with you now, what are you doing? What’s your focus? That’s an easy aspect of things. It’s all the touch of your fingertips. You got to share it and use it. Start taking those actions.

You got to think of it like you’re having conversations because we are in an online world and you’re not necessarily always face-to-face with people, especially during COVID. You’re having those conversations and you’re building those relationships. If you have the word conversation in your head while you’re on social media, it will make a difference in how you communicate with people. I follow some high-end people and I’m not going to name names, clearly, but I find they get a ton of comments but he never comments back.

I’m like, “I think that’s rude.” It turns me off. Some people feel like, “I need to have this appearance that only my team will communicate.” “I’m untouchable. You have to pay $1,000 to even have a conversation with me.” That doesn’t jive well with me, personally. My team member helps me out with communications, quotes and stuff like that but people always find your answer. I’m like, “I want to know you. I want to have a relationship. Darn it.” Here is my gift to you to get you started. I have two weeks’ worth of done for you content in the real estate investing, specifically.

Blogs, there’s a video script. You can take that script. I’ve got spots on where you need to edit it. Grab your phone and start talking. Nurture emails. There are social media posts, snackable bites and images. I even have a video of how to brand your images. I even have 30 days of social media post ideas in there in case the two weeks’ worth of free content wasn’t enough. That is my gift to you. Go to SmoothBusinessGrowth.com/NoteCamp. Scott, thank you. Go ahead, swipe and deploy. It’s easy.

For those that are interested, as a special bonus, one of the things I offered up for our paid attendees is doing a mini-episode of me. Be in my show, me interviewing them about their note business or their real estate business. Sharing that is a way for them to start sharing that out there and getting the message out. Not only to our network of millions of audiences each month but also something getting them comfortable with that aspect of things. It’s an extra bonus for our paid attendees that most people don’t know about.

People are like, “You’re giving all this stuff away.” I’m like, “I’m serving. I’m helping.” You can’t hold all that stuff back.

You’ve used it before. It’s an exponential way. You can hoard everything. That’s the thing about some speakers, they’re like, “I won’t share my slides.” I’m like, “Why not?” “That’s my intellectual property. Somebody could steal it.” “Be a freaking dude. All they got to do is do a screen share and go do it.” Share it and it’s done and they’ll end up linking it back to you or thinking of a presentation. These days, there’s a lot of public knowledge out there and most people don’t think it is anymore.

If you think of marketing your business as you’re educating your audience to attract and convert, if you have that frame of mind, then it becomes a lot easier.

We had Shante Duffy and talking about forbearance agreements and being laid off. This is the opportunity between now and the end of the year and going forward. Educating people around you. People that have lost their jobs, furloughed, taking early retirement, people that have money to invest. Sharing on social media so that people that have deals whether they’re a fund. A couple of our speakers are investor like you and me, “You’re looking for deals. I happen to have an asset in the areas that you’re looking for. Let’s talk some more.” Building that network, getting those conversations, start priming that pump. It’s such an opportunity. I don’t want to think of when they say educational, I got to teach a class. You’re helping them get comfortable with the idea and sharing what you do. If you owned a pizza joint, if you had the best pizza in the world, nobody is going to show up if you’re not out there sharing it.

I love teaching. It’s fun for me. Some people feel scared of it but I like it. It’s a fun part of my job. Go get the free Swipe and Deploy Content. If that’s not enough and you’re like, “I don’t want to do it at all.” We have Done For You Marketing Program with a real estate investors marketing team where you can get that every month and Swipe and Deploy every month, a membership site or you can uplevel and have it on autopilot where we do it all for you, schedule it for you and brand it. In the Done For You Content Vault, you get six blogs a month that have SEO keywords, two images for each blog, three weekly social media posts to share each blog.

You’re going to link it back to your website. There are three extra shareable tips that relate to the blogs of snackable bites. We include images. No more online searching, they’re right there, just download them. There’s Swipe And Deploy emails to broadcast your list to share the blog. Plus, I’ve given you other ideas on how you can leverage that stuff too. Six video scripts so that you can also create videos on these blogs. That is all-in the membership site. You can see a quick snapshot of one month and what it looks like. It is $597 for every month to get all this content done for you so you can focus on your investing and do what you love. If you go to SmoothBusinessGrowth.com/doneforyou, you can check out the Content Vault. If you want to put it on autopilot, you don’t even want to think about it or touch it and you want to spend time in your investing then we are all there for you. Head to that site. They’re all real estate investing. There are only four weeks in a month. I have six in case one doesn’t resonate with your avatar and then if you don’t use one month, you can use it the other month. It is all done for you.

