How to Attract, Build Relationship and Convert with Content Marketing - Teacher: Nancy Nungari

Building a relationship with the people that matter to your business is extremely important.

And in today's lesson, we're going to look at some of the ways you can do that with content marketing.

Why content marketing is like dating and how you could take someone from not knowing you at all to ultimately buying your product or service.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome to the Useful Content Podcast, and today we have a new teacher in the useful content classroom. Nancy Nunguri. Hi Nancy.

Hi. Hi Juma.

So Nancy, we, we actually met. On the podcast collaboration Facebook group I had put out a call for, for guests, and somehow you turned up.

When you saw the, post, what did you think?

I was

intrigued by the fact that you asked for us to have something that we can teach. caught my attention that you need to have something tangible or something that you already are using that you can teach in your class. And I think the fact that it sounded like class, it wasn't just like, Come on my podcast and talk about anything that also fascinated me, and I'm very interested in content. All things, you know, content marketing and the name of your podcast, useful content that also caught my attention.

I like that you pointed out the teaching part. 'cause that was one deliberate choice that I made about how I wanted to structure the podcast. And I know you're a content person because you once owned a bookstore. How happen come about?

How did that come about? Well, I'm an immigrant, so I am originally born and raised in Kenya, East Africa. And I've been in Germany for about over 25 years with some interruptions. When I first moved here, I was in the fashion industry and for a while, and then had a back injury, so, I was not able to continue working in that job anymore.

So when I was at home spending a lot of time just recovering from the back injury, I read lot and back then I on, I could only get books like in the library. They have a very

small selection of English books and so I quickly out of all the English books there were for me to read from our local library because TV was in German.

And you know, I loved to read anyway. And so during that time is I thought what if I opened a bookshop with English books and so I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this problem. So that's how the came to be. It did take a while before that vision became reality, but I believe within less than two years, then I opened the bookshop. 

That's, that's a great story. 

Today we are talking about, how to build strong customer relationships with content marketing. And the way you describe it for yourself is content marketing is like dating Could you tell us why you look at it that way and why you've developed that view of content marketing?

Here's the thing. I think, um, any business, whether we are from the consumer side or from, the ones who are, creating, you know, human beings, are cautious about something. We like buying things, but we don't really like being sold to. So there needs to be some kind of a relation. Either somebody told us about the product or we've been seeing it, we got some kind of information. And so I see content. Basically when somebody buys from you, there's a kind of conversion, like with dating, you get know somebody first. You know the name. You see them from afar. You think, oh, I think I like this person. There's some attraction. Then you get to know each other. Hey, what's your name?

Can we exchange contacts? And then you exchange words. You're having conversations and content. The way I see it is essentially having conversations. With your audience, you know, not just telling them, buy my stuff, but adding value, just like in dating, you add value to each other and you see, okay, are we a good fit to take it to the next level?

Are we going to be exclusive? Are we going to get married? Which is a conversion, literally where the names change and two people they become a partnership, but as long as it's a fit, you know, they're in a harmonious relationship. And I think content is the same way. Your There's an exchange going on of information.

You're adding value. 

There's some useful communication between the consumer and the person who is creating the content.

How did you observe and come to conclusion? What was the process of coming to that like?

I have a process that I call A B, C, which attracting like strangers on the net. You know, just people who don't know you from Adam. Somebody across the globe is looking for something and then you wanna move that From A, you want to move it to B, which is you wanna build a relationship with this person because when they see you first time, they might even visit your website. More often than not, they're not ready to like wipe, wipe out their credit card and buy from you. They're not sure. maybe there's something better. I don't know. This. Person is. And so sometimes when they land on your website, whether it's through social media, wherever the land there, they might not be ready yet to buy you. At that point. They might be in the researching stage. And so you wanna build, you wanna take that relationship from attraction. You know, attraction marketing is inbound, not outbound. And then you want to build a relationship with this New person who is now a lead, you know, like a cold lead. You wanna build a with them with email. So you take the conversation off the party where everybody's talking at the same time and everybody's, you know, kind of looking around and you move it like, Hey, here's my number.

