7 Steps To Content Marketing Glory
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So you have finally decided to give “content marketing” a try or at least entertain the notion that it might work. Great, but you have been warned, it is not for the lazy, fearful or timid. This type of marketing requires dedication and a bit of bravado. Think you have what it takes? Read on at your own success.
Top marketers have been using content marketing to produce qualified leads because customers are crying out for anything other than another salesy advertisement, interruptive TV commercial or computer crashing spam email. Face it, your customers buying behavior has changed. They research online, compare prices, vet sellers and make an educated decision before they buy. The content the buyers are reading is coming from one of two places, your competitors or you.
Below are the 7 ways to use content marketing to help you sell more and become a thought leader. This is the nitty gritty on what it is going to take to get your product/service in front of the right people – your target market.
- Educate – There is something right now about your business or industry that your customers don’t know about. They crave that knowledge and you are the ONLY company that can give it to them. Well, maybe not the only company, but that should be your mentality. Educate them, and they will come. Warning – this is NOT a sales pitch. Earn their trust and your product will sell itself.
- Create Constantly – You need to be creating content as fast as your coffee drunk head can conjure up the goods. There is really no limit to how much you can create as long as it’s quality work. According to Hubspot, companies posting at least 3 times a week upwards to several times a day have showed a significant increase in customer conversions. Warning – Quantity does NOT rule this school. Quality is the Ferris Bueller of Inbound Marketing.
- Diversify it – Do you have just one type of customer? No. So don’t commit to one channel to deliver your content. Embrace the use of social media, emails, blogs, whitepapers, videos, webinars and presentations. The more avenues you take, the more potential clients you can reach. So cast your net and leave the fishing pole at home.
- Link it – All that hard work and now your readers want to know where they can learn more about your company and how you can help them reach their goals. This is your opportunity to take a bow, don’t sleep on it. Your company deserves the credit so make sure you create a link back to your website (hopefully a landing page). You want to educate, but more importantly you want their business.
- Land it – Creating a landing page may seem like an unnecessary extra step, but rest assured it will affect the success of your efforts. You have spent precious time creating this content and it deserves its own landing page. Not only does this allow you to capture emails for future marketing efforts but it also enables you to track the success of each piece of content.
- Track It – Every other aspect of your business hinges on performance. From employees to machinery. If something under-performs then adjustments must be made. This is no different for your marketing efforts. If you realize certain content is faltering then call in the relief pitcher, don’t keep throwing balls when you have a great closer in the bullpen. Maximize your efforts by tracking and analyzing the progress. Warning – Neglecting this is equivalent to driving in the dark sans headlights.
- Share it – Remember that college intern you brought in to set-up all your social media sites? Their time was not wasted, nor was yours. Having a social media presence is essential in helping circulate your content and also receiving feedback. Social signals i.e., likes, re-tweets and comments help generate off-site SEO ranking and are soon to be just as relevant as back-links.
Oh and a bonus #8 – Enjoy it – Get excited about your content! Not every business out there is utilizing these PROVEN tactics, and the fact that you have read this article shows you are ahead of the curve and ready to take your SMART marketing campaign to the next level.
Hungry for more SMART marketing tactics? Contact us for a free 30-minute consultation on ways you can take your marketing efforts to the lead generation next level.
February 28, 2017
