Your Guide to Content Marketing
Content marketing is often used in tandem with other marketing methods. The goal of content marketing is to help move your buyers along their buying journey as quickly as possible by providing information, answering any questions and creating a level of trust at just the right times.
Content marketing relies on you knowing your customer inside out (check out our guide to this here) and then creating, publishing and distributing blogs, vlogs, newsletters, podcasts, webinars, e-books, articles etc across the platforms that your customers and potential customers spend their time browsing.
To ensure that your content is planned, doesn’t appear haphazard, and that it is regular (people give up going to sites when content just stops!) we recommend that you create a content plan and schedule what content is delivered where and when. We’ve created a content plan template for you to adapt and use to help you shape your content.
To ensure that your content is read, it needs to be engaging. It has to create an emotion that moves people from a position of vague interest to one of ‘must have’.
- The best way to do this is through storytelling and as with all stories they must be authentic, powerful and are at their best when delivered in a place and at a time when the audience is settled and ready to listen.
- It should also be simple, memorable, inviting to look at and fun to read
- It must be consistent, authentic and reflect your identity
Although tempting to use the same piece of content on all channels, your main thread of the story should ideally be tailored specifically for the platform you’ll be posting it on as the different platforms serve different purposes.
is the best place to tell stories and build on these stories. It works well for text, video, images, case studies and more. It is great for building communities of people around who the stories resonate with.
is the best place to listen and respond – both to what people might be saying about your business, but also to other news and opinions that could be exploited with a comment relevant to your knowledge / expertise / product / service.
is all about the image. If you’ve refurbed your property and you’ve some particularly quirky objet d’art this is where you’ll share the image with a compelling one liner to pique interest – ideally hyperlinked back to your website
is the best place to tell short visual stories. They need to be beautiful, short and engaging – enough for you to be able to get people to click on your bio and then link to your site.
is where you show up for the business and professional community. It’s equally important for other businesses and the workforce to know what you stand for; the products and services you offer, and the business partners you work with. It’s a great place to showcase you as an employer and you as a contributor to the local economy.
TikTok
allows your personality to come through. It’s a great place to showcase funny things that have happened; showcase your team at work in short ‘off the cuff’ videos.