What is the true goal of content marketing and what does it entail? What methods do you use to invest hours of your time working on lengthy blog posts to create revenue for your business? In this post, I will explain the incredible benefit of putting your energy and resources into content marketing and how it can assist in the expansion of your company.
There has been a lot of discussion about the concept of content marketing within the online marketing community over the past ten years. But what do we mean by it?
Essentially, content marketing involves creating and distributing digital content that will increase your website visits via organic search engines such as Google, Bing, etc.
The significance of this from a business standpoint is straightforward arithmetic. If your website receives more visits, the amount of potential customers will also increase, this should eventually result in an increase of profits and income.
Content marketing has become more and more important due to the higher value that organic search presents to a business when compared to other methods of getting customers, such as social media, email marketing, paid search, and referrals.
The objective of any contemporary digital marketer is to achieve high rankings on Google and facilitate a consistent level of customer acquisition and business expansion.
Regrettably, nothing is straightforward, and content marketing is the same.
Gaining your rankings in search engines won’t happen overnight; it takes time and hard work. You must also continue to do the necessary tasks to keep your standings such as website enhancing and link generation. But, it’s worth it!
Why Should Your Small Business Do Content Marketing?
By providing helpful and current information, your company can become a respected authority in its field, raising public awareness and creating confidence, admiration, and commitment from customers.
Content marketing enables you to recognize the issues that are bothersome to your customers and indicate how your products can help to address those difficulties. This can lead directly to sales.
A perpetual advantage of content marketing is any content that remains relevant over time. This is in reference to belongings that remain up to date, such as blog articles about the background of your field or an infographic about how to finish a procedure that won’t fluctuate.
Content marketing can be incredibly useful when you create materials that can be employed in several ways including in multiple channels and advertising initiatives. You could illustrate your blog post on the needs of a certain community through making a YouTube video and then use it in the blog post. You can connect the post and/or video to your social media accounts. This can assist in streamlining your current resources, making sure that you are established as an expert in your area of work.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Often times when I talk to folks about content marketing, they tend to neglect the most fundamental step – figuring out who your target audience is.
Lots of businesses are tempted to bypass this process and jump right in – don’t do it!
Not including this step is similar to making a decision to serve steak at a vegetarian restaurant – it simply doesn’t make sense.
Discovering who your intended audience is should always be the basis of any advertising campaign, particularly content marketing.
In this case, creating customer personas should be the priority.
If you have not already done it, you can understand both your website’s numerical information (like Google Analytics) and qualitative information (e.g. opinions, polls, etc) to get it finished.
By combining these two data sources, it is possible to construct an image of who your customers are in a short period of time. This should include the following:
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- Motivations
- Site Behaviour
- Purchase Propensity
- Average Order Value
- Lifetime Customer Value
This activity alone is enough to do in preparation for outlining what content you will create. Make sure to do it first.
Customer personas should be created in order to create content that’s practical, relevant and of value to customers. This can also serve to assist you in determining the adequate writing attitude and creating a more successful and pertinent business persona so that your material can have the most effect.
Once you have reached this conclusion, you should be sure that vegans have no desire for beef steak.
2. Carry Out Keyword Research
Once you understand the people you’re targeting, it’s essential to figure out what substance you should be providing them with that can be beneficial to your company.
This is done by conducting and analysing keyword research.
What is keyword research?
This is mainly an examination of the different kinds of words and subjects people search for.
If you don’t work hard to come up with creative ideas and possibilities for the vegan restaurant, all of the food options will be dull and uninspiring.
Brainstorm ideas for content that would be appropriate and beneficial to the customer personas you identified.
Why am I talking about the terms “relevant” and “useful”?
To achieve any kind of success with content marketing, it is essential that it both resonates with and leaves an impression on your desired audience.
For example, if the material you offer them is of no use or is not pertinent, why should they become your patrons?
When you are done devising ideas for content, you will need to look for the relevant words and phrases connected to these concepts that your customers are checking for.
The two main tools I suggest using for this are the following:
- Free Tool – Google Keyword Planner
- Premium Tool – SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool
Why use both?
In essence, it assists you in discovering data that is more meaningful in relation to what people are looking for – I always think two sources of knowledge is preferable than just one.
To use these tools, merely add the ideas you’ve thought of to each one respectively, then merge the info to examine the outcomes.
The things you need to look out for are the following:
- Keyword Volume – what is the average monthly search volume?
- Trend – is the keyword consistently searched for, on the rise or the decline?
- Competition (‘KD %’ in SEMrush)– how likely you will be able to rank for this keyword with your content?
At first, this may appear overwhelming, but when you have combined the lists you pulled from both of the tools, it will be easy to see which keyword suggestions are the most advantageous.
A lot of this is common sense.
As an example, it is best to search for keywords which are less difficult to rank in favour of if you are a website that is just beginning and increasing its domain authority.
You should put your attention towards content that will get plenty of users looking for it, which will steer a great deal of visitors to your webpage. It is not worthwhile to utilize time generating content that will only lead to minimal traffic increases.
This task may be a strain at first, but I assure you that the time you spend on it will pay off in the future.