Are you paying in pesos? That’s phenomenal pricing $597.

It’s a membership site where you’re able to take it and run with it. I would rather make it easy for you. I want you to be able to market consistently, focus on what you want and not be stuck. Try the two weeks for free and then if you’re like, “I can use this. It works for my avatar,” then sign up for the monthly membership.

Is there a limited amount to the canceling time?

It is month-to-month. There are ways you’ll see on the site, you can customize it if you want a custom quote to add some things on that are more custom. We do that too. That way, for any level of where you’re at in your business or your marketing goals but at least this way, you got consistent marketing. You look like you know what you’re talking about. You’re building your authority. You’re going to attract more people and build those relationships and that level of trust. It’s key.

What questions do you have for Lyndsay here? What do you see that’s rocking? If there’s one thing that they could do, what’s kicking ass and taking names in marketing?

I would say especially in the real estate investing sphere are videos. People invest. It’s money. When it comes to money, people close up and they feel a little bit worried or apprehensive. They don’t want to be scammed, all that stuff. Doing video allows people to see your face, personality and it’s instant trust. The more video you do, the faster you’re going to catapult that level of the relationship. Making sure that you’re asking questions and getting involved in interacting with people. How I said earlier with one of my clients, he does the video, he uses that Repurpose.io app to strip the audio put it in YouTube, make an IGTV Video and all these different avenues. It helps automate the whole system.

You’re able to take snackable bites, make quotes, all those extra pieces, make a blog post and extend on it. You can multiply it in many ways. Video is free. You need to know what’s in your head and grab a phone, video camera, or whatever and away you go. It’s a low barrier. Whereas podcasting, if you’re hosting a podcast, there are more costs involved. There’s a launch they’re set up with articles. Some people love writing so it’s easy. It comes naturally to me. I’d love it. Some people not so much. If you do need a copywriter, there is that extra expense. If you’re still new, go Live on Instagram, go Live on Facebook and share it, multiply it, leverage it, reuse it and recycle. You can’t go wrong.

Someone asked Hootsuite. We use social media schedulers like Hootsuite, Buffer, MeetEdgar or Agorapulse. There’s a lot of options. If you are using Instagram, you do want to use one that makes it easier to post to Instagram because some don’t post to Instagram direct. You have to do a push notification on your phone or able. Do know that Facebook rules because they’ve changed a lot. You cannot pre-schedule content from Hootsuite and all those others. You cannot pre-schedule content from that to your Facebook profile but you can to your page and then you can share natively in the app from your page to your profile if that makes sense. It’s irritating. The scheduler should’ve cut their rates because of that.

NC4 3 | Content Marketing Roadmap

Content Marketing Roadmap: The more video you do, the faster you’re going to catapult that level of the relationship.

 

Paul Alvarado has a question, “Is there a preferred frequency for best practices regarding email campaigns for nurturing?”

The more, the better. Push that threshold. If you look at your stats on your open rates, click rates and opt-outs, you will know when people are pushing back. If your opens aren’t as much or if your opt-outs increase then you need to ease off a little bit. I get so many emails from many people and I don’t unsubscribe. I don’t open them all but they’re in my face all the time even if I don’t read them. You’re top of mind constantly. Something will appeal to me, I’ll open it and read it, click and buy or do whatever.

Make sure that when you are emailing, you’re serving or even ask a question. It doesn’t have to be a whole big long production. Share a link to something in a little two-second blurb. You want to make sure that you’re serving them. Start off once a week then move to three times a week. As long as you’re consistent, you can’t do something for two weeks and then go dark for two months later and then expect your eList to be like, “They’re back.” Open everything up because they’re not. They’re going to be like, “I forgot about you.”

Here’s the disturbing statistic. Of those people that have answered the survey so far, 28% send out an email once a month. It gets worse. The other 72% of people answered never.

You need to communicate, to be top of mind, and educate.

Once a week is critical. Sunday night is often the best open rate because people are sitting there looking at their emails and getting ready to go back to work. We’ve always found when we sent an email Sunday night. The day before we do our Note Night in America. It’s always a great open rate.

If you’re building content whether it’s a video, podcast, blog, whatever, you have the stuff to share. It doesn’t have to belong. It doesn’t have to be easy where it’s all these pictures, formulated and all pretty. You can even share, again, an article of somebody else’s, “I found this article. It was so eye-opening. The statistic is about this are huge.” In the PS, you can have a call-to-action. If you want to learn more, connect with me about how I can get more passive income for you or whatever, hit reply.

