Content Marketing

Your audience wants content that’s not disruptive.

Your target audience wants content that is:

• Valuable
• Natural
• Organic

Content marketing attracts, engages, and delights your target audience.

A few examples of what effective content marketing does is:

• increases conversions
• improves brand awareness
• boosts revenue
• establishes you as an industry leader.

Use this article to learn new content marketing strategies or refresh your current content.

This articles includes:

• An overview of content marketing
• types of content marketing
• content marketing examples
• content marketing strategy to get started.

Outbound vs inbound marketing

Outbound marketing strategies are marketing methods that interrupt your audience to get their attention.

Outbound marketing does not appeal to audiences compared to before.

So, it is not an effective marketing strategy at getting your audience’s attention.

Inbound marketing uses content to reach your audience in a natural way.

Inbound marketing strategies involve creating a narrative for your content or telling a story.

With content marketing your content feel more:

• Authentic
• Engaging
• tailored to your audience.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of making content with the aim of reaching your target audience.

Other benefits of content marketing include:

• increase brand awareness
• Increase in sales
• High audience engagement
• Customer loyalty.

The basic steps of content marketing includes:

• Planning
• Creating
• Distributing
• Sharing
• Publishing content

A few examples of different channels to distribute your content on are:

• social media
• Blogs
• Websites
• Podcasts
• Apps
• press releases
• print publications.

Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing is important because it:

• Educates your audience about your products and services
• Boosts conversions
• Builds relationships and increases customers loyalty
• Shows how your products and services solve audience problems
• Builds a community around your brand

Types of content marketing

Types of content for content marketing includes:

• Social Media Content
• Infographic content
• Blog content
• Podcast content
• Video content
• Paid Ad content

Add these types of content marketing to your marketing strategy.

Social Media Content Marketing

A Lot of businesses invest in social media marketing to get the attention of over 3.6 billion global social media users on different social media networks.

Examples of the social media platforms used by users include:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat

Different ways you can create and share content on these platforms include:

• Photos
• live videos
• pre-recorded videos
• stories

Infographic Content Marketing

Infographics content marketing is making it easy to understand graphics from content, information, and data.

Infographics are an easy and effective way for your audiences to understand your content.

Some of the features of infographic content includes:

• simple wording
• short statements
• clear images

This is an ideal way of breaking down educational or complicated topics for your audience to understand.

Blog Content Marketing

Blogging as an inbound content marketing strategy that gives you creative freedom in the way you want to engage your target audience and the choice of topic you want to use.

The benefits of blog posts include:

• promoting internal from your website
• Promoting external content from other websites
• Promoting blog articles using links
• adding social share buttons to your posts
• present information on products or services.

Podcast Content Marketing

Podcast content marketing is another creative marketing strategy that gives you creative freedom on the topic of choice.

Podcast content marketing is used by many business and media outlets for a slice of the attention from 383.7 million podcast listeners.

And this number is predicted to increase to around 424 million podcast listeners worldwide.

Podcast content marketing gives you control of:

• Choice of topic per episodes
• Podcast guest
• podcast advertising channel
• Length of each episode

Video Content Marketing

The benefits of video content marketing include:

• boost conversions
• improve ROI
• build audience relationships

Brands use video content marketing for audiences attention because 69% of consumers prefer video to learn about a brand’s product or service.

The main places to share your video content include:

• social media platforms
• landing pages
• other websites

Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid ad content marketing can your brand get in front of your target audience and help you reach a broader audience.

You can increase the benefits of using paid ads by implementing it with inbound marketing.

The main places to share paid ads including:

• social media
• landing pages
• Banners
• sponsored content

Content Marketing on different platforms

Understand how to use content marketing on different social media platforms.

Instagram Content Marketing

Use branding in your Instagram content marketing strategy by being consistent in your use of colours and style.

So, even when the name of your brand is not visible to customers, they still know the profile belongs to your brand.

Tips for Instagram content marketing include:

• Sharing your products or services
• display different colour options
• Detail the different options
• show different uses for each product or service.

Make sure your Instagram profile’s feel and look uniquely represents your brand, and additionally show members of your audience or customer base using your product or testimonials for your services.

Infographic Content Marketing

When using infographic content marketing include:

• your product and services
• how customers can benefit
• Where to buy
• How to get started

Also, make sure your infographics are branded, organised, and easy to read.

Blog Content Marketing

Using the blog content marketing strategy needs regular publishing of blog content to keep your readers interested and engaged.

Make sure to answer all possible questions your audience might have by including all possible topic ranges related to your business.

For example, a travel blog would share travel-related information including hotel recommendations, great places to visit, and travel-related activities around the globe.

