How you grow your bee business with Content Marketing makes all the difference today and for the future of your business.
When I was a mid-size beekeeper with about 200 hives or so I thought about how I could grow my business so I could make it my full time career.
Maybe you are a part time or full time beekeeper who wants to grow your business for your own reasons. Maybe you just love bees and honey, or maybe you want financial freedom. It’s all good.
So, how do you grow your beekeeping business? So much information out there in the web-world. How can you possibly know what to do, how to do it, when and where to do it, and on and on.
As a beekeeper you know honey is a perfect food that will never go bad. You believe in the health benefits of honey and always show care and concern over the queens who produce the hives.
And… you want to grow your bee business.
You must have a clear goal for your Bee Business
Do you sell beekeeping equipment and supplies to small, mid-size or commercial beekeeping companies?
Are you a large company with hundreds or thousands of hives to transport around the country to pollinate orchards and fields that provide food to all of us?
How much money do you need and want to make?
Where are you doing business? What country, state or region?
It can get complicated real quick. Lots of questions to answer.
You are a beekeeper business owner who wants to grow your beekeeping business. Beekeeping is what you do.
That’s where a content marketer comes in and where Content Marketing for your bee business takes over.
Ask yourself “What do I want for my Bee Business”?
Bottom line you probably want and need to sell more to new and current customers. That brings increased sales.
You have to be clear on your goal and where you want to go. If you aren’t it gets pretty murky out there in the Bee Business world of marketing.
Along with a clear goal you want & need…
- Increased awareness and engagement
- More leads
- More new customers
- To sell more to the customers you have
- More positive reviews
- More referrals
Each of the above 6 “needs and wants” of content marketing for your business speaks directly to your new and current customers and offers specific types of content to satisfy their intent to buy.
Awareness and engagement
These three types of content speak directly to your specific customers and the problems they are experiencing. They answer questions and provide solutions. By providing solutions and information you gain increased awareness and engagement leading to more leads, more customers, and more sales.
Remember, Content Marking for your business always focuses on your business goals.
The initial phase of increasing awareness and engagement for current & potential customers is in the “research” stage. They are looking for solutions to their problems and they want them now.
Content marketing for your business must provide the right information at the right time to the right person… or they go on to someplace else. And, they go quickly.
That’s a good enough reason on its own why it isn’t your job as a bee business owner to write content that grows your business.
It is the job of a content marketer to lay out the strategies and a copywriter to write the content. This may be the same person or different people.
There is upfront work to do to know exactly who you are writing to and why. The initial upfront work makes all the difference. We will dig into that in a different post.
Four stages of full funnel content marketing
Full funnel Content Marketing for your business encompasses every stage the customer is in when approaching you. There are four basic stages that have specific types of content that speak directly to your current and potential customers.
- Research
- Compare
- Buy
- Succeed
Here’s a clearer picture of how content marketing grows your business. We call it Full Funnel Content Marketing because it fulfills the 4 areas you, as a bee business owner, needs to address to grow your business.
Research Stage
Referring to the above graph, if you need more people to know about you then you would be in the research stage to gain awareness and engagement. This is a stage you would always want to pay attention to. It offers many different types of content that will grow your business.
Two of the most influential types of Content Marketing to gain awareness and engagement are blogs and email newsletters. Statistics reveal that 84% of potential customers make their buying decisions based on information from reading blogs. That is huge and tells you that you need to have a regular blog for your business.
Remember, this is writing that you don’t do yourself. Your content marketer / copywriter does it for you.
Compare Stage
In the “compare stage” a person knows what they are looking for and wants to compare the item with different brands from different companies. So, they hop on the internet and surf different sites to compare various brands for price, quality and features. Content marketing for your business makes sure you stay current and relevant.
To speak directly to customers in the “compare” stage content marketing strategies need to provide solutions and information in the form of product demonstrations, FAQs, comparison pages and etc. Customers in the “compare” stage want specifics. They are looking for best value from a company that demonstrates authority and trust. They may spend a bit more time reading about specifics when comparing.
Customer reviews are always a place to gather “comparing” information. The results of content marketing for your business will show up here.
Customer reviews reveal authority and trust. It’s always important to provide excellent customer service at all stages of the customer buying cycle. It absolutely affects your current and new customers.
Buy Stage
The 3rd stage in Full Funnel Content Marketing is the “buy” stage. A person knows what they want. They have done their research and comparison. They are ready to buy. All they need is a place and process to complete their “buying” intent.
Content such as sales letters and product pages provides the process for them to make their purchase seamlessly and efficiently. Purchases must always operate in transparent security and safety while continuing to exhibit authority and trust.
Succeed Stage
The 4th and final stage is the “succeed” stage or “post purchase” stage.
We have all experienced it. We make a purchase and get the product. Great! But then we go to use it and it doesn’t work like we thought it would. Or, it needs putting together and there are no directions in the box.
When you implement content marketing principles for growing your bee business customer feedback is highly regarded and used.
This is why post purchase content is so important to gaining customer retention and referrals. These pages make all the difference to customer experiences. They reveal if you warrant the customer’s trust.
Content in the 4th stage includes content such as support pages, blog posts, and email newsletters.
84% of people use blog posts in buying decisions
Use blogs and email newsletters most effectively at the beginning and end of the content marketing customer buying cycle.
To wind this up, the most effective way to approach content marketing to grow your bee business is to start with a “Customer Persona”. Your content marketer will guide you through this to make sure your goals are the right ones that will grow your Bee Business with Content Marketing.
I will delve into the customer persona and how to complete one in my next post.
Thanks for being here.
Cynde Jackson
P.S. Why Bees?
Because they are the world’s most important pollinator of food crops!
Why Content Marketing?
Because it increases your sales!