Content Marketing: How Do I Start?
For many people, content marketing was not a familiar term in their business plan. Social media and the digital landscape has boomed and opened up new opportunities to market and bring in new leads from a targeted audience. Content marketing has now emerged the vital instrument to not only establish a brand as an industry expert, but help them boost revenue as well.
An ever-increasing online population means that your potential audience is growing every day!
There are nearly 3 billion people online from all around the world. Now days, when people are interested in a product or service, they go online and search via search engines (Google or Bing),or social media(Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn). And with your prospective client’s attention shifting toward online, the emphasis of your marketing strategy must follow. This has required companies to develop new marketing strategies as they begin to understand how users interact with the Internet and how the Internet works for users.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing allows you to establish your brand as the expert in the industry, build trust with an audience, and then use that relationship to boost revenue with new customers. According to the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends research, 9 out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing, regardless of niche or size.
Compared to traditional marketing, content marketing offers a lot of benefits:
Gone are the days of calling on customers; Content Marketing helps them find you!
It’s for the customer, and organically pulls them in by offering relevant information that they are already looking for, compared to a pushy advertisement.
Informative, quality content usually has a longer shelf-life. With a single great piece of content, you could receive great results from it for years to come.
You are in complete control of the content that you create, publish and promote. This allows for a strategy that is easier to change and improve upon as successes are measured.
Your company can reach a must broader audience online than any other venue in the world.
Throughout a campaign, content marketing should be used to deliver useful information to your audience, and move them through the sales funnel naturally until becoming a loyal customer to your brand. Content marketing allows your business to take control of how individuals recognize your brand, which benefits all aspects of your marketing goals, whether it be boosted traffic, more leads, or even reputation management.
Start by Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy
If you want to turn prospective leads into customers, content marketing is the way to go. When you answer user’s questions or needs, they will remember your company as a trusted and knowledgeable expert. Where do you think they will come back to when it’s time to buy?
Content marketing will:
Improve your brand awareness.
Generate more traffic to your site.
Bring in new customer leads and/or sale.
Spark engagement and expands your online reputation.
Encourage other websites to link to your site.
Increase your competitive advantage.
With every piece of content you create - whether it’s placed on your blog or ecommerce site -it should accomplish one or more of these goals. We will dive deeper into creating a successful content marketing strategy in a later post.
Developing a Content Marketing Mentality
There is nothing wrong with traditional marketing approaches. In many cases, they still work and are quite effective given the specific niche of the industry. However, today is seems that our advertising efforts have to be so creative and interesting that people don’t even know that it’s advertising. This can be hard to do with traditional marketing strategies. And again, content marketing makes that all possible once again.
If you have a website, you need to start producing fresh content (blog posts, videos, graphics, etc.) on a regular basis. Developing a content marketing mindset or mentality simply means always being on the lookout for new content ideas. Seriously, keep a notebook or voice recorder (or smartphone) on hand; when someone asks a great question or brings up an interesting topic, record it and write about it for your blog.
When you attend an event, bring your camera (or smartphone) so you that can post images of the event on your blog. There a possibilities for great content everywhere; if you have a website, keep producing fresh content, whether in the form of articles, video, interviews, images – to give your brand as many opportunities to be found online by existing or attracted customers.
Whether they are top-level executives or new summer interns, here are some quick ideas to get everyone in the office involved and started with a content marketing mindset:
Encourage your industry executives to participate in an interview and record it.
Poll the entire staff to find out who has the desire to write articles for your blog.
Create a short video series in which an employee explains their daily processes in the facility or office.
If your employees don’t already have social media accounts, have them set up some extra profiles to help with content promotion.
You can look to anyone in your company to provide some inspiration and brainstorm new ideas for content. The more you encourage creativity, the more you will gain from content marketing.
Achieving your company goals, whether it’s an increase in your site’s traffic, leads, or sales takes some serious effort from any professional. But with the many benefits content marketing brings to the table, it’s enough reason to start engaging with clients, producing and publishing useful content that benefits them, and begin to enjoy creating something that puts your brand at the top of its field.
Brad Kuenn is a Content Writer, Editor and Strategist living in Nashville, Tennessee, and he provides research, content topics, writing, editing, and content development expertise to clients. He has a passion for writing as well as art, which shines through in his work. His creativity and attention to detail makes him a valuable asset for a wide range of clients. During his time off he enjoys spending time with his wife, family, and his two dogs Brutus and Kane.
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