Essentially you give them some kind of an ethical bribe, which is also called a lead magnet. It's like you exchange numbers and then now you're staying in touch. Now you can value to each other. You can add value to The person who is now a warm lead and they also add value to you because like when you send an email, you always say like, hit reply. If you have questions or you send out a short survey and say, let me know what are you struggling with right now? What do you need help with? Right? So you also get, you know, it's a two-way conversation with email and then along the line you could convert or maybe also not, but. They might be ready in like after a few emails, they might be ready with a welcome email or it take a while to nurture that relationship.

Maybe they're not ready to buy whatever solution you have, but at the time when they're ready because you've been in their radar, you've like dating, you've been building a relationship through email, you'll be on top of their mind. Like they won't go googling around and looking for that service because they already know you. So then there's a C, which is a conversion 

you talk about how that process works? If someone comes to you and

they said, seen your I know the ABCs. Get me started on attracting strangers, how you start them off?

okay. One of the quickest and easiest way I would say is through social media. And We spend a lot of time on social media, so that's a good place to begin. Like, you know, raising your hand and saying, Hey, business, and just being visible. I think sometimes we underestimate the power of being visible, you know, online where your people are. So if somebody came and said, okay, I want to attract, I want to begin with the a. We would first look at their social media, like, are you posting? It doesn't mean posting every single day and trying to engage with a hundred comments every day, can lead to burnout very quickly. But really just figuring out, okay, who are the people who you're trying to reach? Where are they? I. 'cause all social media are not equal. Where is your ideal audience? And then start being there. And sometimes you'll find like, let's say your B 2 B, your audience might not necessarily be, you know, on Facebook watching cat videos every single day.

They might be decision makers who are LinkedIn, who are also not. Necessarily liking posts. You know, they might just be there, maybe, you know, to have like professional networking, but they see that content they might

not like, and you know, which sometimes can be um, . You know, vanity metrics, you know, it's good what people like and engage with their content because it gets seen by more people. But you just wanna be visible, be there, and them start to see you start being on their radar. And very important, always have like a call to action. Like when you're posting, have an intention. Like, what is your plan? Why are posting? What is the end goal? What do you wanna say? Your ideal client at the end of the day, what do you want them to do? So I would call them, start there. Social media is a really good place. Another place that's underestimated is really referrals, like asking your old clients, getting a list, like a hundred people, your friends, your relatives, your people who you went to school with. You know, just say, Hey I'm actually doing this thing.

Do you know somebody who.

interested in this. Sometimes they say, I'm the somebody I'm interested, but by telling them, do you know somebody who is interested in this free class I'm doing? They don't feel like you're trying to sell them. They're thinking, oh, maybe who do I know? And we all like to help.

Who do I know who can benefit from this? You're not selling at that point. You're just getting people to come to your webinar to come to your challenge, and that way you attract strangers, people who you don't normally know, but they're in your network. So you are getting to know people through the people who you know, which is also a very safe way to market, actually sometimes better than social media because you're not too much of a stranger, then you don't have to do too much work to build a relationship.

Yeah. I agree. You somebody going onto social media creating different types of content. How does one decide type of content will work best for on their particular platform?

Starting with the end in mind, which is who is your ideal target audience? Who are you looking to reach? And then once you've pinpointed, essentially build like an avatar of this person, who are they? Like how old are they? What do they like? Like let's say if I'm trying to reach a mom who is uh, staying at home, a stay at home mom, she'll probably be on like Pinterest, she might be on Instagram. She might not necessarily be on LinkedIn, but first of all, finding out where she's and what kind of content, putting yourself in her shoes, what kind of content is she likely to engage in? If she's at home with the children, she's probably busy, maybe not too much watching videos. She might be listening more to like podcasts. She might be listening to audio, or she might want like quick. Reels quick videos that she can watch on Instagram. she might quickly check in to check on the stories. So it's figuring out who is your ideal audience and then what kind of content are they likely to be? Engaging in what's, what's the easiest kind of content that they're likely to consume and then create content based on that. On on. What do you think? Like literally put in their shoe. What is the pain point that you're trying to solve? And then what would be the easiest way for them to, first of all, start engaging or start seeing your content?

