Effective Content Marketing: How to Help Your Ideal Clients Find & Hire You (IEEE Boston Consultants Network)

Most consultants start their businesses because they love doing the work. But too few consultants can maintain a successful consulting business. The major key to maintaining—and growing—a successful consulting business is content marketing. Content marketing allows the consultant to “brag” about past successes, all while helping ideal clients find you.

In this mini-workshop, Johanna Rothman will share her content marketing strategy. You will decide what might work for you. At the end of our time together, you will have a short list of actions you can use to create your content marketing strategy.

Transcript

1. Effective Content Marketing: How to Help Your Ideal Clients Find & Hire You (Workshop) Johanna Rothman jr@jrothman.com www.jrothman.com
2. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Discoverability: The Eternal Problem • You need clients • Clients need your abilities • Promotion in the form of ads is iffy, at best • Salespeople means high expenses • Agencies keep too much of the money • What works for you now? 2
3. © 2026 Johanna Rothman An Easy Way for Clients to Find You • Content marketing in all forms 3
4. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Our Agenda 1. Your website: the basics, a contact page, and a blog. 2. Assess your expertise to decide what to market 3. Writing: What, where, frequency 4. Speaking: What, where, frequency. How podcasts can help. 5. Referrals. 6. Summary: Start your content marketing strategy. 4
5. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Your Site: Offer Value First 5
6. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 1. Basics: Welcome People to Your Site • A front page with the problems you solve for prospective clients • An email newsletter signup form on each page of your site (and keep an archive) • About page with your photo, bio, and any social media links • Page of services and products so clients can see what you might offer them • Content: Blog, newsletter, or articles archive 6
7. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 2. Assess your Value • “Technical” expertise (your subject matter expertise) • Perspective on your clients’ problems • Interpersonal skills • Personal Qualities • Relationship building • Critical thinking • Anything else? 7
8. © 2026 Johanna Rothman How Many Ways Do You Solve the Clients’ Problems? 8
9. © 2026 Johanna Rothman The more you focus the client on your value, the more the client will pay 9
10. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Three Kinds of Value • Tangible value: loss, delays, the client’s obvious problems. • Intangible value: emotional effects of the client and/or their staff • Peripheral value: What will happen if this continues? (Second-order effects: Often the need to replace equipment, replace people, loss of sales, etc.) 10
11. © 2026 Johanna Rothman “What products will you create so you do not have to exchange time for money?” 11
12. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Your Consulting Expertise • The more services you can offer above the red line, the more pro fi t you can make for the time you invest • Even better, you can create products from that work • Books of many varieties, workshops, presentations, and more… 12
13. © 2026 Johanna Rothman How Writing & Speaking Work Together 13
14. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 3. Writing Choices • Short form (up to 1000 words or so) • Reports (3000-10,000 words) • Books (At least 10,000 words, but not necessarily more.) • I recommend a higher frequency of writing, not necessarily writing longer works. 14
15. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Short-Form Writing as Content Marketing • Blog posts • Articles on your site • Articles on other people’s sites (with a link back to your site) • Sometimes, social media comments (that works much less often these days) 15
16. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 4. Speaking as Content Marketing • Meetups and other “informal” presentations • Conference presentations • Company presentations (they pay you) • Podcasts 16
17. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 5. Referrals • The more you speak, the more people will refer others to you • The more you write, the more people will refer others to you • Do both? You become infamous in your fi eld. (Also a “thought leader”) 17
18. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 6. What Will Be Your Content Marketing Strategy? • What do you need to do to your site to make it content-ready? (including an email newsletter) • How many ways can you package your expertise? • How often will you write? • How often will you speak? (Including podcasts) • (See Allan Dib’s One Page Marketing Plan book) 18
19. © 2026 Johanna Rothman All My Books (Organized) 19 Product Development Management Personal Development
20. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager: www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager • Please link with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ johannarothman/ • All my books: https:// www.jrothman.com/books/ 20