On Wednesday evenings from 8 to 8:30pm ET, the Indie Business Network hosts #MakerBizChat, an Instagram event to help Makers and Handmade Entrepreneurs build a solid business foundation, increase your income, and use your business to create the life you love. Our guest this week was Rachel Daley, Content Manager at Made Freshly.
Made Freshly is “the online store platform that helps your passion pay off.” Through her work there, Rachel helps entrepreneurs to improve their marketing tactics. When she's not doing that, you can find her adventuring around Southern California with a camera in her hand, or teaching people how to high jump. For more information about Rachel and Made Freshly, click here.
Q1: @MADEFRESHLY: I'M POSTING LOTS OF CONTENT BUT STILL NOT GETTING MUCH RESPONSE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
1 – If your content isn’t working, then your content isn’t relevant to the audience that would actually buy your products.
2 – You need to get to know your target audience as individuals – down to the details, like their personal values and problems.
3 – The Golden Rule of Content Creation: EVERY PIECE OF CONTENT you put out needs to have your target audience in mind.
4 – Your content shouldn’t be all about you or your business – it should be about your audience.
5- When you create content that is about your audience, you’ll see the engagement and growth of your audience that you’re after.
Q2: @MADEFRESHLY: SHOULD I HAVE A BLOG FOR MY BUSINESS?
1 – It depends, there is no one right answer for this one.
2 – Just like Pinterest might be a better investment of your time than Twitter, blogging could be a great avenue for marketing depending on your biz.
3 – If you have a strong social media presence that your audience responds well to, maybe you don’t need a blog.
4 – It also depends how much content you could churn out, and if your audience would care about a blog.
5 – If you bake, you could have an awesome blog full of recipes that would bring tons of targeted traffic to your site.
6 – If you make soap, you may not have as many topics to cover. :/ If you don’t think you have enough content to cover, or can’t commit to writing that much, maybe a newsletter is more up your alley.
Q3: @MADEFRESHLY: WHAT KIND OF CONTENT SHOULD I POST ON MY BLOG?
1 – It comes down to what your audience would find valuable. It should loosely relate to your products, or at least the mission/idea behind them.
2 – Say you have an awesome “green”, organic clothing line – you could cover green topics (that don’t necessarily have to do with clothing at all) and other issues like that. What else are your people into?
3 – Maybe they’re also into organic eating. Throw recipes and things like that in there too. Your brand stands for something other than “clothing” (for example). That underlying philosophy opens up a whole array of topics you can cover.
Q4: @MADEFRESHLY: HOW DO I PUT TOGETHER A GOOD NEWSLETTER?
1 – The idea behind a newsletter is to get people from your audience (ahem, potential customers) to sign up by offering them something of value to them, like a discount or something else they would like.
2 – Then once they are in your newsletter funnel, you give them even more value by sending them updates, info on specials/sales, exclusive content, exclusive products, etc (you can be creative here!) that will direct them to buying from you.
3 – If you give, then they will give back. We’re talkin’ dollar bills y’all.
Q5: @MADEFRESHLY: HOW DO I CREATE ENOUGH CONTENT TO SHARE ACROSS ALL MY SOCIAL PLATFORMS WITHOUT SPENDING ALL DAY DOING IT?
1 – I’ll let you in on a little secret … you can curate content! Not all of your content has to be your own, and you can reuse great content you already have
2 – Say you have a blog post that was super popular. Take a theme or idea from that post and turn it into another more specific or related post.
3 – Check out the comments on your posts (blog, or social media) for more ideas on what you audience would be interested in seeing (no more guessing if a topic will go over well!)
4 – How do I create enough content to share across all my different social media platforms without spending all day doing it?
5 – Also, find other relevant content created by others you can post. I do this on the MadeFreshly instagram to mix up my content. Instead of just posting about my latest blog post, I find awesome inspirational quotes and post them as well. The rule here is relevancy.
Q6: @MADEFRESHLY: HOW DO I USE ONLINE MARKETING TECHNIQUES TO GROW AN AUDIENCE FOR MY CONTENT?
Step 1: Post what your audience wants to see.
Step 2: Post consistently.
Step 3: Engage with your audience – and potential audience (Tweet, comment on Instagram posts, participate in Facebook group chats, pin on open boards)
Step 4: You can either sit around and wait for you audience to find you OR you can be active and get your name out there where they are.
Step 4: Use influencer relationships – Reach out to other people in your industry: Collaborate on an Instagram contest with a fellow maker that has a solid audience. If you make bike helmets, reach out to a local cycling club and offer them an exclusive discount. The key here is finding others with a larger group of your same target audience so you can reach more people.
Step 5: Keep creating awesome content, ‘cause as your audience grows, there will be more expectations for the good value you’re dishin’ out.
Connect with Made Freshly:
When Is The Next #MakerBizChat?
The next #MakerBizChat will be Wednesday, April 15, 2015, at 8pm ET. Our guest will be announced shortly.
Hosting #MakerBizChat from the Indie Business Network's Instagram account pushed too many posts to our followers in a short period of time.
Therefore, in the future #MakerBizChat will take place here at MakerBizChat on Instagram. Be sure to follow so you don't miss out.
How to Follow #MakerBizChat?
Follow #MakerBizChat on Instagram.
If you enjoyed #MakerBizChat, you may also like Indie Business Podcast! Hosted and produced by Donna Maria, Indie Business Podcast brings you interviews with successful and influential people in the Maker and Handmade Entrepreneurial Community. Subscribe on iTunes or listen to episodes here at the blog.
