What’s the point of content marketing anyway?
You ‘do’ content marketing because you think you should. You may well have a blog. You may be paying someone to write a couple of articles a month. But are you convinced by this strategy? Is it impactful? Do you think you might be wasting your money and that content marketing just sucks?
Let me explore some of the concepts you might want to consider that will improve your content marketing.
Revamp your content marketing strategy today
- We all know it’s easier to sell or ‘upsell’ to an existing client. You have a relationship. They’ve bought from you and with luck are open to ideas. Actually content marketing is about making relationships stronger. It’s an opportunity to say ‘hey, we feel your pain’. You might say: ‘guess what we’ve got that you might like.’ That’s why it’s good to talk to people through content regularly.
- You need to empathise with your customer and see the world from their perspective. If you are serving a need let them know what you offer. Give them tips and ideas. Suggest all kinds of things. Add value based on what they want, not what you think they want. Therefore research is important. Have a look at what the competition is producing. It might, or might not, give you some ideas.
- Content marketing can help you converse with people and find out what they think. You don’t have time to sit down with everyone individually so your blog, infographic or even leaflet has to do the job of welcoming and discovering and educating too.
- Remember, as consumers we are very smart. We know what we want and we know how to get it. We are one quick click away from a competitor. The thing is, although we are not loyal and will flip off for an additional 10% on another website I think we want to be. How do I know this? Do you visit the same coffee shop for your favourite take away latte? Do you sit in the same place in your favourite restaurant? Do you defend brands you love to the hilt when someone attacks them? I’ll give you an example; I’ve been with Amazon since the beginning of time. My Amazon Prime gets taken from my bank every year and it’s part of my life. They are my default. There may be cheaper but I can trust Amazon. Once upon a time they used to give me vouchers for having bought so many books – those were the days. Psychologically I haven’t forgotten that. Therefore if you are engaging with your customers and potential clients you have more of a chance of creating a relationship. When that relationship is meaningful you have a much greater chance of making a sale.
- People are savvy, as I said, and they hate being ‘sold to’, although there are times when consumers want their thoughts to be ratified by a sales person. ‘I like this car but give me 5 benefits as to why I should purchase it.’ What we are asking for is to be educated. Give us all the facts so we can make an informed decision. If you do that well, you will convince me and also start earning my trust.
IF YOU’RE ALREADY CONVINCED THEN CALL US ON 0203 633 0618
What content marketing options are there? Perhaps you need to develop different types of content marketing such as:
- White papers (where appropriate)
- Slideshares and presentations
- Images and photos
- Social content
- Infographics
- Videos
- Podcasts
There are all kinds of options and you should try to be varied in your approach.
6.How do you make content sticky? How do you get more blog reads? That is, how do you make people want to read your content and also come back each time you produce some more? It has to be exceptional. It needs to inform. It needs to inspire. It needs to educate. It also needs to be valuable, up to date and as detailed as it needs to be. Google even recognises that people search within the search terms that come up. Be prepared! Content marketing takes time, takes a budget and needs to be creative. It’s not enough to just produce it. You also need a content strategy.
7.What you are looking to do is build an engaged tribe and one that trusts you. You also want to raise the awareness of your brand and drive traffic to where you want it to go. If you are consistent, thoughtful and trusted that will also help your brand stand out – especially in your local area. This is the way to nail the competition.
8.Think about your own behaviours. If you go to a blog that hasn’t been updated for months you get a sense that people don’t care much. It’s like having a shop window and not changing the display or cleaning out the dust, flies and cobwebs. It gives the wrong signals. If you produce a regular content stream the perception of your brand is much more positive. It shows you take your business seriously. It also keeps you top of mind and that’s exactly where we need to be. Search has changed, you know how you search so why hasn’t your content?
9.The thing is, it’s not enough to just produce content. Online is awash with words and pictures. You need to target your content so the people who need it will see it. This is where you need a marketing strategy. You might start in the traditional way with leaflets that drive traffic with an offer or voucher. You might want to make use of newsletters and email campaigns. Social media promotion will work too when combined with an advertising budget.
10.Most of all you need a content writer and/or creator who understands your business and who has the experience to know what to create, how to create it and where to promote it. Yes, you can carry on knocking out a blog every other week but it’s probably time to look again at your content marketing strategy and even create a content editorial calendar.
11.If you need some automated help you might want to look at Contently, Percolate, Storystream and Curata as four examples. Even Business LinkedIn can help. You might also want to consider Passle which is a very ingenious approach to producing quick content that is valuable too.
WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOU CR EATE CONTENT THAT MATTERS TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
CALL US ON 0203 633 0618
