Content marketing is quickly becoming a necessity for businesses looking to grow their client base and remain competitive. Its cost-effectiveness makes it an ideal marketing strategy for small businesses wanting to target local audiences and set themselves apart from the competition.
If you’re wondering how to develop a content marketing strategy or what types of content marketing work best for you, you’re not alone. Understanding what content marketing is, how to develop a content marketing strategy, and the different types of content marketing has become crucial for showing off your business to prospects and loyal customers.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing focuses on strategically creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and informative content to your target audience. The goal of content marketing is ultimately to drive profits; but rather than pitching or advertising your goods and services, you’re offering valuable content that solves your audience’s issues.
For example, an accountant might publish content that focuses on maximizing tax deductions, or a cosmetic company might release video tutorials of how best to apply make-up products. Content marketing allows you to highlight your expertise and build long-term relationships with clients and prospects. It’s typically more cost-effective than traditional advertising, and your content is available for customers whenever they need it.
Benefits of content marketing
Because your content is designed to bring value to your audience—rather than selling to them—it is most effective at fostering trust with potential clients. Among the main benefits of content marketing are:
- Decreases costs of goods and cost of goods sold (COGS)
- Increases sales
- Nurtures relationships and builds customer/brand loyalty
- Establishes expertise in your field and authority on search engines
- Sets you apart from competitors
- Supports other advertising and marketing strategies
Types of content marketing
Understanding how you want the content you're publishing to be perceived is the most important step in determining what kind of content you produce, as content marketing comes in many forms:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Lead magnets
- E-books
- Emails
- Quizzes
- Courses
- Webinars
- Social media posts
Each of these types of content creation methods reach different audiences. When creating content for your business, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Can this content help me build brand awareness?
- Will this content help me establish relationships with my target audience?
- How will this content help me grow revenue?
- Can driving traffic to my landing pages be enough to increase my Google ranking?
How the marketing funnel drives effective content
At the top of the funnel, your content fosters awareness of a problem or solution (that your business can help to solve). Awareness-content typically includes educational resources, podcasts, and social media updates, or even longer-form content that is informative and engaging.
At the middle of the funnel, your content facilitates consideration of particular solutions, including downloadable PDFs and infographics, educational resources, and consumer surveys. This is where you can compare your services against competitors to help your audience move towards a decision.
Finally, at the bottom of the funnel, your content should be focused on conversions, where readers are ready to make an informed purchasing decision. Types of content best defined by conversion-content includes case studies, demos, and clickbait-y blog posts.
Each step in content marketing should move your reader further through your marketing funnel. For example, they might catch a snippet of your podcast on social media and visit the site afterward to read corresponding resources, which moves them from awareness to consideration.
Going even further, the resource they find themselves may include a link to your e-book, which the reader clicks on, springing you nearer to your goal of a conversion. They then provide their email address so they can access the e-book, and after receiving an email from you, they subscribe to your newsletter and read your content regularly.
While these actions meet different conversion goals all their own, if they ultimately decide to purchase from you because of how much they trust you, you've successfully nurtured a content marketing strategy that works effectively for your business.
Build & collect your brand's stories
An important component of content marketing is building a relationship with your audience, which involves sharing authentic stories about your brand. When you develop your content marketing strategy, include room for your brand story.
People love to read stories—they’re more compelling than stats and figures—and that story differentiates you from your competition. It tells your audience why you started your business, what your passion is, why you love what you do, and how your entrepreneurial journey continues to mature.
Don't do all the talking, though. You should also try to leave room for customer reviews and stories. Social proof of interaction with your brand can influence buying decisions, and people want evidence that they can trust your company, brand, and products from the moment they find you. Encourage loyal clients to leave positive reviews, ask for testimonials, and even share instances of when you solved your customers’ problems.
Design a content strategy & calendar
First, you must know your marketing goals and your audience. Then, determine what problem you solve for them and what makes you unique. When deciding the content formats you’ll use, base them on what your target audience prefers to consume. You can use any combination of content format that works for your business and your audience; blogs and social posts, infographics and podcasts, and so on.
After you upload them to your channels of choice, make sure that you're committed to engagement tracking so you can really dial in on what your audience is gravitating towards.
Naturally, this will lead you to conduct a content audit to review what you’ve already published and what you want to publish next. Brainstorm content ideas based on your highest performing content types and posts and, if possible, develop content that can be repurposed, such as using a popular blog post that can be made into a video or into smaller social media posts to repeat that success across different content channels.
Lastly, be sure to set deadlines for work to be completed and dates for when it will be published. Keep important and relevant dates in mind, too, like bank holidays or major public events. For example, if you’re an accountant, you might be helpful to people if you can get them to start thinking about tax season with a scheduled series of articles about income tax several months ahead. This way, by utilizing your published resources, they begin to trust you as an expert, and maybe even sharing your content with another people who could use your services down the road.
Make your content work for your business
By building content related to your core business, you will find opportunities to connect with customers that you can nurture towards sales and – even better – loyalty. The best part about content marketing is that it allows you to offer creative solutions for your customer and testing new ideas can find unique ways for your business to succeed.
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or an opinion on any issue. It should not be regarded as comprehensive or a substitute for professional advice.