Michael Greenberg shares his secret sauce for positioning brands

(hint: It's called Authority Marketing)

Authority Marketing is Michael Greenberg’s secret sauce for strategically positioning people and brands. It is the act of positioning someone as an expert in order to bring in more business. As founder and chief strategist at Call for Content, Michael shares his uniquely powerful method of building authority through content and leveraging that for B2B marketing. He also provides a free link to download his Authority Marketing Playbook.

Key points about Authority Marketing:

• Authority marketing is B2B marketing, but with core expertise that enables a client to be differentiated in ways traditional B2B content marketing doesn’t allow.
• Authority marketing is the act of positioning someone as an authority or expert in order to bring in more business.
• Michael’s Authority Marketing Playbook includes 18 ways to establish yourself as an authority or expert.
• Knowledge is the best way to distinguish yourself in a field, particularly as we move toward a knowledge economy in which lower-level tasks are increasingly automated.
• Clarity of purpose is the most important thing in marketing and brand positioning.
• There are four marketing situations for products or services:

• Michael seeks to drive measurable results over anything else. Some clients just want to be famous, but if it’s not in the pursuit of a business objective, that shouldn’t be part of the marketing plan. Being famous is not a business objective.
• Setting expectations with clients is key, especially at the beginning of a working relationship.
• Deep work requires setting aside blocks of uninterrupted time.
• Client referrals are invaluable; set the stage for more client referrals by:
• Always saying, “Thank you” for every referral.
• Sending the client a check every time a referral becomes a client.
• Look for potential clients with large, established networks.
• Invite potential clients to be a guest on the podcast.

Three phases of working with a client:

• Michael breaks all projects into three phases: Research, Plan, and Do.
• Research focuses on the client and the client’s clients.
• This includes interviews with a client’s best or ideal client.
• Develop customer personas based on these interviews; these personas help identify the best content and channels to engage specific types of people.
• Planning includes development of a content marketing strategy, based on research.
• No plan survives contact.
• Plans are kept light; they include personas, content channels, ideas for content.
• Michael uses interviews to develop content for blog posts, podcasts, and other content.
• It really helps when clients already have a style guide, particularly when producing videos and other products.

Questions from the Authority Marketing Playbook that are useful to better understand clients include:

• Where do you hang out online?
• Who do you ask for advice?
• What are the big problems right now in your organization?
• Tell me about an article you read recently that you enjoyed. Where did you find that article?
• What media do you consume regularly?
• Are you on social media? What channels?

There is much more on the show notes page:

Listen to the podcast at https://bit.ly/2KVmrSE