You can’t learn about marketing these days without hearing the word “content marketing” being thrown around quite a bit.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is most simply be defined as creating informational, educational, or entertaining media – without directly promoting your business (but ultimately leading to a sale).
This can come in the form of articles, blogs, infographics, video, podcasts and even complete books.
Content marketing is NOT a direct way to earn a direct sale.
But rather, content marketing helps you pave a path for your potential ideal customers to know who you are, like what you do, and trust you as a resource.
Once you nail those three components, the likelihood of someone purchasing goes through the roof.
What’s the point?
Now, you might be thinking “Why would a business spend time and money creating content that does not directly lead to a sale?”.
The exact answer to that question is going to vary greatly, depending on the kind of business we’re talking about.
But generally speaking, the purpose of content marketing is to attract a group of people with specific traits that align with your ideal custom avatar.
These days, this attraction occurs primarily by the potential customer searching for answers to something related to what your business solves.
For example, you’re reading a blog post right now on my website – this is content marketing in the form of educational information.
Content marketing has also made its way into traditional television and print advertising in the form of story. Have you ever watched a commercial that told a short happy story, then flashed a logo at the end? Content marketing.
You can also use content marketing to generate attention on social media and/or news platforms. For example, let’s say you run a car dealership.
Your ideal customer is almost anybody in town.
And what’s the best way to appeal to the mass-population?
Entertainment.
Post a live video of the owner jumping into a frozen lake, or some other absurd or funny thing – people will jump on to watch and share by the thousands.
BONUS: A bunch of well written blogs will pay you pack in multiples over time. The benefits are almost limitless.
Who can benefit from content marketing?
Every business on the face of this planet can benefit from a strategic content marketing plan.
That’s because all humans are attracted to either entertainment or information to solve their problem.
How can I get this rolling for my business?
You can’t just start writing stuff and shooting videos tomorrow.
You need two things first:
- You need a strategy to create specific content that either directly or indirectly tends to your audience’s needs. This gets them in your circle.
- And you also need a content calendar to help prepare and plan out your strategy over a number of months. One of the BIGGEST complaints with content marketing is running out of ideas. A solid calendar will help prevent this.
Content marketing is all about getting eyeballs on your business. It’s the first step in generating leads or a pool of potential customers in your circle. Any business can benefit from content marketing, that is, as long as there’s a good strategy in place for the type of content to create, and a content calendar to keep everything on track.