A few tips for your blog to gain customers and boost brand awareness include:

• Keeping your blog is on-brand
• Link your articles to your products or services
• writing about customers positive experiences

Podcast Content Marketing

When using podcast content marketing, make sure your podcast is on-brand and complements the rest of your published content.

Your podcast should be consistently published, this can be weekly or monthly, and it should feature industry leaders from topics within your business.

Get it right and listeners will either subscribe to receive notifications for your podcast or pick and choose which ones they want to listen to.

Benefits of podcast content marketing include:

• connecting with your target audience
• enhancing brand awareness
• gaining audience following

Video Content Marketing

Video content marketing can give your videos the chance of going viral.

Make your video content different so it stands out from the crowd.

For example, Dollar Shave Club’s marketing efforts are branded, humorous, and entertaining.

One of Dollar Shave Club’s videos has gained 27 million views on YouTube.

The benefits of establishing your brand’s name with online video content includes:

• Growth
• brand recognition

Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid Ad content marketing uses paid and sponsored ads on social media, such as Facebook, to reach your target audience while they browse their news feeds.

Paid ads use content to drive audience members to your website, with hopes of converting them into paying customers.

When creating Paid Ads, make sure to include:

• Your products
• details about shipping
• return policy

Using the paid ads content marketing strategy can help your other content marketing efforts to be more effective in reaching your target audience and converting leads.

Twitter Content Marketing

The benefits of Twitter content marketing include:

• marketing your products or service
• create a community from your customers
• targeting audience members, industry leaders and experts

Different ways you can use Twitter for content marketing include:

• Sharing product information
• Sharing relevant tips
• Sharing industry knowledge
• Doing research

Don’t forget to also interact with users and make sure those in need of customer support know exactly where to go for help.

TikTok Content Marketing

TikTok content marketing involves using the platform to reach and engage their customers and target audience members.

For example, Chipotle, the American restaurant brand, uses TikTok to react to other Chipotle-related TikTok content.

A few example the content Chipotle posts on TikTok includes:

• menu items
• recipes
• people enjoying their food
• their restaurants

By using content marketing, Chipotle has gained over 1.6 million followers and over 30 million likes on TikTok.

Viral Content Marketing

Viral content marketing can be very powerful.

For example, a video from TikTok included a man called Nathan Apodaca, sipping Ocean Spray cranberry juice while skateboarding and listening to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

The results of the viral video includes:

• TikTok used part of Apodaca’s video in their ads
• Ocean Spray used Apodaca in their ads
• Ocean Spray saw a bump in sales and brand awareness
• Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was number one on iTunes

After this video went viral, thousands of other TikTok users bought the cranberry juice and recreated Apodaca’s original video.

Content Marketing Strategy

• Set goals.
• Set performance indicators.
• Choose type of content.
• Pick content channels.
• Set your budget.
• Make and distribute content.
• Analyse and measure the results.

Develop an effective content marketing strategy.

Set goals.

To start your content marketing strategy, you will have to set goals.

Your goals for your content marketing strategy should be business specific, whilst aligning with your overall marketing and business goals.

Examples of goals to set could include:

• Improving brand awareness
• Boosting revenue
• Increasing conversions
• Improving brand loyalty
• Increasing customer engagement
• Building relationships and trust with prospects and customers
• Attract strategic partners

Set performance indicators.

Now you have to set performance indicators for your goals, which can also be called key performance indicators (KPIs).

Your performance indicators are key data points you use to measure your performance towards your goals.

Your goals and their related performance indicators could be:

• Brand awareness: Site traffic, social media followers, subscription sign-ups, mentions by customers and partners
• Revenue: Daily sales, site traffic
• Conversions: Conversion rate, shopping cart abandonment rate, associated shipping rate trends, competitive price trends
• Brand loyalty: Returning customers, promoters, product reviews, referrals
• Customer engagement: Likes, shares, follows, mentions, backlinks
• Relationships and trust: Returning customers, promoters, followers, mentions
• Strategic partners: New partnerships, mentions, backlinks

Choose type of content.

Next, it’s time to choose the type of content you will make.

Start by thinking about your target audience and the buyer’s personas.

To pick the right content for your target audience, ask yourself these questions:

• What do they need from you?
• What problems do they have?
• Why do they need your product or service?
• How can you help them?
• Where do they spend their time?

Pick the type of content you will make from the following:

• Social Media Content
• Infographic content
• Blog content
• Podcast content
• Video content
• Paid Ad content

Or go back to the types of content section and pick the types of content you will make.

Pick content channels.

After picking the type of content for your target audience.

Pick your specific content channels.

Where to share your content?

Where will it stay and be shared from?

Sometimes when you pick the content type for your target audience then the question for which channel you will use is obvious.

For example, if you decide to make Facebook content then the channel you used will be Facebook.

Set your budget.

Now it’s time to set your budget.

