Opinion: Put your business in the best light

Every day businesses are telling their story. Even if you don’t pick up the phone, shake a single hand or attend a meeting, there are multiple touchpoints where current and potential customers are engaging with your brand.

Are you shaping the story when you’re not in the room with those who might be considering your product or service?

Brand awareness is the first big step toward customer acquisition. Content creation is a great way to introduce people to your business and build a relationship with your audience. Content comes in many formats, from written articles to designed graphics and videos. Since opening our firm 22 years ago, I have been committed to creating content to attract, engage, educate and retain our audience. We do this by creating and sharing engaging, relevant articles, videos and other media through our website, social media and publications. Creating relevant content through diverse outlets promotes brand awareness, establishes expertise and keeps your brand top of mind for anyone considering working with you.

Here’s a bit on our story. Consistent content creation has always been a critical factor in Paragon 360’s marketing strategy. But we have made more extensive commitments to a holistic content creation plan in the last three years. In 2020, we engaged a first-class marketing firm to help us build out a plan that would involve all digital touchpoints, including launching our own YouTube channel, Full Circle by Paragon 360. We decided to invest in and build a full-blown studio to produce episodes of thought leadership content. To connect with our niche audience, we cover popular construction and renovation topics, product reviews and interview subject matter experts covering various topics of interest to those in our industry.    

Now, you don’t have to build a studio to do this, but we like to go big at Paragon 360. The YouTube channel we launched in April has been very successful for us. We continue to see a 50% increase in views month over month and over 21,000 views across 19 episodes to date. And we’re just getting started. 

Our efforts on YouTube put our company and staff in front of a new audience and frame us as the people you can trust.

The benefits reach far beyond YouTube alone. We have increased performance numbers across all platforms, from our website to social channels and emails. Using the content created for videos across multiple touchpoints has created a rising tide effect. For example, we host all the videos created on our website, drawing more people to the site by increasing search-engine ranking and results, and creating a value add for site visitors. We also adapt the video content for organic social media, emails, paid search, social ads, and digital and print publications.

I truly believe that content creation can be the engine to your marketing race car, with paid spending being the fuel. We don’t spend big dollars. When used strategically, even modest budgets can return measurable results. Consistency is the key. Almost all platforms reward regular and consistent production. Don’t deviate from the plan when initial numbers are low. Dedication and continued improvement pay off dramatically. 

Some tips before creating or spending are to answer these questions: Why? Who is this for? And are we reaching the right people?

Paragon 360 has always been committed to a solid content creation plan, but the digital landscape is different today than when we started. And we’ve had to evolve strategies constantly. Businesses must shift today from simply thinking, “How will my business benefit from this effort?” to “How can I deliver value to the people who will engage with this?” 

When we asked a recent client how he came to decide on Paragon 360, he answered, “Their name came up in an email about a project they had just completed, I followed them on Facebook, and every time they posted, I would see their finished products.” It’s a perfect example of how content creation combined with brand recognition led to a $4 million renovation contract.

The tools are there for all of us to use.

Donnie Brawner is CEO and owner of Paragon 360 and Paragon Fabrication. He can be reached at dbrawner@paragon360.com.