How can you start adding value to them in like little Like little bits and pieces, you know, like when you go to to a mall and they have these little testers like, oh, you know, test our cheese and our olives today. And then you test that and you're like, Hmm, I'll take a kilo of that. So you wanna start giving like free testers of whatever solution you but they can quickly consume. 

Out, your audience, where they are, put yourself in their shoes and create content that they would easily be able to access and take in.

I love that. I love the whole idea of, of testing things. And that's a good example is like when you go to like one of those big chain stores. I know some people in America have Costco. We here in the Caribbean have Price Smart and when you walk around the store, you get like samples.

Exactly. 

Things and you, know, they give it to you and the hope is that would eat it and you would me of these up before I leave.

I guess just, that's content like like, you're putting stuff out there order attract people. So they like, this, this, this feels good. It seems to fit me. Let me go deeper to find out what this person is offering. Is that what you're saying happens?

Absolutely. Exactly. Absolutely. And then, you know, on social media, you, you're putting out those small things and then you want them to then say, oh, I like that. Whether it's a post, a real, an interview, and then they want to learn more. 

So, alright, so the person has now consumed, the sample. They consumed a bit of what you begin to offer obviously I obviously I thinkart of it is that you're starting from zero you have an idea of might to your offer, But you're not completely sure. It may turn out that people are then you have to customize the content some 

Yes. 

let's talk about building How does the building relationship part go?

Okay, so we started the A, like you put out some samples and let's assume you've done, you've done some reels or some videos, or you. On LinkedIn, maybe you put some carousels and then you wanna put the call to action, which is essentially like you're dating, when you're out in a party and you had a nice conversation with somebody, you really enjoy talking to other and say shall we exchange numbers or can, shall we stay in touch? And person says, sure, here's my email address, or here's my telephone number, and then From there, you're going to build, you're gonna have a further conversation outside of the party. When you go home, you're like, oh yeah, I met this interesting person. And with content marketing online, essentially it's again, like the ethical bribe, like a lead magnet, something that you give to your ideal audience, something of value. Something useful. needs to be something they can consume, something useful like you say in your podcast and not like a six part video training. And each is a like One hour. You wanna give them quick wins. So you create a lead magnet. That can be a checklist. People love checklists. They love resources, like the resources you use.

'cause people, I think it was lead pages that say, people think, oh, if I use the resources you're using, maybe I'll get the results you're getting. So offering your audience a resource guide or resources that you use. Checklists are absolutely great. Something can, they can quickly tick off or like a short challenge or a short And now you've exchanged, you're going to give them that for free. It's valuable, but you're going to give them for free. It's really not free because they have to give you their address in exchange. So there's a mutual agreement. We wanna stay in touch, and you promise you're not going to spam me.

You know, this is the person who is giving you their email address. They're giving you the address believing, okay, you're not gonna spam me. You're going to send me content that is in line with this thing that I've been seeing, and I want more of it. So it moved away from the party, from the crowd, and now you're having a one-to-one conversation via the inbox, which I think is very underestimated.

Email really underestimated and we use our email every single day. Sometimes I don't go on social media. I. For days, like weekends, but I definitely open my email if I don't like go through

anything. I'll scan and see what's in there and based on the subject line, based on whoever is sending, I'm bound to open that email. More likely I will through the email than I will through social media, or at least I'll consume the useful content that I'm getting on email. And another thing as far as building relationship is concerned. One of the reasons why I really believe email is very under underrated is the proximity.

You're in their radar. You know, you are. Even if I've, I've had people who send me emails and I'm like, yeah, I'm not looking for this right now. I just I don't even click the link, but I open the email. But when the time is right and the offer, because I joined that email list for a reason, there was something that interested me. There'll be a time that I'll need that thing and maybe I don't know that I need it. And sometimes as content creators, our job is to agitate the problem because sometimes We don't know what we don't know. your ideal audience might not know they have a problem that you can solve. And it's our job to let them know you have this problem that you're not even aware of.

