Producing and distributing shareable content to your existing and potential customers is one of the most effective ways (both strategically and financially) to increase brand awareness, traffic and not least sales.
What can you do when traditional marketing no longer works?
If your current marketing isn’t having the desired effect, it may be time to think again. In today’s society, we are inundated with advertising that screams for attention. This does something to us, and many people learn to “sort” out the advertising. That’s when you need to rethink how you reach your target audience.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the practice of using content such as blog posts, articles, videos etc. to get people to visit your website. You then build a relationship with your visitors and can then make your selling points. The more valuable the content you create is to your target audience, the more successful your campaign will be. Good content marketing is complimented by 3 things:
- Relevance: What you publish needs to be relevant to what you offer and your brand. Sure, you can post a cute cat video and get tons of likes, views and clicks, but it’s unlikely to lead to sales or newsletter sign-ups.
- Quality: Be strategic about what you choose to publish. It’s better to write one quality article a week than a daily blog with irrelevant content. Research what your potential customers want answers to. What kind of problem do they have and what do they share online? Also, find out what keywords you want to focus on and choose one topic for each article you write.
- Be consistent: When creating a content marketing plan, decide how often you’ll create new content and stick to the plan. This lets your followers know when to keep their eyes peeled for new content, and in addition, Google will reward you with better rankings on various keywords and phrases.
If you think this sounds like a lot of work, you’re right, it can be. But if you’re able to combine content that’s already been created with some original content, you’re well on your way. Embed a relevant video in your post and add a few lines of commentary and you have a complete blog post. Other options could be to link to news within your industry, statistics or blogs from other influential websites. Feel free to grab the checklist for blog posts and news.
What can content marketing do for you?
- Build relationships and trustworthiness: The most important function of content marketing is to get people to visit your website so you can show that you have expertise and can build a reputation based on trustworthiness. Potential customers are more likely to buy from those they already know and feel comfortable with.
- Increase potential customers’ awareness: Not everyone knows who you are and why you’re so great – so you need to educate them! Content marketing is a great way to introduce yourself as an authority in your field. You might be the 6th largest supplier in your field, but you could be #1 when it comes to providing great tips. This helps you grow – and a great bonus is that consumers are happy to share your content if you have a share button in the right place.
- Increase your ranking in search engines: The algorithms used by search engines change frequently and it can be difficult to keep up. But there’s one thing you really need to focus on – and that’s producing great and unique content – and you’ll get search traffic. Good content is relevant, useful and written based on the keyword you want to focus on. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to see what users are searching for in your industry/topic and create content that matches the most popular search phrases. See if your competitors come up in the search results, and then create a better and fuller article on the same topic so that your page will come up first.
- Deeper understanding of your audience: When you create new content on a regular basis, you’ll quickly see which topics resonate best with your readers. You can see this by studying your visitor statistics. This can be very useful for figuring out how to structure your course going forward. Learn what works and what engages most with your audience. Use that as a starting point and expand.
- Increase the number of conversions: This is essentially the main goal of the content you create – to increase the number of conversions (sales, sign-ups, etc). Think about what your main goal is and make sure it’s reflected on all the pages your visitors visit. If it’s sales you’re after, make sure you encourage your readers to buy/contact you. If you want subscriptions to a newsletter, why not have a pop-up asking for the email address? Make it easy for your visitors to find out what you can do for them (as well as providing good content of course).
