- matthew6236
Content Marketing: What, Why, How?
Content is still king, and it will be for a long time too. Want to know why…?
TRUST.
It’s all about trust, and loyalty. It’s important to provide valuable information consistently to earn your customers’ trust and loyalty over time. It’s a marathon not a sprint. It’s the ultimate long game strategy that will help you win business for a long time to come.
What is content marketing?
Content can come in many forms. Traditionally your blog is the backbone of a great content marketing strategy. Your website is your home on the internet, it’s your customers’ number one advisor, and your ultimate salesperson. This is where you want your potential audience to be.
You need to have someone’s attention before you can tell them how great you are.
To get this attention you need to be producing great content, regularly and consistently.
The net is now widening. Your blog is the backbone, but there’s many other moving parts that need nurturing.
You need to share your content across all relevant platforms, and you need to fine tune it for each individual platform. Copying and pasting a Facebook post onto Instagram won’t cut it.
It’s not all hard work though. One article on your blog is one piece of content, but it’s a lot more valuable than that. You can chop and edit it into multiple pieces of content for different platforms and audiences.
One article could be repurposed for:
· A podcast episode
· A YouTube and IGTV video
· 10 quotes that could be made into beautiful images for Instagram
· 20 things to start conversations on Twitter about
· You can share the article on Facebook
· You can publish the article on LinkedIn
· You can promote the article on all of these platforms
· You can use the content to answer questions on Quora
· It can be sent to your email list
Why do this?
A) Attention
You need to be present where your customers are spending their time. That’s on social media and the internet in general. It isn’t just young people anymore consumed by their smartphone and social, all age groups are now active users. This is now the way people communicate in the modern world. Your business needs to have a strong presence and a strategy.
When we search for a solution to a problem, or for some information, we go to Google. Great content can help people get their answers and therefore get them onto your website. Good, regularly published content also has a huge SEO benefit: Google will rank you higher if you publish new, good quality content regularly.
B) Trust
Use content to add value. Put things out that people want to consume. Then by nature, you build trust with them and potentially get them interested in your product/service. Hey, they’re now on your website!
Things to avoid
Bad content
Poor content looks unprofessional, sloppy, and worse, it could make you look incompetent. Whilst great content is imperative to build trust, bad content can destroy it and the potential for it in the future.
Inconsistent posting
Whether it be on your blog, social media, or elsewhere, inconsistent content tells your customers that it’s an after-thought, and so is your desire to provide value to them.
Only thinking of yourself
Publish all your content with the customer in mind. This isn’t another opportunity for you to just talk about your business and sell your stuff.
Add value first, the sales will come later. Play the long game. Slow and steady wins the race.
Where to start?
OK, so you know what not to do. Here’s how to start doing it right.
Write down 10 ideas for blog posts or more. Write at least 10. And make sure all the bad ideas come out. You can’t access the gold without clearing away the dirt.
Ask around the business, and even better – ask your customers for suggestions. Build your buyer persona and look at your wider marketing strategy.
Speak to customer service, what are some common questions?
There is a lot of information at your fingertips, use it.
Then practice, every new post will be better than the last.
Consider an expert
Content marketing is a craft, you can’t master it overnight. If you don’t have the desire to learn the skills, or simply don’t have the time, you can outsource your content marketing to experts…
Like, you know, people like us.
- Matthew Brown, marketing director
I hope you took value from this! If you have any questions about this article, content marketing, or you want our help, contact us. We’d love to hear from you.
If you want any help building up your influence in your industry, let’s talk – 07717 683 642/matthew@viisi.co.