Why Do You Keep Hearing About Content Marketing?

Content is king. Content is the new marketing. Content marketing needs to be relevant. You can’t market without content. Content needs to help people solve their problems.

Heard any of this before?

So, what exactly is content marketing and why is it so important? Rather than outwardly (and possibly superficially) promoting your products or services – it’s all about publishing relevant, engaging and helpful content in a way that attracts a following and ultimately leads to sales. An article, a blog post, social media, videos are some examples of content marketing.

It’s been happening for a while now, it’s all around us – and it’s going to continue.

6 reasons content marketing works

• Brand awareness & credibility increases (with quality content)
• Creates & maintains relationships with your followers
• Positions your business as a thought-leader in your industry
• Generates traffic to your website
• Gives audience something to share online about your brand through social media
• Helps your customer find the information they need to make a purchase decision

How to make content marketing work for you

• Understand your audience well enough so that your content is relevant and not a wasted effort.
• Use content development to answer the questions that your customers have.
• Create a content plan, which includes relevant keyword research and topics that align with your offering.
• Focus on quality over quantity. While it’s great to have regular content, don’t compromise the quality. If you have 1 high quality piece of content per month, that’s better than 20 poor quality content pieces.
• Be realistic in how much time you can dedicate to content development. If you cannot maintain it, then outsource it to experts who can.
• Repurpose certain content. Sometimes a blog article can be turned into an infographic or a video. Almost all content can be shared to social media channels too.
• It takes time, so be patient. Content marketing is a long-term strategy.

How to get started with content marketing

1. Define your audience. Who are the main target personas that you want to attract the attention of? Who are the people that will most benefit from your product or service? Who will have the most influence over other people too?
2. Determine what you are going to talk about. What problems does your following have that you can solve? How can you help customers in a way that others cannot? If you can answer all these questions, then you’ve made a great start with your content strategy.
3. Split your sales cycle into stages; pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. What are the different messages you have for customers at each of these stages?
4. Conduct keyword research to determine the best keywords and phrases to include in all your different types of content
5. Develop a content plan that is still flexible enough to change, add to, or alter during the year.
6. Start creating content. Engage experts to create your content that will rank and perform well for your website.
7. Continually assess the performance of your content, different channels you can publish content to and of course how you can re-purpose top performing content.

You may not see results immediately because this is a longer-term growth strategy, yet it is so imperative to be part of your marketing plan in 2019 and beyond. If you want to chat about your plans, or simply need some help to get started, let us know. We’d love to help.