Content Marketing Lessons PDF

CONTENT MARKETING What is Content Marketing? Content marketing is the development and distribution of relevant, useful content—blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, videos, and the like—to current and potential customers. When it’s done right, this content conveys exp...

CONTENT MARKETING What is Content Marketing? Content marketing is the development and distribution of relevant, useful content—blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, videos, and the like—to current and potential customers. When it’s done right, this content conveys expertise and makes it clear that a company values the people to whom it sells. Content marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell. The consistent use of content marketing establishes and nurtures relationships with your prospective and existing customers. When your audience thinks of your company as a partner interested in their success and a valuable source of advice and guidance, they’re more likely to choose you when it’s time to buy. Examples of Content Marketing 1. Blogs - Blogs are written resources that businesses use to promote their products, discuss trending topics, or demonstrate thought leadership. Most businesses publish blogs for their own websites, but it’s also common to create guest blogs for other websites as a link-building opportunity. 2. Newsletters – Is a tool used to share information with a business's subscribers, customers, and prospects. Newsletters can include news, updates, educational content, and promotional offers. 3. Whitepapers – Is a research-based document that presents information, expert analysis and an organization or author's insight into a topic or solution to a problem. Companies or vendors use these papers in business-to-business (B2B) marketing models as part of a content marketing strategy. 4. Social Media Posts - Social media posts are an offshoot of content marketing that creates content and shares it via relevant social platforms. With social media marketing, brands post text, images, and video content on social media platforms. 5. Emails - Is the use of email to promote products or services, as well as incentivize customer loyalty. It is a form of marketing that can make the customers on your email list aware of new products, discounts, and other services. 6. Videos - Whether it’s on your website or on a platform like TikTok or YouTube, video allows brands to communicate complex ideas and feelings with their audience in just a few seconds. 1 How content marketing has changed Content marketing has really changed over the years: More data: We have a lot of data about content and content marketing, which helps us craft better campaigns. More formats: We can produce content in many more formats, such as infographics, videos, podcasts, and more. Incorporation of digital, audio, and video: We can combine video, audio, and digital elements together, resulting in a great content marketing strategy. Why is content marketing important? Content marketing is a go-to tactic that’s proven to work. Also, it provides a competitive advantage. Take a look at what the data says about content marketing: Businesses with blogs get 67% more leads than other companies. 67% of business to business (B2B) marketers say B2B content marketing increases engagement and the number of leads they generate. 88% of people credit branded videos for convincing them to purchase a product or service. Content marketing benefits businesses in many ways. When done right, an effective content marketing strategy can: 1. Increase online visibility. A content strategy can help you attract more customers and website visitors, especially when people are constantly looking for solutions to their pain points. Offering educational and informative content about a topic they’re interested in can help you increase visibility online through your website or social media accounts. 2. Generate More Leads. Increase leads when content marketing is used to drive traffic. Since educating customers builds trust and helps them feel more comfortable purchasing from your business, you can generate more leads and start to develop relationships with potential shoppers. 3. Boost loyalty. Loyalty is essential in marketing and business because the more loyal your customers are, the more repeat purchases they’ll make. Offering content that informs consumers can help them begin to build trust with your brand and see you as a thought leader. 4. Improve authority. Developing content is ideal for improving authority and becoming a thought leader in your industry. Not only does content help you build trust, but it can position your brand as the most authoritative on a particular topic. 2 How content marketing works Your business can use content marketing to attract leads, make a case for your product or service when someone is researching what to buy, and close sales. To use it effectively, you’ll need to deliver the right content at each stage of the sales cycle—from awareness through consideration to purchase. If this sounds complicated, don’t worry: Approaching content this way actually simplifies the process. Here’s how companies use content marketing in each stage of the sales cycle to engage and sell. 1. Awareness stage At the first stage of the sales process, your content should focus on the top concerns of your audience. Writing about their pain points, challenges, and questions gives you the best chance of engaging with them. Content at the awareness stage should be educational, how-to advice. Save your selling for the consideration and closing phases. The best content for this stage includes articles, blog posts, e-books, videos, and newsletters. Examples: A restaurant writes a blog post about how to plan a menu for a graduation party in the spring. 2. Consideration stage In the consideration stage, content should offer a hybrid of helpful information and marketing. It should educate the reader about what features or functions to look for and how various features address their needs. Of course, your content should lean toward what your business offers. The best content for this stage includes case studies, how-to articles, how-to videos, and checklists or worksheets. Examples: A cloud-based phone system company creates a checklist entitled “8 Ways to Improve Your Phone Customer Service” that details the features and functions that make great customer service possible. 3. Closing stage Content marketing plays an important role when a prospect is close to buying. At this stage, you can focus on sales, as long as you continue to drive home why you’re the best choice rather than just how great your services or products are. 3  Your central message here should be your expertise, knowledge, and the differentiating benefits of what you sell. Best content for this stage: case studies, user-generated content, buyer’s guide, product video, research report. Examples: A consulting firm creates a research report proving that businesses that engage in strategic planning, assessments by outsiders, and other services—shaped by what services it offers—experience higher growth. Purpose of content marketing The purpose of content marketing is to serve the user first, and to be interesting and useful to them: User-first mentality: Instead of thinking about what is most important to the company or the person creating the content, you instead should be focusing on what the user would want to read, consume, or buy. When it comes to content creation, we often have the ‘curse of knowledge’ that we need to actively work beyond. Serves a purpose: For every piece of content that is created, make sure it serves a purpose. Weave that purpose throughout your content. For instance, if the purpose of your new e-book is to explain how to complete an annual budget, weave examples and even exercises throughout the content to make it the best-available learning material on annual budgets. Content not created for content’s sake: Many experts have argued that we are living in a time of ‘peak content.’ This means that there is a tipping point between how much content we can publish and how much content audiences actually consume. Studies have shown that users on average can only tolerate between one and six new pieces of content from a brand per day. After that, the traffic is unaffected by publishing more content. Allows growth in traffic and thought leadership: Many people first start creating content because they want more traffic to their website. However, as time progresses, many publishers see the benefits in utilizing a strategy-first approach. Planning your content before creating it can lead to better engagement, social sharing, inbound links, and lead generation. 4 The Elements of a Successful Content Strategy For your content marketing strategy to be successful, it must include the following elements. 1. Brand guidelines/identity The first element required to start thinking about your digital content strategy is your brand guidelines/identity. Your branding guidelines should include clear information about your business, specifically the personality, voice and tone you want your brand to possess. 2. Marketing objectives Your content marketing strategy should include your marketing objectives to reiterate the goals and objectives you want to achieve. To reach your goals and objectives through your content marketing strategy, aligning them with your audience’s needs and streamlining your content creation process is helpful. 3. Customer personas Before you can start creating content, you must first know who you’re creating the content for. If you’re not sure who your target audience is, there are a few ways to find out: Survey your existing customers Research industry trends Identify who you don’t want to target See who your competitors are targeting Once you’ve developed your ideal customer persona, you can add it to your content marketing strategy. 4. Data and market research Data and market research is an important step in helping your business understand the current conditions of the market and where it’s going. The content that your business shares generate data and insights that can be analysed to improve or change your content to suit your audience. 5  5. Distribution channels You’ve got your customer persona, content goals and marketing objectives laid out; now it’s time to decide where you want to distribute that content. Choose the platforms you’ll use to share the content, such as blogs, social media or newsletters, and identify your processes and objectives for each. 6. Content calendar Once you know who you’re going to target, the type of content you will create and where to share it, it’s time to create a content calendar. Creating a content calendar lets your team know when content needs to be created, edited and published to ensure you have time to complete all tasks. 7. Analytics Finally, analytics is the last element you need to have in your content marketing strategy. Analysing your content performance is the best way to see which content is doing well and resonates most with your audience. Analysing your content is also a good way to know if you’re meeting your content marketing goals and objectives. Content marketing can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. A successful content marketing campaign should be manageable and sustainable. Take these steps to get started: 1. Identify your audience To create content for a particular reader, you need to have a clear idea of their priorities, challenges, and preferences. If you have detailed descriptions of your various segments, choose 1 or 2 to write for. Otherwise, craft profiles of your audience members and prospects before starting. 6  2. Determine the right formats The right format corresponds with what stage of the sales cycle you’re creating content for. Another important consideration includes what formats will best help you showcase value. For some, this will be a video; for others, a checklist. An audience will judge your content on its quality, and they should. Identify the right resource, internal or external, to create this work. Regardless of who creates it, hire a professional proof reader to review anything before it goes out the door. 3. Determine how you’ll distribute Will you post content on your site, email it to people, or print it for an event? Start with “where” you know your audience is likely to be, and choose formats that make sense. For example, an article makes sense to send via an email, a checklist or worksheet can be posted on social media, and a buyer’s guide is a good follow-up to a pitch. 4. Choose a sustainable schedule Once you know who your target readers are and the best formats for every stage in the sales cycle, create a short-term (3-6 months) plan. It’s easy to develop a content marketing plan that’s overly ambitious. However, the plan you design should have content elements you can realistically make based on your budget and resources. Keep track of how long it takes you to create each piece of content so that you can build that time into your schedule. 5. Follow best practices Compelling content is clearly written and doesn’t contain jargon that only you and your peers will know. It should also include detailed how-to advice. A short, relevant, actionable piece of content is best. Advantages of Content Marketing Cost-Effectiveness Content marketing is a cost-effective strategy, generating three times the leads at 62% less cost compared to traditional marketing approaches. Comparing Costs with Traditional Marketing Content marketing, on the other hand, allows businesses to create and distribute content across various digital platforms at a fraction of the cost. The cost-saving aspect is further amplified when considering the longevity of digital content compared to the fleeting nature of traditional advertisements. 7  Engagement and Relationship Building The essence of content marketing lies in creating engaging content that resonates with the audience. This engagement isn’t merely transactional but aims to build a relationship, encouraging a dialogue between the brand and its audience. Disadvantages of Content Marketing Time and Effort Required Crafting high-quality content demands a considerable amount of time and effort, which may strain resources, especially for smaller teams. Balancing Quality and Quantity The digital space is highly competitive. Maintaining a consistent quality while also meeting the demand for fresh, engaging content can be a daunting task. References https://mailchimp.com/marketing-glossary/content-marketing/ https://www.contentifai.agency/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-content-marketing/ https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/resources/lessons/seo-content_introduction-to-content-marketing_a4cw https://anchordigital.com.au/articles/elements-of-a-successful-content-marketing-strategy 8