Content marketing isn’t a new concept by any means. But it is one that’s gained a lot of popularity and importance in the internet age. Companies around the globe are now dedicating significant resources to producing engaging, high-quality content for their current and potential customers. In practice, this means businesses have to take on the role of writer, editor, publisher, entertainer and educator, as well as making sure their core business is running smoothly. It’s no wonder a lot of businesses choose to outsource it instead!
The internet was definitely one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ inventions that changed everything – including the world of marketing. Suddenly on a new playing field with new rules, businesses had to forget everything they thought they knew about marketing in the pre-digital era. The underlying message of everything has changed. Where it used to simply be ‘Company X is the best’, businesses now need to focus on ‘Company X has the answer to your problems, and wants you to be entertained as you learn.’
There is no denying that content brings great value to a business, but like all good things it does come at a cost. Producing great content takes practice, hard work, willingness to experiment and above all – time. By engaging with your clients via meaningful, valuable content, you can forge a powerful relationship. Effective content generates the kids of brand loyalty that money can’t buy, and traditional marketers could only dream of. And really, marketing with carefully curated content is a bit of a no-brainer – your current and potential customers gain the useful information they require, while you get to demonstrate your knowledge, expertise and usefulness. End result? When they are ready to buy, they’re going to come to you.
The intro to this blog might have read a bit like a long-winded love letter to content. And to be honest, it is. Because in a world where the relationship between company and customer is increasingly important, content is king, queen and court jester rolled into one.
So What is Content Marketing?
Put simply, content marketing is marketing, using content as the foundation. It focussed on providing customers with valuable, relevant content that addresses their problems while promoting your business. By carefully curating the message in a content marketing strategy, a company can attract a more targeted audience. Ultimately, the goal is the same as traditional marketing – to drive sales – but the difference is this is rarely apparent to the audience.
The concept of content marketing isn’t just a one-channel thing either. It should flow through all of your marketing channels. After all, social media required great content. SEO is driven by effective content, as is PR or web promotion. And email marketing? That lives or dies by the quality of the content.
Content Marketing Strategy
As you might have already gathered, the actual content is the output of the content marketing process, not the beginning. So you can’t treat content marketing like a vacuum – it should be a part of a wider marketing plan. If you think of your marketing plan as a broad overview of all your marketing efforts, content marketing makes up the detail. Content marketing is the ‘how’, and the marketing strategy is the ‘why’.
The ultimate goal of your content marketing strategy should be the same regardless of the kind of business you run. To ensure your message is communicated effectively and consistently across all of your marketing channels, and create enough loyalty to result in a sale. For example, you want your customer to feel the same things about your brand when they read your tweets as they do when they receive a brochure or read your webs copy.
What Type of Content?
There are a lot of different kinds of content out there, which means it can all seem a bit overwhelming at first. But if we boil it down to the basics – and the most successful kinds of content, then this is what you get:
Blogs: Blog posts are one of the most popular forms of content marketing, and have been for many years. That’s why we have an entire chapter dedicated to the subject later on. Blogs are an excellent way to keep current customers engaged with your brand. But they are also highly effective at encouraging new customers as well. Many businesses blog for the SEO benefits alone, but that strategy misses what is perhaps the best aspect of blogging for business – communicating your story and showcasing your skills and knowledge. This small difference helps you turn customers into fans.
Email Newsletters: Marketing via email newsletters is a slightly more contentious area, and one that’s taken a bit of a dip since GDPR came into effect. Building an effective, targeted mailing list can be difficult – but getting people to read your carefully crafted mailshot is even harder! In my opinion, the vast majority of brands are truly terrible at email marketing. Hard sell emails just don’t work, yet they represent the bulk of marketing email traffic. Email marketing should be approached with the content marketing mantra – deliver your customers valuable content and they will keep reading. One last thing… keep it short! As in, under 400 words if you can.
Infographics: Unless you’re a graphic designer, or have some good dirt on a graphic designer, infographics are going to be something you have to pay for. But they’re content marketing gold dust! Social media engagement with infographics is generally higher than any other form of content (other than video), and they’re an excellent source of extra content for your blog/case study/whitepaper etc. But the best thing about infographics is that they’re a great way to visually communicate useful aspects of your brands story. This may be a problem/solution statement, an overview of the industry or perhaps a fun look at an aspect of what you do. Whatever the case, infographics are a great way to communicate your expertise with your customers.
Video: Video content can be very effective, but it is also expensive to produce. As noted earlier, social media interaction with video is higher than any other form of post, regardless of the platform. Like blogs, video is an great way to engage in a conversation with current and potential customers. A well-produced, informative and entertaining video can expose your brand to a potential audience of millions. It’s hard to obtain that kind of exposure through any other medium.
Case Studies/White Papers: There is some confusion out there about what a whitepaper is, so let’s clear that up a bit first. Whitepapers are essentially educational essays that companies publish to demonstrate their knowledge, technical advantage or business solutions. Case studies on the other hand are more client solution focussed, usually focussing on one client and one project, and including a lot of lovely quotes from a happy client about how great you are. Obviously these content types are not appropriate to every type of business, and are perhaps most common in professional environments, but they can work for pretty much everyone – particularly case studies!
Social Media: Social media is both a platform and a content type – both the medium and the message. Social media is great at both amplifying the content that you produce elsewhere (e.g. blog posts or videos) or can be the content in and of itself. Social media has become an indispensable and inseparable part of most businesses content strategies and indeed most people. As both a projector of your message and a conduit for your brand values, social media should be considered at every stage of the marketing process, from planning to content creation and implementation.
Of course, it can be a challenge to create all of that content for yourself, especially when you have a business to run as well. That’s why people like me exist. I specialise in creating written content to fuel your content marketing plans. Whether that’s a blog, newsletters, case studies, white papers, the text for infographics and even video scripts – I can help. Just drop me a line to find out more.