When I first came across the term ‘content marketing’ I thought, “Videos and social media and stuff? I’m already on it”. Luckily it kept appearing in marketing articles and feeds I followed, so I took the time to learn more.
Today I’m complete content convert. Content marketing gets me excited because it’s smart marketing that delivers real results – the kind your CEO wants to see – while also creating real value out there in the world.
Whether you’re selling business-to-business or business-to-consumer, content marketing can breathe life into your brand, deliver value to your customers and put cash in your pocket.
The catch is, you need to do it well
Content marketing doesn’t just mean putting out a few blog posts or podcasts. Creating content is a big part of it and if you’re doing this, you’re on your way. But getting results from content marketing comes down to your strategy and the experience you’re giving customers every step of the way.
Let’s start with your strategy. This should spell out your objectives, describe your customers in detail, map out your customer buying process and identify how content can help move them smoothly through this process – from finding out you exist in the first place to hitting ‘buy now’.
It can help to imagine it as a funnel:
Top of the funnel: Attract awareness and interest
Imagine for a moment you’re selling vitamin supplements that are 10X more effective than the stuff sold in supermarkets. You know your product is good, but the problem is getting noticed.
At the top of the sales funnel, you need to have compelling content available for people to find when they hit Google to solve their health problems.
The goal is to produce information that is genuinely useful and delivers value.
Let’s take your magnesium product. Think about the potential buyers – do they all already know they need magnesium? Or do some just know that they’re not sleeping well?
Probably the latter, so it would make sense to write a blog post on improving sleep – and include magnesium supplements as one of the ways to sleep better. You publish it on your website and promote it through paid social media. Now what? You might get someone’s interest, but what if they they just keep browsing?
Middle of the funnel: Build desire to buy
Essentially you want to keep your potential buyer in your sticky web of content – in a nice way – and turn their interest into desire. So you might tempt them to hang out for a while on your website with another helpful blog post or video, or at this stage it might be time to pull out the big guns with some high value content.
Have you landed on a website recently and been offered an e-book or PDF guide, in exchange for your email address?
High value content is the kind of content that a business has put real effort into and is worth paying money for, but the business chooses to give it away. It can educate the buyer on the product or service in some way, but it must contain information they want to receive.
There’s often an exchange where the prospect hands over their email address to get the content – but not their credit card quite yet.
The pointy end: Get the sale
So now you have a choice: You can either spam the person until they regret the day they found your website, or you can ask yourself: how can I help them?
Content marketing should always involve win-win thinking. It’s about delivering amazing value every step of the way. So think about how you can deliver value into their inbox – sparingly – with some genuinely excellent offers or more content that you believe they’d like to receive.
If you’ve done a good job, you should land sales or leads at this point.
But it doesn’t have to end there. We all like receiving useful information, so keep on delivering valuable content to your customers and over time you’ll have yourself some advocates.
To make it crystal clear, here are the three ways content marketing can win you business:
1. Positions you as an expert and grows your brand
Producing your own high quality blog posts, podcasts, videos and e-books is a lot like being featured in the media: over time you become an authority. If what you have to say is helpful and correct, people will start to trust you. And the more they see your content appear on social media, in their inbox and in search results, the more that trust will grow. Trust = sales.
2. Brings you up the ranks on Google and other search engines
Search engines like Google and Bing love it when websites deliver a great customer experience. The job of the search engine is to connect users to the exact information they are seeking. So when you produce high quality content that answers the questions people ask search engines, you’ll be rewarded with a higher position in search results.
3. Feeds your sales funnel and wins you customers
If you nurture your prospects through the content marketing funnel and deliver value every step of the way, your sales or leads should steadily increase. How dramatic the impact is will differ from industry to industry and depend on your strategy and content.
Fast or slow, quality content marketing is a proven way to bring in business and build your brand.
If you’re ready to step up your content marketing game but need help with writing, I would love to help. As a freelancer I’m on hand whenever you need some well-crafted words.
“Gemma was a delight to work with and I would recommend her to anyone looking for top quality work from an engaged and thorough communications professional.” – Andrew Barnard, formerly Head of Technology and Innovation at APX Travel Management