Content Marketing Ideas: Bait the Hook to Suit the Fish
Updated: February 25, 2016 – With more awesome and helpful information.
Content Marketing Ideas That Help You Catch and Convert More Visitors
I was at the gym not too long ago and for the third time I was listening to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and in the middle of my high-intensity jog a phrase just stuck in my head, “Bait the Hook to Suit the Fish”. At the point of recovery I had to make note, email myself and write an article about that phrase, what that phrase means to me and how it should be used with your life, and in our case, with your marketing!
“Bait the Hook to Suit the Fish”
So what does “Bait the Hook to Suit the Fish” mean to me? It’s simple: I am no rocket scientist and I am not recreating the wheel at all, but in basic terms it says I need to use the right bait to capture the fish I want, or in another context I need to write the specific content to capture my reader, right?
Awesome Content Bait Ideas for Catching Website Visitors
I put together a list of content bait. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point. Each of these ideas is like a different kind of bait because we all know it takes different bait to catch different fish. I like to think of these different fish as different audiences, and I like getting to know them (which is where that social category comes in handy).
- Email – Contrary to popular belief, email is NOT a dying marketing tool. In fact, savvy marketers are still building and growing email lists to push their content and promote their business. Take Noah Kagan who runs the AppSumo newsletter – he grew his email list to over 750,000 last year with simple content tactics like optimizing his top web pages to capture email addresses and offering email-only bonus content.
- Newsletters –
- Pamphlets –
- Drip Campaigns –
- Social Media –
- Images –
- Infographics –
- Video –
- Landing Pages – [/listGo beyond the standard home, contact, and about us pages. Create landing pages that talk directly to certain types of clients. Use every tactic – call to action, catchy lead-ins, video, special offers, newsletter signups – to grab their attention and keep it through the lead intake process. Your website can handle thousands of landing pages, so there’s no excuse to not use that space to your full advantage and create a baited page to suit every fish in the sea.
- Ad Campaigns (yes, ads are content, and the higher quality the better) –
Pay attention to each kind of bait you’re using. Take them out on a date. Would you marry any of them? Okay now we’ve switched from baiting to dating, but you’re following, right? Love what you do, and the rest will come naturally!
Now that You’re Baiting and Dating
Okay so you’ve gotten to know your bait, and think you have a pretty good idea what those fish want for dinner. It’s time to get started! But hold on, cowboy, have you thought what you’re going to do with all those fish? We started out wanting so badly to pick the perfect bait to catch the perfect fish that we forgot to think about what to do with all those fish.
Think of catching a fish as having site visitors, but now it’s time to convert them (pull them into the boat). A simple example of a conversion may be getting one of those fish to sign up for your email campaign (you did set up an email campaign, right?). This is where that perfect landing page comes into play. The perfect landing page is one that is so convincing that each person who reaches it completes your desired action, in this case sending you their email address.
Finding desired actions for all your fish to complete is as important as going out to catch them in the first place. Take some time to think about what you want your fish to do. Are there products you want them to buy? Services you want them to pay for? Do you need to upsell? Are you connecting with your customer at each point in the process? Do some planning here.
Time to Start Fishing
Now it’s time to get started! This is one of those things that takes time and patience, but jump on in and get started. Stop making excuses. Stop waiting for the perfect moment to execute your master plan. Just get started. Things won’t go perfectly right from the start, but that’s okay because it’s the mistakes we learn from. Listen to your fish… er customers, and adapt your strategy accordingly. Now quit reading this article, and start fishing! Oh and if you need any help you know who to call: We Do Web Content!