But guess what? I also have the solution. We don't know what we don't know. I don't know what I don't know. And sometimes somebody will send me an email, think, actually, I do want to finish this year. On a different note. Recently, someone sent me an email like that, like finish the year. Not strong with ease or something. And I thought, do I, do And I. Actually, I haven't thought about that. It's just like three months of the year I didn't sign up then, but they already got my attention and now I'm talking about it, which shows like they highlighted the problem. Something I need that I didn't know that I needed, and that came through email.

And I guess for somebody who's receiving the emails, sometimes you are not ready to buy 

Yes. 

But you're still kind of interested in what person has to say 

Mm-hmm. 

And becasue you have made a choice opt in 

Mm-hmm. 

it's, it's easier to fact they're 

Mm-hmm. 

And you could at look the content and you can choose to ignore it. Or you could look at for when something comes down that you're interested in, and then get into what the offer might be. Is that how it works Sometimes?

You said it right? Exactly. Another very important thing is to realize that building relationships with email, it's about adding value. So if I opt into someone's checklist and it's really good and it really helps me like, you know, figure out what I want to stop doing before the year ends? What do I want to like get focused on?

It's really, really good. But then after that, they send me like other people's offers and affiliate links and, and things that I didn't really sign up for. I'm going to feel like, I've been catfished,

Right, right,

this is not what we agreed on when I joined your community, and I might either, you know, unsubscribe, probably will unsubscribe, but if they're a smart marketer, they'll probably tell me, if you're not interested in hearing about this kind of content, don't have to opt out.

Just click here so I can let them know. I am into our relationship, but I'm not too much into going to other parties or doing other things with other people like you're doing. I mean, I understand that's also a referral, you know, you're introducing your audience to other people's audiences. But we wanna be adding value email because otherwise, if one unsubscribes, getting them back on board is gonna be like a difficult once I unsubscribe, it's very rare that I'll subscribe again

like in a relationship, you've got someone's number and you know you're talking, you know, don't kind of catfish them or. Pull up some weird moves where they'll end up like block and no thank you. I made a mistake. You know, so with the email, you really wanna be very careful and value them and realize are not like numbers on a list.

I don't like when people say my list 'cause these are real people. I. With real problems who opted into your email community for a reason. And we don't

only just see them like data, you know, like I have a list of 5,000 people. Those 5,000 individuals with real problems. That's why they opted into your email community. And to honor that, to honor the, the, the privilege of actually showing up in their inbox. So adding value is really, really important.

Yeah, I agree with that. have a confession to make. So sometimes when sign for things, deliberately use an email that don't look at.

Oh.

And it, goes into what call graveyard and 

Oh.

That's like if it's a one-off thing, I know probably never gonna be interested in this, but if I think might be a chance that I might be interested in this thing in future you get the email 

Okay. .Yeah, we've gotten smart with all that online. Right. Because we do get a lot of emails too. That's a good point you've made because one of the best practices is say like, what is your best email address? You know, like in the optin, like say, what is your best email address?

And it might sound like Okay, but subconsciously it's like think, okay, what's my best address Without me thinking twice, like, do I wanna use the email junkyard or do I wanna use my best email address? And then also, I think really important, whatever your opting is, let Juma know that besides this thing that he's opting in now for, I have some really other good stuff that you don't wanna miss out on. So give me your best email address, so you don't miss out on the other stuff, you know, and not just join my list or you know, get updates. Nobody wants to get updates and nobody just wants to join the list.

We wanna give me a promise, gimme a reason why I should give you my email address because it's valuable. Very valuable. You know, an honor to be able to get into somebody's private space of email and be able to have a conversation with them. But I you're talking about. Yes. I've done it.

I think all of us secretly have done that. We just don't admit it, So there are two stories I have with email. I'll just give you them really, really quickly. There's one, well, there's one there's a couple people I really love online in terms of their marketing. There's a guy called, I.

Louis Grier hope I'm pronouncing his name right. Let's just say Louis Guy called Louis is a great marketer. He has a podcast called Everybody everybody hates marketers. So I follow him on LinkedIn. I follow Louis on LinkedIn and I commented on one of his posts.

