Content Marketing

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.
A content marketing strategy establishes your brand as a thought leader, boosting trust among your audience by creating and distributing content in various ways. Content marketing is a type of inbound marketing that attracts customers and builds loyalty, making it effective for customer retention.

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

  • Blogs
  • Newsletters
  • Whitepapers
  • Social media posts
  • Emails
  • Videos

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.

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.
• 72% of business to business (B2B) marketers say 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.

Benefits Of Content Marketing

  • Increase Online Visibility
  • Generate More Leads
  • Boost Loyalty
  • Improve Authority

Content marketing benefits businesses in many ways. When done right, an effective content marketing strategy can:

  • 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.
  • Generate more leads: You can 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

How to get started with content marketing

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Identify your audience

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Determine the right formats

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Determine how you'll distribute

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Choose a sustainable schedule

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Follow best practices

How to get started with content marketing

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:

How to get started with content marketing

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:

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.

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 proofreader to review anything before it goes out the door.

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.

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.