The Final Word on Content Marketing
Are you curious how to unlock the mystical formula for generating engagement with your target audience?
What if I told you the key to designing marketing content that converts is actually really simple and requires not even a single dash of pixie dust to work?
And what if I told you it makes no difference if you are a business selling a product to the public or a business offering a business opportunity to partner with you, your content marketing is a major opportunity to make a great part-time or full-time income!
Now your question might be…..
What is Content Marketing?
Let’s start with a definition:
“Content Marketing is the process of building long-term relationships and engagement with your target audience by consistently delivering meaningful and relevant content through channels they engage with.”
Content marketing refers to a vast range of communicative mediums including blogs, pictures, videos, and so much more. We will look a little deeper into these mediums with a final comment on how you can gain greater control of your marketing strategies.
“Content is the reason search began in the first place.” Lee Odden
Why Content Marketing?
Content marketing is absolutely an essential part of your digital marketing strategy:
- Content marketing is cost-effective. Compared with traditional advertising methods, content marketing costs 65% less and generates 3 times as many leads!
- Content marketing drives sales conversions. Typically brands that use content marketing convert 6 times as many people into satisfied customers.
- Content marketing is the future of advertising. Content marketing was long known for its comparatively lower up-front costs and diverse long-term benefits. As a result, content marketing has become the major digital marketing tactic, with over 90% of B2B and nearly 90% of B2C marketers admitting to including content in each of their marketing campaign.
The fact is, regardless of what marketing strategies you are employing, content marketing will be an important element of your marketing strategy.
You may be asking yourself why content is so important today?
The answer is simple: Loyalty!
In today’s media landscape, customers are bombarded with tons of advertising messages. A great deal of them are tuned out instinctively as consumers can sniff out the blatant attempt to sell to them. The fact is, people love to buy, but hate to be sold to.
This is precisely where content marketing strategy comes in. Instead of having to fight for the sale, you are creating a relationship and laying the groundwork for returning customers who are loyal to your products and brand.
You might be asking yourself how a blog article, video or podcast can generate loyalty?
As people are searching the Internet, they run into all kinds of content. Pictures, videos, articles. Some of these people engage for seconds or maybe minutes, others will spend time looking at the video or reading the blog article.
It’s these people that will return to your video or article for more information, or to be inspired, or learn something or to be entertained.
When your target audience views the content you produce as being useful to their lives, they are less aware that you might be selling to them. In this way, instead of producing a commercial for a hula-hoop, you could produce a blog article with videos of your family enjoying hula-hoop in the back yard.
The fun video and article might be far more influential on people who might happen to see the content.
The blog with a video are more appealing and again, they don’t even realize they are being sold to. If you are a distributor for the hula-hoop, you may have a sale and returning customers because of your content.
It’s important to remember that your efforts don’t need to be limited to the online marketing to make a huge impact on your customers or business partners.
There are various methods and channels for delivering “offline” and “online” content marketing that will lead to real results for your product or your partnership.
2 Types of Content Marketing
Content marketing is the creation and sharing of content with the purpose of promoting a product or service. For our purpose of marketing, there is two types of content marketing…
- Offline marketing is: “All the marketing activities that does not involve the internet. They are basically the traditional activities used to publicize your brand or product.”
- Online marketing is: “The art and science of selling products and/or services over digital networks, such as the internet and cellular phone networks.”
Offline Content Marketing
Offline advertising is traditional marketing, a way to notify potential customers about a product that does not involve the use of the Internet. For example, offline marketing includes advertisements on and in public transport, radio, television, press, elevators of apartment houses and offices.
Offline marketing strategies tend to be more expensive than online ones, requiring businesses to develop all-encompassing plans before implementing campaigns. Typically, a company must first decide exactly who they are trying to reach – the target demographic for either new or existing services – and then determine what media channels can be used to reach them.
In general, offline marketing is that type of marketing in which the advertisement is done on different types of platforms except for the online media. This type of marketing is the traditional method of marketing and has been in use before the arrival of the internet and is still being used widely by almost all big and small companies who are willing to maintain their position in the market.
Offline marketing refers to any type of marketing that does not involve online marketing (website, social media, email, pay-per-click, blogging, press releases). Effective offline marketing can be a great complement to your online marketing strategies:
- Cold calls, direct mail, flyers, print publications
- Physical advertising: billboards, posters, signs, TV ads, digital signage, radio
- Trade shows, local festivals, speaking engagements, networking events
- Touting your brand’s swag – making sure employees/influencers are promoting you with T-shirts, mugs, stickers, other goodies
- Remember! Word-of-mouth is 9x more effective than traditional advertising
Online Content Marketing
Digital marketing has opened up a whole new landscape for content marketers to communicate with their audiences.