I often go and of posts. The email that he sent, He actually clipped the comment included in the email along with some other comments people had made about their response to the particular post why they added value I'm never gonna unsubscribe from that email list now because has actually included me.

He inside of sharing other people. He didn't include my name, be he just included the comment, I saw the and I knew it was me. I knew I said that. So that added extreme value to me and it helped build the relationship.

I love that. That is such a good point. Essentially you felt seen by this person who you honor or you value what they, the, the work they do and you realize that they also read the comments and it's not maybe like they're va virtual Assistant who is like clicking and Thanks, thanks for commenting on something. Like literally they read the comments and yours was one of them. That's a really good good, good marketing. That's really good. And if it's organic, I assume it's organic because there were other people too. That's what essentially what a good market or somebody who puts out useful content. That's an example of it where we're not just data on social media, we're real people. I. And you're seen that's very, very important. Sometimes I think marketers, we forget that, how would I if, if someone did that to me? That's a really good thanks for sharing that. I will check out that podcast 'cause I love the title already.

Nancy, I depend a lot on social media. Why is it important to get people off of social media and onto an emailing list?

I love this question and I could talk hours on this. Social media 

is really great for It's the party where everybody's, you know, check, just, you know, checking in and checking things out. However, these are not our platforms. You know, this is not our real estate. You know, Your own website is your own little Land on the internet a website can be down, but your email lists, you can still email as far as, as long as the email is not connected to your website provider, your domain hosting, which is advisable to separate them. You could still get in touch with your clients, customers, consumers, your community, if you're an N G O through email.

If media is down, which happens often if your website is down, which can happen, you can still get in touch with people through the email. and very, very important social media, they suppress content. If you are writing things that the algorithm doesn't like, your content may not be being seen. Maybe you're using words that like. You can get the platformed where you kicked out of all the platforms or your con, your account can just be banned. Somebody complains, or I don't know. You have a group of 10,000 people and you wake up tomorrow and everybody's gone. And I know of such a case and you've worked so hard to build this community, but you are building on somebody else's real estate.

So it's really important to move those conversations out of the big part where all the noises, you know, invited to somebody else's place moving on to, Hey, here's my number. Let's stay in touch, one to one. very important. 

Alright, so let's move to converting customers now. So we've talked about attracting, we've talked about building relationships. talk about the final stage, is converting consumers. How does that work 

you, 

Nancy?

essentially getting to, she said, yes. Getting to the yes, to the, from the dating to committing. I see it this way. Converting can actually happen anywhere. I mean, we, again, to use the analogy of dating, we've heard of people who met and one month later they were Engaged or even married, we've, we've heard about that. Which is again, to use the analogy of converting. So it can happen even on social media. You can put out. A carousel and at the end you say, Hey, check out the link in my bio. I have an offer today. And on that day, that particular person needs that thing, and they don't wanna overthink things. They think, I need this, I want this now. And they it. But there is no conversion without content, essentially. Useful content. It, it could even be something funny. You put like and you say, Hey, now that I have your attention I'm having a flash sale. Check out the link in my bio. You know? And after they get laughing about cat videos, something completely not related to your marketing, they head or not to the link in your bio, and they buy whatever's that you're selling. So, There's no conversion without some useful content. Useful content. The way I see it could be inspiring, informative, entertaining educating, you know, those four categories. Basically, it's something that value to the consumer. I. That's one way where conversion can happen quickly. Conversion can also happen in the email. You send a value, adding posts on whatever it is that you solve. Here are three things you can do. And no, I don't share this information with anybody else. So this is only for my email subscribers. And at the end you say, pss, incidental people love PSS in emails. I don't know why ps use this coupon to. 50% of just for my email subscribers, that could be conversion. You've added value and you've made an offer. The other way is where you are building like long-term relationship. Like if you have a high ticket offer, you have a consulting service, you wanna do a training where the person needs a bit more education before they decide to invest in your services. And In that case, you wanna use something like webinars. Podcasts are really good 'cause it's been proven. People who listen to podcasts tend to be more, more likely to invest in themselves, invest in their personal development, invest in their businesses.

