Content Marketing
Photo by Judit Peter
Create content to attract customers before you launch your MVP
By Robin Anderson
Many startups believe that marketing is simply creating and posting content on social media. They believe that such postings will be enough to attract followers, who will then eventually become customers.
If it were this easy, everyone would be wildly successful.
How does marketing through content REALLY work?
Content. Create it, then market it. Content is the foundation for all your marketing efforts.
What is content marketing?
The basis of content marketing is having quality content. It’s a long-term strategy that focuses on building a strong relationship with your target audience. You do this by providing content of value on a regular basis. The content you create will be used for all your marketing efforts - from blogs, social media, advertising and more.
The business benefits of integrating content marketing strategies include:
Content marketing delivers 3X as many leads as other marketing channels
Content marketing costs 62% less than other marketing channels
Content marketers who blog are 13X more likely to see positive ROI
The content you create is mainly written or visual information not focused on the product directly, but all the experiences around it. It can be in digital or print newsletters, blogs, articles, social posts, video, speech or any other publications or productions that include topics your audience is particularly interested in related to your service or product.
Every marketing tactic you plan will be based upon the content you create. Content is necessary for every stage of your buyer’s journey. From awareness and consideration, to conversion. Your content needs to align with your persona and where they are at within each stage of buying. The point is to provide value to those who would be most interested in what you have to offer. Think of it as sharing what they want to see when they are ready to see it.
Content can be created in the form of sharing tips, benefits, or even solutions to the problems they are encountering within the realm of what you have to offer. This type of content is helpful which will eventually drive an interested viewer into becoming a customer.
Here are a few customer benefits of content marketing
Increase awareness - When customers enter the awareness stage of buying, they are looking for information. Sharing the basics, such as “what to look for in a new vacuum” will help direct them to you when they are ready for more details.
Earn loyalty and trust - Providing content that shares solutions to customers problems without being salesy, builds trust and loyalty.
Gain credibility - Creating a positive experience helps to strengthen your relationship with your audience which will help build your reputation.
Drives traffic - When sharing something of value, give your visitors a chance to sign up for a newsletter or download a competitive comparison. Great way to drive lead generation.
Connect with customers - Allow visitors to share their questions, and experiences with you as you begin to engage with them. Turn those questions and experiences into content to help others.
Content Strategy
Before you start writing, begin this process by defining your content strategy. You may ask ‘Why do I need a content strategy?” Putting content out there haphazardly is like throwing spaghetti at the wall. While there is a chance it might stick, more often than not it will fall onto the floor. It’s a waste of time and money, and it confuses your target. Having a strategy will help focus your content and target your efforts.
How to determine your content strategy
Start with your goals. For example, generate leads. Your goals will set the direction for your content.
Type of content. Educational? Inspirational? Entertaining? Your content can be all of the above. What is important is creating content to meet the needs of your customers.
Set metrics. In order to measure how well your content is performing, it’s important to track views, downloads, shares, and leads captured as a result of the content.
When you write content for everyone, you are writing content for no one. Therefore, to make the most of your limited time and budget, focus your content on those who need it the most - your target audience. Know your persona(s) and their biggest challenge so that you can provide solutions through your content.
The Buyer’s Journey
Next, understand your buyer’s journey. This is the process or path your buyers go through when making a purchase of your product.
What is The Buyer’s Journey?
The buyer's journey can be broken down into three steps or "stages" that describe how they advance along their path to purchase: the awareness stage, the consideration stage, and the decision stage.
This information will help you to understand the focus of what you will need to deliver to your audience given where they are at in the buying process. It will also help you to determine the purpose of your content. Is it to share information for the purpose of educating your audience - then a blog post is the answer? Is it to get them to try? If they are early in the journey, in the Awareness stage, share content that is educational.
For those in the consideration stage, this is where a comparison chart can be helpful.
And finally, for those who are ready to make a decision, this is a great place to offer a trial, a case study, or competitive comparison chart they can download.
As you prepare to write, take the following best practices of content creation into consideration:
Needs to be appropriate for where the customer is in the process of buying
Needs to resonate with the customer and the problem they are trying to solve
Needs to be in the form they are interested in consuming
Needs to educate rather than be salesy
The format of your content can be a video, infographic, webinar, case study, white paper, ebook and more. For GenZ, video is key. Essentially, use the format that will resonate most with your audience.
Now, what do you write about? Your content should provide answers to your target audiences’ questions. To help determine the focus of your content, identify the topic/solution/problem. For example “Earn your degree in as little as 2 years while keeping your job.”
To help you add structure to your writing, consider using a Content Creation Plan:
What you’re going to write about
Who you’re writing it for
Why you’re writing it
What structure that content will take
What format that content will take
And while time is money, and you are short of both, other ways to generate content include
Repurposing content that you have already created - determine the intent of the content, what needs to be revised, removed, or re-worded, what can you add to make it have more value including what is new
Curating content with trust sources that have already written about a particular topic, make sure to add your two-cents on the piece when sharing
User-generated content - your community may have a number of helpful tips that can be combined into one or two great blog posts.
Your industry and your target audience will help determine the types of content to create that will have the most impact. That may include how-to guides, social media polls, industry news, product comparisons, summary of curated content, videos and more.
You have your strategy, and have defined the type and format of content you are going to create, what’s next? Organize all of this in an editorial or content calendar. The purpose of an editorial calendar is to help plan what you are going to write, when you are going to post and share it, and the metrics you are tracking.
Creating content is the driving force for reaching and engaging your audience. Sharing solutions to your persona’s problems will generate loyal fans who are likely to become brand ambassadors for your company. Content marketing is the most cost-effective marketing strategy available. And while it may be more than you had anticipated, building your customer base takes time. So don’t delay, get started today!
Need help getting started building your content marketing program? Contact us for help today!
FunFact Friday
In 1994, student Justin Hall published his writing on Links.net, known as the first blog according to most experts. His writing included a brief post with links to other websites. This led others to share their thoughts and write about their lives online. At the time, “blog” wasn’t a term, instead, this type of writing was considered to be a personal homepage. The term “weblog” was coined in 1997 by Jorn Barger. And in 1999, the term was shortened to “blog” by Peter Merholz.