I have been doing a lot of reading on the topic of marketing. Specifically on the subject of content marketing.

I just finished reading the book Content Inc. by Joe Pulizzi. When I say “read” I mean I listened to the audio book. I love Audible.

It was a good book. There’s a great deal of information in this book. Way more than I ever think I will need.

The book does a great job of exploring all the different options that are available for marketing a small business and building a web audience.

Joe talks about building a web based audience on a blog platform which you can later capitalize. He refers to the blog as the center hub with several spokes radiating to and from your center hub.

For me, blogging began as a way for me to share my experience with people. People who might be burdened with the need to act as their own project managers, but had little exposure to construction.

It was also a way to build my brand and gain more exposure in my industry. I did have some fleeting thoughts about building an audience in some distant future where I could comfortably slip into semi-retirement and work as a consultant. That daydream was smashed the day I was laid-off.

I need to build a Client base. Not a web audience.

The Content Inc. marketing model promises to build a loyal audience base over time, but in the short term, I still need to have income.

I do believe that content marketing is a valuable marketing strategy. As such, it is at the center of my marketing strategy, but to satisfy more immediate needs, I also need to employ more traditional marketing techniques.

In this entry I want to share with you my thought process on how the various bits and pieces of my marketing strategy go together.

Luis Gile on WordPress

I see this blog as more of an ideas lab. Here is where you and I can share information on how to grow a business. Hopefully, this forum will help each of us grow as entrepreneurs. This should become a place where we can learn from each others successes and failures.

In addition, I also see this blog as the center point of my content marketing plan. From here I will radiate content and all other media will point to and from here.

Building Blocks on Blogger

Initially, I began blogging on Blogger.com. My blog site on Blogger was called Building Blocks weblog. It had very few views. As such, a few months ago, I stopped updating it.

I still believe in the concept of my Building Blocks Blog. In fact the content there is no different than the content I was posting on my website. I was averaging 300 views per month on my website but had 1 or 2 views on Blogger.

Not sure why there was such a stark difference.

Regardless, I’m planning to resurrect the Building Blocks Blog.

Building Blocks will be the blog site where I will post industry specific articles. Those articles will be specifically focused on construction topics and construction procurement. I will have that blog link to my business website www.PROCURPRO.com. I also expect to link articles from building blocks here on my word press site.

I’ve read quite a bit about how rich content brings your site to the top of google listings. At the risk of being redundant I also plan to simultaneously post the articles from Building Blocks on my website. The idea being that to boost my SEO and google rankings, I want my website to include the same rich content I will have on Blogger.

My question to you is whether duplicate information is perceived as a negative? If the answer is yes, then I would give up the blogger site and only host the articles directly on my business website. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Telemarketing

The next part of my marketing plan is old fashioned cold calling and telemarketing. I know it’s not very glamorous and I have no compunction for doing this, but I do believe it is my number one option for meeting people who can help me promote my consulting practice in the short term.

I have done my research and developed a telemarketing script. I believe my script is rather compelling. But only actual practice will tell. I am targeting architects in my initial calls. The thought being that construction procurement as an added service would be most useful to owners who are at the end of the design phase ready to move on to construction.

My first obstacle is obviously convincing the architect that construction procurement is a necessary and useful service. Construction procurement has not traditionally been employed on smaller projects or with smaller companies. Larger companies tend to have in-house procurement or they work with firms much larger than mine to outsource their entire procurement program. This has the effect of limiting the exposure of architects to procurement. One of the first things I need to do in my efforts to convince them to add me to their project team is to educate them about procurement.

This leads me to the next part of my marketing plan.

Brochures and Presentations

I have also developed several different written forms of marketing.

One being a Brochure that I can share with architects who might be interested to learn more about procurement. I’ve also developed a PowerPoint presentation that takes a deeper dive into construction procurement. As part of my telemarketing plan I will be asking architects to allow me to come in and give a lunch and learn style presentation on the topic of procurement.

I hope that this gives me an opportunity to educate my fellow architects as well as create network opportunity’s for us to collaborate on future projects. Once again I’d love your feedback on this approach.

Future marketing plans

I also have some ideas for a future YouTube channel and other content marketing style campaigns. Those thoughts are too underdeveloped to share them with you now but I will fill you in on those once I’m a bit further along.

So what do you think of my marketing plan is it sound or am I on the wrong track? What have you done to develop your business? What were the most useful marketing campaigns that you used?