Paul asks a question. “Is it the same frequency to asset managers as it is to your consumers and warm database?” I’m a big believer. I’m still sending out at least once a month if not once every two weeks to asset managers. I don’t send an email on Monday or Friday because they’re getting bogged down. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are always much better to open rates to asset managers. I would do it every two weeks. I’ll give you an example. A lot of times, I had lists sent to me 6 months to 1 year after we started emailing them. They finally said, “Something came across my desk and I found your email. I called it the green email because of your branding and the colors you use.” It’s a little bit about being consistent in what you’re providing.

You raised a good point there and that is segmenting your list. You may have multiple avatars. As you said, the asset managers versus other people that want to do deals with and whatever else. You might have separate lists because you might want to send different people and content based on who they are.

There are a lot of different tools to do. I love the fact the two weeks of content. People can get started getting a feel for what’s working starting that consistency because a lot of people feel like it’s that ball is rolling up the hill when it isn’t. It’s more of a little mountain, not a hill. As far as starting to get the ball rolling and sharing things. You don’t have to be everywhere like you talked about. Be the places that you want to be.

I’d love to hear from you guys what you thought was the most valuable piece from this presentation. An a-ha moment or you’re like, “That piece of information was gold.” If you do have any last-minute questions, I would love some feedback on what you thought was eye-opening so I can understand you guys a little bit more to write on more areas that I need to talk about more to help. I would love that feedback if you can type it in the chat, that would be lovely.

What’s the best way for people to get ahold of you and to talk with you more?

If they go to SmoothBusinessGrowth.com, there’s the contact page and all my social links are up there. That’s the easiest. There’s also the Facebook group. That way, you can ask me any questions, ask me to do a training on something and say, “I don’t understand this tool. Can you do a video?” You can share like, “I did this blog. Does it look good?” I’m happy to look at your website and say, “I would do this. I would do that. You need to add this.” Think of me as you’re a little content coach.

I like to #ContentCoachAndTheCaptain, as we like to say. I have tunnel vision. You’ve got me thinking outside of the box.

There are more options than you think. Sometimes you get stymied and you’re overwhelmed. You end up doing nothing.

That’s the worst thing you can do. Do something and get out. You’re not going to build Rome overnight. Build it one brick at a time. That’s the thing people don’t realize. We’re going to be in real estate, marketing, and media for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Start planting the seeds now. Start doing it now because you’ll be a lot better in a month if you keep doing consistently and you’ll be even a whole lot better in twelve months when you’re down the road. That’s the thing I can tell you. People will say, “Scott, you’re everywhere.” I’m everywhere because I started practicing and doing this back in 2004 and 2005. Learn what to do and evolved and you can do the same thing.

It’s not as scary as you think.

Lyndsay, I want to say thank you for coming out to Note Camp, for spending some time with us. Scott is another fellow cat lover. Shelly says, “Thank you, Lyndsay. I have a lot to think about. Great info. I’d love the idea to reuse.” Use the link to download those two weeks instantly. That’s two weeks of content. Think about that. That’s at least another $500 to $1,000 in bonuses. They’re set up for you to get rocking and rolling. Eric says, “Lots of golden nuggets.” Maria says, “Thank you. Great info.” We love giving info but the best thing any of you can do that will make me and Lyndsay excited is for you to take action and start doing that stuff. Start doing it now. Thanks, Lyndsay.

Thank you, Scott. It was awesome.

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About Lyndsay Phillips:

NC4 3 | Content Marketing RoadmapFounder and owner of Smooth Sailing Business Growth and Real Estate Investor’s Marketing, Lyndsay Phillips is the go-to Content Marketing Expert who helps clients attract and convert customers faster! Lyndsay is featured on MSN, NBC, Fox and has guested on a TON of podcasts including John Lee Dumas’s Entrepreneurs On Fire and Joe Fairless’s Best Podcast Ever. She’s a serial podcaster with shows like Smooth Sailing Podcast, Smooth Business Growth Podcast and now Co-Hosts the REI Marketing Show. Speaking at events such as Dream Business Academy, Podfest, and Service Business Edge she has shared the stage with Mike Michalowicz and Jay Abraham. Working with successful Real Estate Investors, she’s increased their podcast audience, extended their reach, and built their authority status through content marketing.

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