Platforms like social media simply didn’t exist in the golden years of advertising.
As these new media forms have matured so too have the myriad of ways of using them to reach audiences and drive engagement to brands.
The Marketing Blog…
Content marketing on a blog is one of the most efficient ways to generate leads that translate into sales conversions. You see, an SEO optimized blog acts like a lead magnet.
As potential customers are searching for information, they come across your blog posts and if they are well written and informative, you seem like a trusted authority.
While relationship building with a marketing blog is not something that happens overnight, it is an investment strategy which will lead to long-term gains and increased revenues for your business.
Your marketing blog does not need to be comprised simply of articles. There is every reason to test and explore new media forms and see which combinations are the most effective for captivating your audience.
Information Guide or eBook…
Producing a well researched, entertaining and informative guide or eBook is one of the best ways to generate interest in your brand or business opportunity. Based on the same principals as a marketing blog, you can think of your guide as a longer format article which can act as a gateway into your sales funnel.
Many of the most successful brands use guides and ebooks to help build their email lists. In exchange for a customer’s email credentials, the customer receives a high-value piece of content which offers them strategic insight about a topic which they would like to learn more about.
A guide can also be a great way to generate passive income. While many guides are given away for free, some brands choose to monetize theirs. This can be a lucrative choice because the content that you produce once, can pay you for many years to come.
The more targeted and niche specific your guide is, the more likely people will be willing to pay for it. This is especially true if you focus on answering a question which does not have an answer readily available in the first page of a Google search.
As with all content marketing, when designing a guide, it is important to focus on producing something of high quality that actually offers your readers something tangible that they will value. Some of the most successful guides teach, inspire or explain in simple language very complex subjects.
Videos…
Did you know the human brain processes visual information in the form of pictures or videos 60,000 times faster than text alone?
Designing influential video content comes down to knowing your audience, showing them something they already want and selling an idea to them that benefits you by talking through any doubts and clearly positioning yourself.
Build trust, accountability and engagement by creating high value video content first and foremost. The more you have to say, the better you can define your ideas as adding value to your readers lives, the easier it will be to talk through any obstacles that could stand in the way.
Tell the story your audience wants to hear. Know your target audience and direct every element of your video content towards the kinds of results they are looking to achieve. Appeal, reveal and sell the deal: put your audience first, add value to their lives, create the atmosphere of a deal they simply can’t pass up on.
And don’t forget that even if you can’t afford a high quality, Hollywood style production, you can still make a huge impact by producing relevant self shot videos which frame you as the trusted expert. Believe it or not, these days, most audiences are more influenced by normal every day folks then they are by glossy celebrities and overly contrived marketing content that feels too advertising or sales focused.
Your videos will succeed when they feel genuine. Quality matters of course but don’t get discouraged if your videos have minor mistakes or shortcomings. These can actually help you to seem more approachable and human to your audience.
market sam……..
Social Media Integration…
When people in your target audience interact with your content in meaningful ways, the most special is when they share. This feature is what drives viral campaigns which spread like wildfire.
When you can generate social sharing in your audience, your brand, influence and reputation grows. When the first time people interact with your brand is due to a friend’s heartfelt social media post, you are well on your way towards converting another customer.
Sharing is the currency of social media and should be a target for any campaign. If you can improve your share rate, you will see dramatic increases in all metrics related to profit and brand reputation. When people champion your brand, you have basically won.
Instead of having to pay money for your brand message to be duplicated across the Internet, your customers do the legwork for you. When you can create a really exciting or engaging promotion that goes viral, you watch as all the heavy lifting is accomplished by your audience leaving you to rake in the earnings.
You might ask yourself how relevant a piece of content is to your audience, how much does it engage them, does it ask them questions or encourage them to get involved
The Magic of Words
Every day, no matter where you go or what you do, you are being influenced by the way you interact with WORDS.
The way you connect with others and the way your visual processing chooses to skim a line in the article or read the entire text are decisions and choices to the way you interact with the world of words contained within the languages we use on a daily basis.
Words have long been connected to the concept that speaking is an act of creation.
If you are a person who is motivated by making an impact on the world around you, then the words you use, might just be the most important area for you to consider on a daily basis!
Are you telling yourself successful stories, affirming what you already are or are you caught in negative loops of self-doubt?
Are you using words to influence people to make choices that are advantageous to you or are you turning them off to your ideas and way of thinking?
For example, words can have a positive effect to your readers or a negative effect….
- Positive, “I know I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.”
- Negative, “Today I will fail and there is nothing I can do about it!”
Master using words that your readers will understand.
Do you know what the word Nonplussed means? Some will but most will not. Nonplussed means; “bewildered” or “at a loss of what to think”. If your writing an article, instead of using nonplussed, why not use bewildered. Most people will understand what you are saying.