So podcasts. So wanna use multimedia content challenges. Podcasts, video classes, and then at the end of that training, a training, maybe half an hour, 45 minutes, and then you make your offer for a high ticket or a membership, you know, you're opening a membership program, and then you make the offer then, and it's limited. It's like everybody who joins today gets this and this and this, and the offer expires in 48 hours or something. So using multimedia to convert, that's the way I do it. 

so it seems as if when you're making final offer to convert people, these offers have be very, specific Is there any benefit in making offers specific?

question. Yes and yes, because as you probably know, as we say, if you try to sell to everybody, you're selling to nobody. And if you kind of like throw spaghetti on the wall and hope something sticks. You're probably not going to, get it right, but if you make a specific offer, a specific training for audience who you already know. Again, we wanna start with the end in mind. Who is your target audience? What is their Core problem, how are you solving it? So you wanna create the content that converts, whether you are converting them through social media or through email, or you've invited them to your training, to your challenge.

Like the email I got the other day of a challenge, I don't even know how I joined that list, but It spoke to me, it, it spoke to me because I'm thinking, yeah, I'm into personal development. The year is about to end. So it was very, the way it was written, it really spoke to me as, as, as a person who is into personal development and wellbeing and, you know, just work-life balance and all that. So you wanna always think again with useful content. It needs to be targeted. Ideally, if you can have that person, you're talking to one person, like how old are they? Do they have gray they have kids? What kind of a car do they drive? Where do they live? What shows do they watch? Because demographic is one thing, but psychographics, what shows are they likely to watch?

What books are they likely to read? Do they watch news? I mean, you wanna go even a bit deeper, like how do they vote? You know, what are their, their beliefs? What are their values? So, so that when you're creating content, you are tailor, that one person who you know you're speaking to.

So when they see the content, they lift up their hand, they're like, That's for me, that's for my team, that's my employees, you know? So yes, there's a lot of value as far as content that converts when we reach the converting space of making it very specific because you're at the end, it's like, When you get into the, I do you know, you've made sure that this person, I wanna spend the rest of my life with this person back to dating.

I wanna be exclusive with this person. And they might ask, why do you want to marry me? You gotta have a reason. They don't wanna feel like, oh, you know, I'm just a. I'm the closest thing you store around, you know, or because you don't have other choices. You wanna be specific as to why you think is going to be a good fit. And then the can say yes. I say yes. The same with content. Converting. The person can say no, and that's okay. There's always a possibility that they will say no, and that's absolutely okay. I think at the back of my mind, it helps to keep that in mind, like you're making an offer, you're inviting them. I've made these things specifically you, and I think it's going to solve your problem. I really thought this through What do you think? I'm inviting you, and they can say, No you and say, okay, no problem. Let's continue dating Or they can say yes, and then the relationship continues. It doesn't end there, by the way, you know, sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, ah, I made the sale. Move on to the next thing, you know, the next person. And it's been proven that people will buy from someone they've bought before. It's easier to sell to someone who you've already sold to than to convert a whole new client. We underestimate that. The relationship that we've already made, you know, that we've already converted, and to keep on adding value and to see that person as a long term, like lifetime value. 

as As, a former wedding photographer and um, who's been married for 18plus years, I can approve that message. I agree with that 

Love it, Thank you.

Thank you so much, Nancy, for sharing how to build relationships with content marketing with us today in the useful content classroom.

You could tell the people where they can find you online, they might want to know that.

My website would be naga, N A G A consulting.com. And then you can learn everything else I do from there. And all my social media handles are Naga social at Naga Social, so I'm active on LinkedIn, a little bit on Instagram and a little bit on Facebook. I'm not too active on social media, but I. Show my my presence there. So 

thanks again for sharing with us how build these relationships with content marketing thanks everyone being in useful content classroom. content, classroom dismissed,

Thanks for having me.

and

we are All right. That was the last question. Good. Excellent. Let me stop the recording. , we made it.