If you have been looking for tips and tricks to help you market your business on the internet, you must have come across websites offering content marketing services, guides etc.
Introduction – What is Content Marketing?
Introduction – What is Content Marketing?
This essential task involves creation and distribution of free, sharable content in order to draw the target audience to an online business. Thereafter, convert this audience into customers. Additionally, this sharable content should build brand loyalty so that first time customers always come back to the online store.
Content marketing penetrates the barriers of advertising easily. The content used must relate to the business in question because the intention is to tell the audience about a company, what the company is offering and why the audience should choose those products and services.
Why content marketing?
For any customer, the first step towards buying something is awareness. Once the customer knows there is a need, he/she conducts research to find a suitable product or service. When a number of options are provided, the customer has to make a decision through comparison. This process ends when the customer makes a purchase.
With content marketing, you will have control over the first two stages of the purchase process by creating awareness and informing the client how your product can satisfy the need.
It is a fact that people are looking for information and they do not want to be bogged down by repetitive, boring advertisements. Content marketing will help you reach a specific audience, with informative content that they will want to share with friends and family. It is an effective method of online marketing that takes you to prospective buyers. In essence, get more for less.
Popular types of Content
New types of content come up daily as marketers search for the most effective methods. However, some types have worked for the longest time and they include:
Infographics – The best infographics contain a statistical representation of information through graphs, pictures, vectors etc. There are numerous sharing platforms that can push your infographic to the target audience.
Podcasts – If you have a unique message, turn it into a podcast. There are millions of daily downloads, and many more listen to podcasts online. When the audience trusts your brand by listening to informative podcasts, you can easily convert them to clients.
Videos – Until recently, videos were virgin territory for some marketers. Other marketers thought it was too wild to tame because of the millions of crazy amateur videos often online. Now, the internet is seen as the best place to share viral content that can generate millions of views. The production costs have reduced drastically, and editing platforms are online.
Books – Never overlook the fact that internet users search for information in all places. With self-publishing, a marketer can easily create shareable content and sell e-book guides and self-help books.
Webpages / power pages (guide) – You may have a very appealing website, but it is not a content marketing platform. Therefore, create web pages that specifically push shareable content that relates to your products.
Free Webinar – Organize a seminar for your target audience online. This is called a webinar. More companies are adopting webinars because they bring the sellers and potential buyers together.
2 Things to Think About in Content Marketing
Use Competitive Intelligence to Choose Topics
Gather and analyze data for the specific topics to know what is trending, what competitors are doing and what your audience is looking for. There are so many analysis tools online that can do a lot for you, even searching for striking headlines for your content marketing campaigns.
Don’t Over-Optimize
Over optimization does not necessarily mean you have stuffed too many keywords in your content. The content generated, the links, the anchor texts etc. must be natural and seamlessly connected so that everything appears as a whole.
If you want to link to an expert/relevant website, ensure it is a high-quality website. This penalty-attracting technique also refers to the kind of content you are offering your audience.
Overall, since content marketing is all about ‘valuable and relevant’ content, you have to consistently show that there is a need for an internet user to stop everything else and read what you have shared. The content must have substantial importance, it must be in-depth not shallow, and it should be original content.
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