What does content marketing actually mean, and how can you use it to benefit your business? In this article, you’ll learn 3 foundational content marketing tips to make the most of your content efforts.
The term “content” might seem general or vague. And that’s because it is! Content marketing is an umbrella term for any marketing-related online communications you do for your business. Examples are blog articles, social media posts, emails, podcasts and so on.
Instead of interrupting people with commercials, online marketers use content to inform or even entertain prospects and customers. Additionally, strategic, high-quality content can help form relationships with prospects and lead them to do business with you.
3 Content Marketing Tips
So now let’s review 3 simple tips to use content marketing to boost your business. For best results, be sure to check each of these off your list, each time you create a new piece of content.
Give Them What They Want
First, it’s important to consider what information your customers want, related to your business. Think about how they talk about what you do. If you offer a specialized service, they probably don’t use the same lingo as your industry. So consider what questions they have, and the search terms they use, when looking for information online. These are clues to topics you should cover in your content. This also reveals the keyword phrases you can use to get your business found by your target audience in online searches.
Inform, Don’t Sell
Secondly, it’s important to use your content to inform — NOT to blatantly sell. In a report by The Economist & The Intelligence Unit and Peppercomm, 530 executives worldwide were surveyed. The goal was to learn what kinds of content, from other businesses, made a great impression or turned them off completely. Not surprisingly, 71% of them were repulsed when they felt like they were getting more of a sales pitch than actual helpful information within a piece of content. So instead of talking about how great your business is, give helpful information that your customers can actually use. The more helpful your content is, the more it will get shared, referred back to and widen your potential customer base.
Match Content to Sales Goals
As a final rule of thumb, be sure to tie content to your specific marketing and sales goals. As an example, let’s say you have a day spa and a goal to sell more massage packages. You might develop a series of blog articles about the benefits of massage. Different types of massage, and their benefits, could be presented in in one article each. Within these blog posts, you might address any objections or common questions customers often have before making a buying decision. And, finally, you would include a call to action, with a link, to book a massage.
What to do now
Now that you have a primer to use content marketing for your business, take a deeper dive and learn How to Write Great Blog Posts (That Win Business). Throw out everything you learned in high school and college English classes. This is entirely different.