Another way is using words that speaks to your audience. Use the words and language that are used in that audience.
Doctors use words that other doctors or the medical profession understand. Accounts use different words in their profession. Visit with a lawyer and you will soon understand that they use words and language for that profession. Network marketers and affiliate have their own words that have meaning to their profession.
So when creating a blog article, use the words and language that your targeted audience will use and understand.
Mastering The Art of Influence
Marketing is the art of influence. Your content needs to be appealing for it to be influential.
It should add value, it should entertain, inform, educate about new possibilities and reflect the things that are meaningful to your target market. The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to affect their language and to speak to them in the form of well structured words that appeals to them.
As you design your content, it is important to choose topics that are relevant to your industry and the people you are trying to attract. Every piece of content you produce should be organized around fulfilling one of several key areas of interest.
These niches will allow you to focus your attention on various issues or areas of concern which will help you to connect with your target market.
You don’t need to accomplish everything with one email, blog post or piece of content. Write different emails, post and content but alway on the same subject.
When you have a clear purpose guiding you, it is easier to influence the people you are hoping to reach. In choosing themes that resonate with your audience and designing each piece of content with a clear purpose in mind, you set the stage for generating engagement.
People like reading and watching things that reflect the way they are, the things they aspire to and the lifestyle they occupy.
Your audience will gravitate towards content which is meaningful, adds value and helps them to see new opportunities.
Your marketing appeals will succeed and lead to conversions when they are seamlessly embedded within the context of material that your audience understands and feels strongly about.
Design the Perfect Content Marketing Blog
Perhaps you’ve heard “content is king”?
Designing high-value content that informs and excites your target market while speaking to their desires and solving their problems in their own emotional language is the key to creating marketing content that drives interest and leads to sales conversions.
When you create informative and engaging blog material, you lay the foundation for influencing behavior and building reputation.
Your audience does not feel like they are being sold to when content marketing is successful. Instead, they feel they are connecting with information that is useful to their lives, responds to their concerns and anticipates their needs.
The words you use should not be overly complex. Using simple, everyday words is the key to gaining the respect of your audience
When your audience trusts your editorial voice and respects your perspective, they look forward to the articles you write and the opportunities you present.
Like many other areas of business strategy, consistency is key. Design the content you create to always fulfill a clear anticipated need that fills a void in the hearts and minds of the audience you are seeking to reach.
Use words to appeal to both the human emotional side as well as the more mechanical logical one. If you are able to connect to your audience intellectually as well as emotionally, they will find your unique value propositions even more challenging to resist. It is very important to consider that there are many different types of people within the unique target markets you are hoping to reach.
Consider a content marketing strategy that is multifaceted. Not every article will reach every member of your target audience and that is just fine.
When you can anticipate and solve their problems, you are adding value and creating a purpose for your unique message in their lives. Your customers will be influenced to act when they feel you are offering something which feels right.
Every piece of content should have a purpose which is guided by the desires of the people you are hoping to reach.
One of the best ways to achieve this is by focusing extensively on SEO.
While search engine optimization might not be practiced in the same way as it was in the web 1.0 you may have accessed from your first smart mobile device, it certainly hasn’t gone away.
One of the best ways to achieve this is by ensuring your content marketing aligns with your SEO strategy!
The Final Word on Content Marketing
Remember, content marketing can take time to get right. Constantly measuring and refining your results will generate success. There is no one, single way to the top.
Every brand will need to define it’s content marketing strategy in accordance with its target market, unique value proposition and expertise. If you are struggling to master one method of content marketing strategy, consider outsourcing that element of your marketing or simply focus on what you can do well.
What matters is communicating with your target market in a meaningful way, it does not matter what channels or methods you employ to generate engagement.
To conclude, here are the most important things to remember as you design your brand’s approach to content marketing:
- Create high-value content that your audience can’t help but want to share.
- Create something original even if that just means putting your own unique spin on a topic which has been covered many times before.
- Personalize the user experience as much as you possibly can.
- Tell a story that your audience can relate to and be inspired by.
- Design your content to work across many different channels and mediums.
- Teach your audience how to do things better.
- Work to mirror the unique emotional language of your target audience.
- Constantly test and refine your approaches.
- Be willing to explore new ways of packaging old content.
- When all else fails, look to the leaders in your industry and don’t be afraid to adopt strategies and make them your own.
Here’s to your success,
About the Author
Bill
Bill Fletcher is a long time marketer and coach. My goal is to help anyone who is interested in building a business through a systematic approach to success. Affiliate Marketing 100 will guide you with the help of some of the best articles and coaching program available anywhere. We train you in all categories of business building and success management.
