Content Marketing: Basics for Business Bosses

Getting Started: Content Marketing

Do you or your business have a website? A blog? Are you on social media?

Guess what.

You’re probably already doing content marketing!

I decided to write this mini-guide because I remember how confused I was when I first heard about ‘content marketing’ – I thought it was some mysterious, technical, super-method of digital marketing; something I would have to spend hours upon hours of researching to get it. (Okay, maybe I actually did spend hours researching. I geek out on marketing.)

Content Marketing was important to me because I needed my voice to be heard on the Internet. I wanted potential clients to see my work, to find it useful, to share it and to come back for more.
I didn’t want to sell my services, or myself, but I wanted to provide people a reason to read what I had to say, to talk to me. I wanted to stand out from this endless sea of blogs, posts, tweets, Pins and above all, do this in a way where I could save time and effort.

How? By writing a Content Marketing Strategy.

What is Content Marketing?

There are some fancy, marketing-esque definitions out there, but the essence of content marketing is extremely simple.

Consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior by the Content Marketing Institute. 

Essentially, it’s informing and attracting customers through valuable content, with the ultimate goal of changing their behaviour (e.g. buying).

The philosophy behind it is that if you consistently deliver valuable information to your potential customers, they will be more willing to buy from you. Delivering great resources and information to people who care about them, who will share them, and funneling that into sales for your business.

[tweetthis]Content Marketing is about sharing, not selling. Content Marketing Basics by[/tweetthis]

The Key to Content Marketing

1. Content has to be relevant and valuable to your audience
2. Be consistent, by time (posting regularly) and style (standardised formats and branding).

Pretty simple, if you ask me.

How Content Marketing Can Help You

· Building a reputation
· Improving SEO (keywords, website traffic, sharing on social media)
· Maintaining a social media presence (through sharing resources and organic engagement)
· Creating a brand voice
· Building relationships with your potential customers
· And, as an added benefit, promoting your own products or service to lead to more sales.

Doing Content Marketing

Down to the nitty-gritty. You should now understand what it is, but how do you actually do Content Marketing? The key difference between carrying out a content marketing strategy, instead of posting photos of your ice cream/ dog/ feet on Instagram whenever you feel like it, is that it needs to be valuable and consistent (did I already mention that?).

I love Mallie Hart of Gocreativego’s tagline:

Content is king, consistency is queen.

That is the key to good content marketing, in a very small, well-formed nutshell.

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing:

Types of Content Marketing:

Content Marketing can be roughly divided into three types: Written, visual and interactive.
· Blogging
· Micro-content
· Interactive resources (webinars and presentations)
· Extensive resources (e-books, blueprints and white papers)
· Podcasts and videos
· Visual content
· Case studies.

There are loads of other types of content marketing; as long as it’s valuable and relevant to your audience, you can do it.

Summary so far:

To do content marketing well,
· Create great content that the relevant people will find valuable
· Share this content in ways that those relevant people can find them as easily as possible
· Use different types of Content Marketing
· Above all, consistently create valuable and relevant content

Got that? (AYE!) Drop me a line if you have any questions.

Where Do I Start?

The ultimate question. Not all forms of content marketing are created equal, not everything will work for your ideal audience, and you can waste a lot of time, energy and resources doing content marketing incorrectly.

Remember that great Content Marketing is a mix of:
Research
Strategy
Copywriting
Social media management
Engagement
Analytics (lots of these!)

You first need to create a Content Marketing Strategy.

1. Research.

Know your audience, what they want and how they want it. This way, you know what you can deliver so they get the most value out of it. Again, valuable + relevant.
Who are you trying to reach? What platforms do they like? Visual or research-based? How often?

Busy entrepreneurs on the go might prefer podcasts to videos.
Many working mothers use Pinterest.
Born after 1990, or having products you want to target to them? Try Instagram for micro-blogging.

2. Create

a. Set your goals. What do you want to achieve?
b. Divide them into tasks.
c. Work, create, schedule, edit!

Expert tip: Questions to ponder- What will you be doing, how, how often, on which platforms, and most importantly, why? Make sure there’s a reason behind every step. Strategise, don’t randomise.

3. Review.

(No, you can’t skip this part.) Tracks the analytics on you website and social media platforms, and crunch the numbers. What works, what doesn’t? What kind of posts got the highest engagement, and what were the similarities? Tweak your plan and repeat. Focus on constant improvement.

Expert tip: Google Analytics is a standard for your website data, while platforms like Pinterest offer Analytics (Pinalytics!) if you have a Business account. Does your business have a business Pinterest account? It should. Go make one.

Conclusion

If you have one take-away (also known as TL;DR),
Focus on consistently creating content that is valuable to your target customers.
Content marketing takes time, effort and above all, consistency in delivering valuable resources.

Great Places to Learn More

Blueprint for starting Content Marketing Strategy by the Content Marketing Institute
Content Creation Guide by Pardot/ Sales Force
The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing and the Advanced Guide to Content Marketing by Neil Patel. Beautiful, visual guides featuring templates, how to generate ideas, planning, and content writing tips. His website, Quicksprout, is a treasure trove of great, extensively-researched articles for online marketers, bloggers and business owners.
Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi (founder of the Content Marketing Institute)

Your Turn!

Has this helped you understand content marketing better? What parts of it are you struggling with:

– I don’t know what to offer my clients
– I don’t know how to promote what I create
– I need help with creating content