Take everything into account so far, the type of content you will make and which channels you will market that content.

The following questions will help figuring out your budget:

• Do you need paid or free software to create content like graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop or a subscription to Canva?
• Do you need to buy any technology like a camera for high-quality photos and videos or is your mobile phone good enough?
• Do you need to hire content marketers or designers like artists, writers, editors, designers?
• Are you going to pay for ad space?
• Do you need certain tools or resources to improve or measure your content?

Write down everything you will need and how much it will be.

Can you afford it or will you stick to the free and available options until your revenue increases?

Make and distribute content.

Next, you have to make and distribute your content for your audience.

Using a social media calendar or an editorial content calendar can help to make sure you’re consistently making content and sharing it to your audience.

This is a simple but effective way to stay organised, staying on top of all of the content creation process and allowing you to schedule your content ahead of time.

Analyse and measure results.

The last part will be analysing and measuring your results to see an overview of what’s working and what needs to be improved so you can reach more audiences.

Now, look back at the goals you set and the performance of how successful your content marketing strategy was.

Did you reach your goals and performance indicators?

How far off were you?

Did you go past your intended budget?

For measuring your content marketing strategy analytics and results try these tools:

• HubSpot Marketing Analytics
• Buffer
• Mention
• SharedCount
• Sprout Social
• Google Analytics

Best Content Marketing Resources

Here is a few examples of resources that can help with your content marketing:

• Blog articles.
• Podcasts.
• Google Trends.
• Ebooks.
• Statistics.
• Design software.
• Social media management tools.
• Content and project management tools.
• Marketing software.
• Email marketing software.
• Networking.

You can find many content marketing resource tools today.

Here is my favourite go-to content marketing resource list:

• Blogs on content marketing, trends, strategies, and tips by industry enthusiasts.
• Podcasts like This Old Marketing, or HBR IdeaCast, for content marketing strategies.
• Google Trends, to search for trends on broad or niche topics like content marketing or semantic SEO.
• Ebooks and case studies, by Mention, about content marketing and content marketing strategies.
• Content marketing statistics by a database source like Statista.
• User-friendly visual content and design software, like Canva.
• Social media management tools, like Buffer or Sprout Social, to help create and share social content.
• Content and project management tools, like Trello or Asana, to plan and organise content marketing strategies.
• Marketing software that connects the content marketing team, plan, strategy, and results to marketing plans and CRM software.
• Email marketing software, like SendFox or Mailchimp, to handle email campaigns and content.
• Networking on Twitter or LinkedIn helps to connect with people in certain industries to discuss relevant trends, answer each other’s questions, and provide or ask for feedback.

Follow the best content marketers on LinkedIn and Twitter

• Luvvie Ajayi Jones
• Zontee Hou
• A. Lee Judge
• Ann Handley
• Neil Patel
• Guy Kawasaki

Follow these Marketers on LinkedIn:

• Luvvie Ajayi Jones

Luvvie Ajayi Jones, a best-selling author, digital strategist, podcast host, and speaker.

She has experience and a background in marketing, communications, and new media.

Her LinkedIn is on culture, authenticity, leadership, content, marketing strategy, and more.

• Zontee Hou

Zontee Hou, a digital marketer and strategist, speaker, and consultant.

She helps scaling companies with effective marketing strategies that work for their goals and audiences.

Her LinkedIn is on content marketing, social media marketing, marketing analytics, and digital marketing.

• A. Lee Judge

A. Lee Judge, a co-founder and digital marketing strategist at Content Monsta.

Also a video and podcast producer, speaker, and revenue operations pro.

His LinkedIn profile is on lead generation, social media marketing, applying marketing analytics and data, digital experiences, multi-channel marketing, the importance of sales and marketing alignment, and more.

Follow these Marketers on Twitter:

• Ann Handley

Ann Handley, Head of Content at MarketingProfs, a bestselling author and speaker.

She talks and shares content on content marketing, storytelling, lead generation, and branding.

Also offering in-person and virtual training on the same topics.

• Neil Patel

Neil Patel, a bestselling author, marketing expert, speaker, and SEO consultant.

He’s an industry expert when it comes to content and digital marketing.

His Twitter page is on his training and services, industry trends, marketing strategy tips and resources.

• Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki, a marketing strategist, author, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and podcast host.

His Twitter account is on new podcast episodes, industry trends, marketing strategy tips, and insights.

Conclusion

Content marketing can reach your target audience and increase conversions.

Use content marketing to:

• boost revenue
• grow your brand awareness and recognition
• build relationships with your customers

A reminder on how to start:

• Know what your audience needs
• Pick the type of content right for them
• Build a content marketing strategy

Now it’s your turn…

Let me know if there is anything you would do differently?

Comment your suggestions below.