Content Marketing is a way for you to find your tribe, earn their trust, enlighten them and over some time, turn them into your brand advocates.
It is proven! There is no denying that this works, but if you are looking for shortcuts to get noticed, this is not it! It is a marathon, and it takes consistent review and engagement with your audience to set up a system that will actively promote your service or product even when you are not in the room. Isn’t that the goal? Getting your business to a point where the word-of-mouth takes over, allowing you to focus “on the business” and not be caught up “in the business.”
Content Marketing acts as a funnel. You produce “stuff” (this can be video, articles, micro blog posts, pictures, anything really) with a value-add to someone and provide an option into your solution. You repeat this process and gradually move the prospective client from being a foreigner to a client, and from a client to a fan. If you repeat this long enough, your clients will eventually become your brand advocates and hopefully superfans!
What makes up the “Content” part of content marketing?
Text: Blogs, newsletters, memo’s, articles.
Videos: How-to videos, webinars, client profiles, testimonials, brand films, interviews, product demo’s.
Recording: Podcasts, interviews, testimonials, case studies, product demo’s.
Photo’s: Stories, quotes, how-to’s, instructional imagery, teams, company culture, goals, celebrations, operations.
You can decide how you want this offering to stack up.
That is a trick question! There is no point where you will “have the content” because content models require you to always create value for your audience. There is no finish line – ever. Although your content production will ebb and flow, the right mindset is to have it as a part of your communication culture. A culture that puts the emphasis on the customer.
The challenge is to find ways to present your breadcrumbs (content) to new audiences with a problem. A problem that you can solve. The more content you’ll have on offer, the easier it will be for a potential client to see that you are a credible source of knowledge when it comes to this particular problem. The entire focus of your content marketing strategy should focus on this: Solve someone’s problem, and establish yourself as the one who is the go-to girl for that problem. The book by Seth Godin This is Marketing is a must-have if you want to dive deeper into this. (We will list this title along with others below.)
When your marketing is about your brand, it is not content marketing.
When your communication is about your audience’s problem, that is content marketing!
Please share this with someone.
Yes! Content marketing is a smart way of decoding your audience’s problem and establishing yourself as a leader in your field.
Let’s see how this article could be “mined” to produce some content for content marketing purposes.
Make sure your agency/designer is on board with your vision and mesh the content with your brand’s touchpoints as much as you can, and as often as you can.
If you would like to read other books we found useful on the topic, you can check out our blog on these titles:
Creative Director
John-Henry is the founder and owner of The Media Farm and has been creating television, films, music and digital content for more than 15 years.