Sick of content marketing yet? No? Then maybe you could do what I do for a living!

When I was told I would spend about twice as much time promoting something as I did making it on average, I thought that was DUMB. But here we are, superstar.

✅ Make a spreadsheet or Google Doc of everywhere you will promote your piece of content marketing besides your own social media, email newsletter, and website. (Ideally this will work for future pieces of content marketing so think of all this research as being usable more than once!)

Where to start:
– Local info websites (if a local thing)
– Facebook and LinkedIn groups
– Info websites about a topic (ex: event websites)
– Trade organizations
– Reddit communities
– Online forums (like Google Groups)
– Non-profit groups with a common mission to yours
– Comments on blog posts (so this sparingly or you will be seen as a d-bag)

Make a note of how people want to be contacted and their names.

PLEASE CHECK COMMUNITY GUIDELINES before posting. Some have rules against certain kinds of postings or rules about someone being in the group a certain amount of time before posting. Respect the rules of the communities you want to be in, online and offline!

✅ Email people in the non-douchiest way possible. Sample:

Hi Person’s Name,

My name is Nicole. I’m in the process of starting a business selling French Canadian cultural items online but that’s not really important.

I just pulled together 30 potato recipes using local Maine potatoes. I’ll be making content like this on a regular basis and I know we have a similar mission so wanted to introduce myself. Here’s the article link: LINK TO WHERE YOUR CONTENT LIVES

Looking forward to learning more about the center, maybe at an event when the world open back up again (PUT PERSONAL CONNECTION IN HERE – MAYBE YOU HAVE A CONNECTION TO THE AREA, etc.)

Have a great day,
Nicole

Note how above I didn’t push my business. I used my content marketing piece as an excuse to introduce myself. If they never write back, I won’t worry because at least they know who I am and, if I put in actual personal information like their name and personal details like I didn’t just copy and paste the same letter to 10,000 people, they might actually read it.

✅ Put your content out to the people, groups, and websites you’ve found!

I get this takes awhile. But remember genuine relationships with brand new people take time… and just because it’s online doesn’t mean we can short cut the process.