Content Marketing 101: What It Is and How to Rock It
Everybody from YouTube creators to businesses is talking about content nowadays – in particular, content marketing. Whether you know the broad strokes or are completely in the dark about this amazing strategy, I’m here to break it down.
What is Content Marketing?
People have written entire books on the question of what is content marketing – I’m not going to do that here.
To answer the question simply, content marketing is the strategy of creating and sharing content (i.e., blog articles, ebooks, videos, podcasts) in order to attract, engage, and retain audiences.
At first glance, this form of marketing might seem ineffective. You might feel like you’re giving away valuable information to people who might not even be customers. But there’s a lot that content does behind the scenes that makes it a powerhouse for your brand.
It’s About More Than Immediate Results
If you’re coming at this with a sales mindset, then content marketing isn’t for you. In sales, you’re used to immediate results – you contact the customer, work your magic, and boom, you either have a customer or you don’t.
But with a content strategy, you’re playing the long game. You’re showcasing your expertise and proving to your audience that you’re not just a one-trick-pony. You know your industry inside and out and use it to create big wins for your customers.
So if content doesn’t deliver immediate results, what does it do?
When done right, high quality content builds brand awareness, establishes your expertise, sets you apart from your competitors, and keeps your brand top-of-mind among your audience. And with the right strategy, your content can act as a sales funnel, slowly filtering your audience until they become qualified leads and customers.
Plus, when you create content for your website and social media, it’s always going to be there, working for you. So the content you create now could be attracting new leads and customers for years to come – that’s incredible ROI that other strategies just can’t deliver.
How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works
1. Use a Content Calendar
Your content should never be a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of strategy. To truly succeed, you need to write it down. You can use something as simple as a Google Sheets document or invest in one of the many content calendars out there, such as Trello or Asana.
This helps you in a number of ways.
For starters, it keeps you consistent. Having a calendar that you look at every day is a good reminder of what you need to do. It can give you the motivation to keep up with that weekly blog post or get started on that ebook for an upcoming campaign.
And secondly, it helps you spot potential holes in your strategy. There’s something about seeing everything written out visually that really helps the human brain to prioritize and see problem areas. This is exactly what you need in your content strategy.
And finally, it helps you to show your progress over time. Because content strategy is such a long-term strategy, some people complain that “nothing’s happening.” And when you have a content calendar, you can easily point to everything that’s been going on and what you’ve accomplished!
2. Create Value
Your content needs to carry some value for your audience. It could answer one of their questions, provide them with key insight on trends, or alert them to common mistakes or pitfalls. Either way, you need to make that value clear.
How do you know what’s most valuable to your audience? By listening to them!
Pay attention to things people are saying about your product or industry online and on social media. Visit forums where people ask questions, such as Quora. Ask your sales and customer service teams about what the most common complaints or questions are.
By keeping your ear to the ground and knowing what your audience’s needs are, you can create content that truly provides value – and that they’ll consume!
3. Pay Attention to Detail
The Devil is in the details, or so they say. Either way, mistakes have a way of popping into our content, no matter how careful we are. It’s just human nature. That’s why it’s on you to go through your content and edit it – you may even ask a colleague to go over it just to make sure.
In the context of written content – blogs, ebooks, etc. – this means reading it over with a fine-tooth comb to make sure it’s completely error-free. This means no spelling or grammatical errors.
In the context of audio and video content, take time to go through every piece of content, listening and watching for errors that could detract from your primary mission. You might be able to edit out mistakes or you may have to re-record to ensure the best quality. Having a script can help you cut down on these mistakes – but at the same time, you want to balance it with an extemporaneous feel.
4. Promote It
As I’ve mentioned in my previous article on content promotion strategies, there’s more to this strategy than creating content. You need to direct people to it. There are a number of strategies for this.
The biggest way to promote it is to share it with your social media audience. As you build your social media following, this strategy will pay you back more and more. And don’t forget to use hashtags to attract new people to your content and brand.
Other promotion strategies include using search engine optimization throughout your content, guest posting on other sites, and encouraging your employees to share it with their audiences.
Concluding Thoughts on Content Marketing
If you allow it, content marketing can do a lot of heavy lifting for your brand.
Earlier we touched on the differences between sales and content marketing. In the same vein, think about all of the people who reject sales right off the bat. Most of us have negative feelings about being sold to. After all, we’re confronted with sales all the time, with telemarketers and in-store salespeople pushing products on us.
That’s part of why content marketing is so effective – it’s a much more gentle approach that people need right now. Instead of having sales figures crammed down our throat, we want to take our time and make up our own minds about a business. And content marketing allows them to do that, while also gently guiding the process.
Whether you’re new to the world of content marketing or know the gist, I hope this article has opened your eyes to all that this amazing strategy can do!
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