​We live in a glorious time. Never in the history of humanity have we been blessed with such an outrageous amount of entertainment choices. At this age, we have virtually limitless options for things to do in our spare time. From movies, TV shows, sporting events, books, music, videos, and the list keeps going on. One of my favorite entertainment media growing up and even to this day would be video games. It’s become one of the most complex and profitable forms of entertainment. I’m not sure if the video game industry has surpassed the film industry, but I’m sure it’s up there. 

​I find it satisfying to complete a project or at least the first part of a project. To have your vision come to fruition is a gratifying experience. In this project, I wanted to create an albums worth of songs, each one representing a Chakra. It was originally meant as an exercise in music creation but I soon realized the benefits of it as a tool to help individuals meditate for roughly 45-minutes.

Who said it was easy to create an albums worth of material? No one I hope. Project Zodiac Temple has come to an end and it was an interesting exercise in music creation. The goal was to create twelve songs in the downtempo style of EDM, each representing the personalities of the zodiac by using the twelve major keys along with their relative minors. I put a lot of limitations on myself to help squeeze as much creativity out of these songs without get too bogged down with perfection. Was I successful. I don’t know, but I say with absolute confidence that I learned a lot about creating emotions through music.

As a musician and a marketing professional, I’m always looking for patterns in the music industry. The current shifts in the music people listen to along with how and where they listen fascinates me. One style that has been continually growing in popularity is electronic instrumental, especially EDM (electronic dance music) like Dubstep and Trance. These styles utilize heavy synths sounds combined with big, consistent, almost tribal beats and are very popular in live settings like clubs and festivals. People will congregate together dressed in bright fluorescent colors and dance to these beats. It’s nothing new, people have been doing this for many years, disco in the 70’s, pop synth in the 80’s, trip hop in the 90’s and so on. However, I’ve also discovered that there is a less aggressive style of electronica that is also just as popular, but it tends to fill a different roll.

One of the single most important aspects of my life is the ability to stay creative. It brings meaning to an otherwise dreary existence. No, I’m just kidding. I’m not a dark gothic teenager and life isn’t dreadful. However, it can become dull and mundane with the hustle and bustle of everyday activities.

You’ve just about closed the loop on your content marketing strategy. The only thing left to do is measure and analyze how your content is performing. There are many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be used to determine how your efforts are faring, I’ve paired it down to just thirteen metrics that will give you a full picture of your efforts.

You’re now a content marketing machine, creating some fantastic material. Let’s take it a step further by repurposing that beautiful content. Repurposing content is the act of reformatting your content to target a different audience. Some examples include turning a blog post into a video or podcast, combining blog posts into an ebook, or taking a presentation and turning it into an infographic. There is a lot of content being created every day, chances are your target audience may have missed your article or video. However, repurposing your content will increase the chances that they will see it in another platform.

You’ve been hard at work crafting the perfect blog article making sure that every aspect is just right. The headlines are attention-grabbing, you painstakingly created the best image that represents the article, you provided a perfect call-to-action, edited all the spelling and grammar mistakes, and its formatted in a way that takes advantage of SEO and other related benefits. Now all you need to do is sit back and wait for the quote inquiries to come flooding in.

The single most important piece of content that you will create as part of your content marketing strategy will be the blog post. A great blog can drive traffic to your website, increase search engine rankings, but also provides a starting point for all other content. Now that your website has that shiny new blogging platform and you’re prepared to attract and engage with your audience, it’s time to get down to business and create those posts. There is one small hurtle to overcome; how should you format the blog post? What is the best structure for a successful post that will get your article found, get them to read, and hopefully get them to act?

People consume a vast amount of content every day. Depending on the source, experts say we’re consuming content upwards of twelve hours a day. That’s half the day of consuming info from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, text messages, Netflix, Snapchat, radio, TV, and you get the idea. The more media outlets we create for ourselves, the more we consume. Let’s face it, we’re content consuming machines and it seems to increase every year. In fact, as I’m writing this article at a gymnastics facility waiting for my son’s parkour class to finish, I notice that four out of five parents are busy with their smart phones ravenously consuming information. If you’re wondering about the fifth parent, she’s busy chasing a toddler around the room.

At the hub of every marketing strategy is your business website. We’re living in a digital world and your website is the face of your company in that virtual world. Before you unleash the content marketing beast, be sure your website is the best representation of your company and set up properly to allow visitors to find the necessary information to help them on their journey.

Now that we’ve completed the planning phase of the content marketing framework, it’s time to start the creative phase. This phase just happens to be my favorite part. Here is where you’ll start to brainstorm ideas for creating blog articles, videos, ebooks, and other content important to your initiatives.

Now it’s time to organize and chart your long-term content marketing strategy into a document to help you stay on target using a content compass. This document will allow you to react to upcoming initiatives, grow your content library, hit goals, and track ROI from content campaigns.

The content compass should include three sections; a content audit, event-based audit, and yearly content initiatives.

Before you dive head first into creating that comprehensive content marketing strategy, you first need to have a solid marketing plan. I realize this may seem confusing and a bit redundant since you may be thinking; isn’t a content marketing strategy a marketing plan? No, they’re quite different. A marketing plan is a high-level document that outlines goals, business advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year and describes activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame. Remember, your content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable and relevant content to attract and retain your target audience.

Now that you understand a bit more about the hero of your story (the buyer), you can focus your attention on planning a long-term content strategy plan. This long-term plan will be used to communicate how you plan to attract and attain the attention of your audience (potential buyers) with content marketing. It’s called a long-term plan since you need to forecast your content activities out longer than simply one campaign at a time.

One of the key components when constructing your content marketing strategy is to develop the business storytelling script. This story script is a way to identify how to connect with your customers. The story isn’t about your business or the history of your business, but rather, it’s about your customers quest. The hero of this quest is the customer. The script should appeal to their emotions so they remember the story and take action. Your company plays the role of the guide, educating and instructing the hero to success.

​One of the most exciting, daunting, and satisfying events a musician can experience is the jam session. Especially when it’s a private session with no audience, just you and some fellow musicians. No pressure of playing to the crowd, simply throw out some songs and get to it. It’s the ultimate learning experience for musicians of any level. I enjoy playing a structured set in front of a crowd but a bigger thrill for me is the unknown. I had the pleasure of jamming with friends in my late teens and into my adulthood and I still get a thrill from playing something new with different musicians, pulling and pushing songs in different directions. I like it so much that I built a large shed in my backyard to host these events. It’s not easy to host such events but it gets better every time. I’ve put together a list that I use as a guide to help make each jam successful.

​I've met many people who started their own business, whether part-time or full, and when they find out that I'm in marketing, they'll often ask me for some advice to help market their products or service. Of course, the first thing I always ask them is, do you have a website? More times than not, they reply, "no, but I have a Facebook page." Hmmm, that's great that you have a Facebook page, but that's not exactly going to cut it when you're marketing yourself. It's always good to be where the people are, and there are many people on Facebook. However, social media is only a tiny part of your overall marketing strategy.