You should not give excessive attention to using particular keywords exactly as written, as this is not a long-term approach.
Why?
You should aim for general subject areas you have discovered from your keyword search, and then employ the keywords to subdivide it into numerous components.
This will give you the opportunity to reach a larger audience with the material you create while being particular in the segments of your article.
This is extremely useful for boosting your position in a variety of search terms and creating content that is especially tailored for your intended customers.
SEMrush offers a Content Marketing package tailored to discussing and organizing content in a particular manner.
This function will search the internet for the most applicable information for your topic and compile it so you can have the best chance of gaining a high rank in your material.
Look at this with a degree of skepticism, as it is frequent for many recommendations it searches for and indicates to be completely off base!
3. Start an Email Newsletter
Sending out email newsletters is a great method for small businesses to get started in email marketing. Your readers are notified about new items, upcoming events, industry-related news, as well as any other relevant business occurrences.
For every dollar invested in email marketing, you can anticipate a gain of around forty-two dollars on average. This type of marketing has had a significantly high return on investment. Using email marketing is a great idea for companies that are small in size. In addition to sheer ROI, email newsletters can help small businesses:
- build goodwill with your audience
- promote sales, deals, and coupons
- increase customer value
4. Create Content Corresponding to a Basic Customer Sales Funnel
It is essential to discover the authorization that will fulfill your customer’s desires in order to get them to buy something.
By utilizing a fundamental consumer sales funnel and a suitable content plan, you can find out in which part of the funnel your client is at the moment and supply them with material that addresses that point.
The path people take to get to the final stage of conversion is referred to as a marketing funnel. Every step of the process, from the first time someone encounters your brand to when they make a purchase, is part of the funnel. Most marketing funnels have four steps:
- Attention: a would-be consumer sees your ad, social media post, or learns about you through word-of-mouth
- Interest:Â consumer wants to learn more
- Desire:Â consumer wants to convert
- Action:Â consumer acts (buying your item, subscribing to your email newsletter, etc).Â
Be sure that the content you create is tailored to the different stages of the funnel for the four-tier method to fit in with your content production. An example would be not to give a potential customer too much content when they are just starting to take notice.
5. Build a Content Calendar
It is essential to take the time and perform the necessary research to determine your target buyers and to present them with the ideal content at each stage of their decision-making process. However, it is just as important to keep furnishing applicable content in a prompt manner.
Rather than having to hastily make content as situations unfold, design monthly schedules that encompass social media posts, blog entries, emails, and any other type of content you want to construct for that period.
This tactic not only helps you stay orderly, but it also gives your audience the opportunity to accustom themselves to the timetable of material that you put out and to build dependable ties and a strong relationship with your brand.
6. Create a Variety of Content Types
In a highly competitive environment, it is essential to make yourself noticeable in any way possible. A content marketing strategy is an effective tool for helping a small business to reach its goals.
Take a thorough look into both the content that you already possess as well as what your rivals have created. See what is resonating with audiences and what isn’t. Once you have proved that your content is effective, it is time to attempt to replicate that accomplishment with subsequent material.
Then it’s time to get creative. Don’t be limited by what already exists. Revise your most recent blog post and create an infographic out of it. Take your infographic and turn it into a whitepaper. Transform your white paper into a collection of social tiles that are focused on quotes.
The content creation possibilities are limitless.
7. Mine Customer Reviews and Testimonials
Nearly all local shoppers utilize the Internet, such as reading reviews, when trying to locate local services. For a small, local business, the reviews they receive are a key factor in their success.
Utilize those reviews to the best of your ability by sharing them on social media or featuring them on your website and blog.
By obtaining the most attractive quotes and assigning a person who said it, you make the review much more intimate, producing a consumer-created commercial that speaks for itself.
8. Build a Social Media Presence on the Social Channels Your Audience Uses
If you’re involved in peddling a good or service, chances are you have at least some presence on a social media platform.
Unfortunately, simply being present isn’t enough. It is important to stay engaged on any sites or apps that your viewership is on.
Which social media channels from the wide selection available would be most suitable for your brand?
Prior to posting anywhere, it is important to identify who your intended readers are. When using social media, the communication is not meant for everyone, instead it is aimed at those with particular tastes and preferences. Once you have identified the group you are attempting to communicate with, you must decide on the best way to get through to them.
There are multiple methods you can use to identify where your target audience is located.
- Aggregate all existing consumer data to see where your audience is spending their online time.
- Visit your competitors’ social profiles to see where they have the most active users
- Use tools like Google Analytics to determine consumer online behavior.
If you want to identify the web locations that your target audience hangs out and start providing content to them on those sites, you can take these three steps.
Conclusion
Content Marketing is an extremely successful method to expand your company.
If you abide by the instructions in this blog and persistently devote your time, you will certainly reap the benefits in the end.
Be sure to only create content that is of significance to your audience and strive to consistently generate more and more outstanding pieces.
Your audience’s satisfaction with your content’s relevance and usefulness will be appreciated by Google. Tossing out frequent lures to attract potential customers is a guaranteed method of constructing a solid and dependable marketing pipeline.
Therefore, for modern companies to create value, content marketing is essential.
