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CONTENT MARKETING
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Content marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating valuable, relevant content to
attract, acquire, and engage your audience. Buyers and customers today are
inundated by more marketing messages than ever before—more than 2,900
per day, by current estimations. This creates an environment of attention
scarcity, challenging marketers with the task of producing engaging content
that won’t get lost in the static. A well-crafted content marketing strategy
places your business in the position of a thought leader, building brand
preference as you inform and educate buyers. Providing helpful and
entertaining content can form a strong bond between your brand and
customers that continues to grow and strengthen over time.
Traditionally, marketers have had to “rent attention” from other people’s media
through display ads on websites, booths at trade shows, or emails sent to
third-party lists. For example, when a brand pays out millions of dollars for a
Super Bowl ad, they are renting the attention that the TV networks have built.
Content marketing, on the other hand, allows marketers to become publishers
by building their own audiences and attracting their own attention. By creating
and distributing content that buyers find useful, marketers increase their brand
awareness and preference by establishing a relationship of trust with
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consumers as they move through the sales funnel. Additionally, content
marketing is considered a less costly strategy than some others. It can have a
bit of a slower start while your content library grows and reaches a larger
audience.
Today, 41% of B2B marketers focus on content tied to the buying journey of a
customer, yet many businesses fail to produce personalized content
dedicated to each stage of the buying cycle. Personalized messaging doesn’t
just mean targeting by demographic or firmographics criteria, it means
proactively producing content that is suitable for each stage of the buyer’s
journey. Eighty-five percent of consumers trust solutions that take the time to
walk them through various paths toward decisions rather than just attempting
to make that choice for them. This type of content shows consumers that you
acknowledge and value their ability to evaluate and make decisions for
themselves.
“Successful content marketers hit all stages of the buyer journey—from start
to finish. Most brands are seriously over-weighted in the bottom of the funnel.
And they miss huge opportunities to meet new customers at the point of
need.”
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How to make you a healthy 5-figures recurring income
Generally, problems occurs that can be
solved in content marketing.
Content marketing is a completely unique approach to engaging with potential
customers that circumvents some of today’s biggest pain points, especially in
the digital space.
Problem: I need to increase the volume of my organic search. Your
audience can’t buy from you if they can’t find you, and today up to 93%
of buying cycles start from a search engine. Additionally, according to
Kuno Creative, 51% of content consumption derives from organic
search, so content marketing is a great way to build organic awareness.
How to make you a healthy 5-figures recurring income
Problem: I need to create brand preference. Engaging content
marketing creates preference through thought leadership by making you
a trusted source of information and education. You can also create
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preference through relationships, which are strengthened whenever
your content entertains or helps your buyers. People are more likely to
buy from companies with whom they have relationships.
Problem: I have a content marketing plan, but it’s not engaging my
customers. Content marketing should help your customers, not sell to
them. When you freely give your audience something so valuable that
they’d be willing to pay for it, you build trust, which, ultimately, is your
most powerful selling tool.
Problem: I need to reach more customers, while keeping my costs
low. According to Forrester research, today’s customers distrust and
resent marketing that interrupts or intercepts them. Engaging content
marketing should be part of a natural conversation with current and
potential customers, be relevant to their interests and behaviors, and
build a continuous story over time. Content marketing pays dividends for
a very long time, and this effect multiplies as you build out your content
library.
Problem: I’m not sure how to demonstrate the return on
investment (ROI) of my content marketing campaign. In general,
content marketing can help to increase web traffic, support lead
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qualification (especially when content is produced by stage), and,
ultimately, lead conversions into sales.
Components can be used in content
marketing as under.
Content marketing can take various forms, and in order to do it right, you’ll
need to determine what type of content your potential buyers prefer to
consume.
By Blog posting. Distill your content marketing strategy into your blog
schedule or strategy. The company blog can and should be used to
cross-promote other content, which will help keep posts on a consistent
schedule. If you don’t have a marketing team member who is familiar
with search engine optimization (SEO), this is one area where you might
want to consult a professional.
By Video. The trick to effectively using video as part of a content
strategy is keeping it as timeless as possible so that you aren’t forced to
continuously spend time and money creating more. High-quality video
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content can also be used to expose your brand to YouTube’s large and
active audience.
By Infographics. Use as little text as possible and let the imagery tell
the story. If you don’t have a killer in-house graphics artist, find a
talented freelancer who can make something beautiful and informative.
By sheets. These are short—two or three pages at most. That means
there won’t be a lot of room for big images, so you’ll want to use text
formatting to make them easy for a reader to quickly scan through. Link
or point to other resources for more in-depth learning.
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White papers and reports. These materials are similar to an ebook in
that they are primarily educational, but white papers and reports are
generally less graphically designed and use language that is a little
more professional. They can also create opportunities to partner with
other organizations.
Slide. Slide decks are a great format for breaking down complex ideas
into simple steps or bite-sized pieces. Keep the slides simple: Use
minimal text in one font and big graphics throughout.
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By Case studies. Build case studies with real numbers and complete
stories. This will help keep the content focused on the value and results,
not the brand.
Demos. This is where a free assessment, evaluation, or trial works
nicely to start the dialogue and to begin to fully qualify your most
interested leads. If you have an e-commerce-based product, you can
leverage a discount code to use at the time of the transaction to
establish some urgency around making the purchase.
Distribution channels.
Owned: Sharing your content on the brand’s own social media
channels—like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest—is a
quick, customizable, and free opportunity to connect with your
target audience.
Organic: Weaving some SEO best practices into your content will
help make a good impression with Google and move your website
up the rankings list. The strength of a good content marketing
strategy is in providing the information and answers that your
target audience is looking for, so make sure they can find it.
Paid: Most social networks allow for some kind of paid
advertising, such as sponsored content, pay-per-click (PPC),
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search engine marketing (SEM), display, and retargeting.
Matching a network’s demographics with your brand’s personas
will help you determine where to invest.
Earned: This is the most valuable, but hardest to create. Earned
social media promotion happens when your audience chooses to
share your content with their network.
Content marketing is essential. Ninety-two percent of marketers
reported that their company views content as a business asset (Content
Marketing Institute).
Content marketing creates credibility. Ninety-six percent of the most
successful content marketers agree that their audience views their
organization as a trusted resource.
Content marketing brings in leads. It creates three times more leads
than paid search advertising (Content Marketing Institute, 2017).
How to make you a healthy 5-figures recurring income
