Marcus Sheridan is an entrepreneur that truly understands content marketing.
He was able to take his pool business from the brink of the financial abyss to strong profitability primarily through the use of online content marketing.
I absolutely love the story that Marcus has to share, and it was a pleasure to interview him for today's episode of my podcast.
To get the full picture, you really need to listen to the podcast; plus you get a better grasp of the fun personality that Marcus has. It was all I could do to keep myself from busting out laughing during a few parts…
Content Marketing Advice
However, here's a brief synopsis:
Marcus started out as a partner in a small swimming pool business. However, for a number of reasons, the company started to go downhill after a while. At this point, Marcus knew he needed to do something differently and started learning about content marketing. He decided to give it his FULL attention and produce lots of great content on their company website: Riverpoolsandspas.com .
It wasn't overnight, but the website started generated more traffic and a lot more interest in their business. By focusing on the questions customers ask for content (this is critical), he was able to rank well for lots of long tail keywords in Google. This free traffic, began converting into paying customers.
Fast forward a couple of years and their pool business was thriving all because they started marketing their business with content online.
Now Marcus focuses the majority of his time teaching others how to use content and inbound marketing in their business. His blog for this business is at: TheSalesLion.com . I highly recommend that you check out his site and download his free content marketing ebook. Warning, its over 200 pages long!
Because of his experience with his own pool business and now his blog, Marcus consults other businesses on how to have an effective content and inbound marketing strategy.
Items Discussed in the Podcast
Here's are some of the items we discussed in the podcast:
- The importance of writing about questions that real customers ask
- Dumb down your content marketing
- (Listen for this funny little nugget): “The secret sauce is really just Thousand Island Dressing!”
- An argument Marcus had with the Head of Social Media at Ford.
- The typical buyer had read 105 pages of content on their pool website before buying!
- The #1 Mistake of bloggers/businesses is poor page titles. His advice here is EXCELLENT!
- Why you shouldn't use “witty” blog titles if you have less than 1000 readers.
- How affiliate marketers can still do well with proper content marketing
Overall, I picked up some great advice that I can take and apply directly to my own blog right away. Anyone with a blog or any type of business presence on the web should listen to this.
Fun fact: Marcus mentioned serving a 2 year mission for his church in Chile. I also served a 2 year mission for the same church in Alberta, Canada! Crazy, eh?
This message of content marketing resonates well with me, because its essentially the way that I was able to quit my own job. In addition, in my last podcast with my cousin Jon Haws, he explained how he is using almost these same tactics to give his landscaping business a big boost.
Content marketing works.
If you want to follow along with Marcus, here's where you can find him:
- His blog: TheSalesLion.com
- Free Content Marketing ebook
- Mad Marketing Podcast on iTunes
- Follow Marcus on Twitter: @thesaleslion
Listen to the Podcast Interview Here
If you liked this interview, please consider leaving a review on iTunes. Or consider clicking the Facebook, Twitter, or Google + buttons on the left.
Spencer Haws is the founder of NichePursuits.com. After getting a degree in Business Finance from BYU (2002) and an MBA from ASU (2007) he worked for 8 years in Business Banking and Finance at both Merril Lynch and Wells Fargo Bank.
While consulting with other small business owners as a business banker, Spencer finally had the desire to start his own business. He successfully built a portfolio of niche sites using SEO and online marketing that allowed him to quit his job in 2011. Since then he's been involved in dozens of online business ventures including: creating and exiting Long Tail Pro, running an Amazon FBA business for over 3 years and selling that business, founding LinkWhisper.com, and co-founding MotionInvest.com. You can learn more about Spencer here.
23 Comments
Conversation
Awesome! Looking forward to checking out the podcast when I get a minute. Reading the synopsis, it sounds like a really cool podcast. Obviously we all need to continue to develop in our content marketing. Thanks for getting good info out there!
Hope you get a chance to give it a listen Travis, it was a great chat. Best to you!
Awesome podcast Spencer. Thanks for sharing. Itls true that content marketing is crucial. This held true in the past and holds true today.
Having great content also puts you as an authority in your niche pretty much by default and you can eventually have dozens of people contacting you wanting to know answers to their problems…which is amazing, so creating content can be a great marketing vehicle. If done right.
Thanks Spencer!
-Omar
Content is still king 🙂
Such a simply yet effective approach. Give people what they want: answer their questions. Isn’t that also what Google wants.
Yep, sure is.
That’s the thing Artur. It’s amazing how businesses tend to overcomplicate so much of this stuff.
Great podcast episode Spencer!
This shows how the simple fact of content being king still holds true and will continue to hold true. People tend to forget the importance of content marketing and how it helps you integrate different marketing methods to raise your income.
One of the most effective skills one can obtain is to be an effective content creator and marketer or have the ability and the funds to outsource it.
Great lessons! Appreciate it the information Marcus!
-Will
Love the music intro! Haven’t listened to the podcast yet, just had to comment 🙂
Thanks Matt!
Best interview I remember in a long time on Niche Pursuits. Down to earth, entertaining, adding stuff to a conversation we’ve had so many times. Rare!
But why this cheesy name for the domain? Sales Lion? Please…
… I agree with Michal… This is one of the best advice I have seen so far in this site, Spencer.
Give what customer wants.
The Ford example is real for all business out there!
Hi Spencer, any Cyber Monday deal for Long Tail Pro?
Great Podcast Spencer! Are you using any software for your websites to prevent click bombing or the same IPs clicking on your sights multiple times?
Thanks
Just listened to this in the gym today!
Really liked it and the guy is a great talker.
I wonder how effective this approach (adding loads of similar articles) is on a new site, in today’s climate, post-Panda (duplicate content update)?
I’m going to try it anyway on my new big niche site. I’m using Keyword Researcher to get the data from Google Auto-complete in order to find the questions people are typing into Google.
I don’t have experience of being ‘out in the field’ in my niche so not sure what people on the ground are asking
Does LTP have a facility for pasting/importing a long list of keywords and getting the data on them?
I wish I had a offline business I could do this on as doing it for affiliate marketing seems like a bit of an uphill battle against Google.
How much does an in-ground fibreglass pool cost? 😉
Long tail Platinum will VERY soon have the ability to import large lists of keywords and to get the data. Available in less than a week most likely! 🙂
This if for Marcus: any plans to make that big ebook on Sales Lion (great name btw) into an epub for Kindle?
200+ pages is quite hard going on my laptop compared with the beauty of e-ink on my Kindle.
Also, how long, in general, are the posts you write/wrote to answer a question.
Say the question was ‘how long does it take to install a pool?’.
It could be answered in a paragraph I would expect but would you draw it out to 300, 500, 1000+ words? What do you recommend for new sites starting today?
Thanks!
I can’t answer all the questions. But if you do a search on google for “how much does a fiberglass pool cost” – you will search Marcus’ pool site ranking #1. You can see how long the article is 🙂
Good point. Its a fairly long article, around 1000 words IMO.
Great information! This was our primary thought process when starting our home service business. It can be so easy for companies to compete online and save a bundle on their marketing budgets.
This was easily the best podcast of the year! Marcus is very engaging and speaks the truth. Give users the answers they are looking for and Google will reward you (at least that’s the theory)
This platform allows a free hosting for your blog and it doesn.
Also you will need to download a suitable blog theme, and
change your affiliate blog to get it found for search engines.
There are many companies out there tall claims, but failed to deliver results.
Spencer,
Great Podcast! You have to have this guy on again!