The How, What and Why of Content Marketing

When was the last time you heard someone talk about the benefits of content marketing? In this digital age, we hear of so many small business owners who took their business to another level with content marketing.

For the uninitiated, it might sound like a hi-fi industry jargon.

But content marketing, in simple words, is all about story telling.

We have been telling stories since we could speak. And as far as stories are concerned, no one really likes a bad one, right?

When it comes to selling your product, it is very important that you tell a good story. Your story should be interesting enough for the reader to not just read it, but also take the action you want them to.

Whether you are writing copy for your website or other marketing mediums, that’s what you need to focus on.

How do you write copy that sells?

Marketing copywriting is serious business. It isn’t for no reason that people hire experienced copywriters to write copy that sells. People have spent years researching about what works and what doesn’t.

The storybrand framework by Donald Miller, is one of the most effective ways of writing copy.

Fig: JacknSteve, a moving company used the Storybrand framework for writing the website copy.

Not just writing copy for your website. But the story brand formula should be used when writing anything intended for marketing. After all, there’s more to content marketing than an appealing website.

When designing a content marketing strategy, you need to focus on different formats and channels.

If you’re looking at content and inbound marketing for leads, we’ve listed out the things that work best.

1. Blog your way to digital marketing success

So many business owners believe that blogging is all there is to content marketing. But that’s just not true.

Publishing written content on the internet for a website is called blogging. However, for blogging to be effective, it needs to be part of a wider integrated process.

Blogging helps you share useful information about your product and the industry with your customers. It is also a great way to keep your customers coming back to your website after they’ve bought from you.

If customers like what they see on your website, it certainly increases the chances of them recommending you to their friends.

2. Capture leads with informational eBooks

The main strength of an eBook is that it can be downloaded and viewed offline. eBooks are also simpler to share and save for reading later.

While blogs are a great way to educate the customer about a problem or your brand, eBooks are best to give them more information about a topic.

Since eBooks are downloadable, it is also gives you an opportunity to build an email marketing list.

3. Catch your audiences’ attention with videos

Experts believe that videos are the most engaging type of content. 70% marketers said that they saw better conversions from videos than any other medium.

To ensure your marketing efforts yield better results, videos should certainly be part of it.

4. Keep in touch with your customers through personalised emails 

Email marketing can be a huge contribution to your business. Email marketing and content marketing are buddies.

Subscribers are a huge part of building your business. It is debatable whether an email is the best or at least one of the best channels of distribution you can use.

Surveys say that 93% of B2B marketers respond to emails. This should give you an idea of how important email marketing is.

Speaking of email marketing, newsletters are pretty important too. Researchers say that 77% of the e-mail marketers are using newsletters. Newsletters are actually among the top five tactics that companies use to increase marketing results.

The key is to focus on the quality of your content.

5. Interact with customers and prospects on social media 

Everyone is on social media. Every other person you meet. And every brand you know of. At a time like this, it is only foolish for a brand to not use social media as a marketing medium.

But simply creating a brand page on social media isn’t what social media marketing is about. You need to build a persona that people would be interested in interacting with.

On social media, you need to focus on solving the customers problems, creating interactive and engaging content and targeting the right audience.

Fig: Hilton-Shillim, a wellness retreat, used social media marketing to get targeted leads.

If you’re looking for a FREE social media audit for your brand, we can help you.

Once you understand what content marketing is, and what actually works for you, your online conversions are sure to skyrocket.

What business owners also need to understand is that content marketing requires a lot of time and effort. It isn’t something someone inexperienced can handle alongside their job. Which is why, it is best to hire a content marketing agency. One that’s focused on delivering results and knows what’s best for your business.

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