Why you need a content marketing plan NOW:
Content marketing has taken the traditional marketing world by storm. More and more businesses are coming to terms with the undeniable ROI of brand journalism and thought leadership within the industry. They understand that consumerism has evolved, and that people don’t want advertising when they are making a purchasing decision; but, rather, sophisticated and valuable information. People want to be educated.
What exactly is content marketing?
According to Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
The purpose of content marketing is to attract and retain customers. Valuable content leads to valuable consumers, which really, doesn’t everyone want? Keeping this in mind, your content should inspire your audience’s action, not demand it.
How do I get started?
Instilling a content marketing plan requires diligence. Sporadic blog postings throughout the year is not an efficient enough strategy. You will need to put genuine thought into your efforts and real research for the best results.
Not sure what to write about? Go to the source – ask your audience! Reach out to your customers, and ask them directly what they need help with. Driving inspiration from those you wish to inform will create real-time relevance, as well as trust in your brand. Striving to be helpful, instead of promotional goes a long way.
Lastly, when carrying out your content marketing plan, don’t forget to incorporate all aspects of your marketing. Google ranks good, quality content higher, so utilize SEO best practices. Additionally, remember to promote on all social channels. When content spreads on social networks like Twitter and Youtube, powerful word-of-mouth exposure will generate, resulting in higher levels of traffic to your site.
Follow Nicole: @WTWH_Nicole
Don’t forget the Marketing Lab: @WTWH_Marketing
Excellent post, Nicole. Blogging is a discipline, both in terms of regularity and quality. In the B2B world, especially when trying to engage engineers, its far better to post one high quality post per month, than two or three ‘soft news’ posts. One a month gives you the bones of a regular enewsletter campaign and we actually often find very high conversion rates with single item enewsletters.