Guide to Content Marketing | The Things You Should Know

What is the first thought you have in mind when you hear the word content marketing?

You are likely thing of digital marketing, Facebook contents, YouTube videos and similar online promotional platforms.

Well, this concepts dates way back to the time before internet, a time when storytelling was a key to marketing.

Didn’t we all show interest to a great storyteller? It’s almost the same with marketing online. We prefer a content that has great informative material in it.

History stands witness to many events as, Tim Ferris’ Blog – the One or lecture from Kevin Spacey at the marketing convention and similar, winning over million hearts.

Owners of comic book – G.I. Joe saw huge profit from book and supporting toy sales in 2 months from the date of their first book release. They were able to reach 20% of their targeted customers in this span.

Why do you think that happened?

Of course, because of the quality of their content.

However, things have changed since the 80s. With the online market ruling our lives, opportunities are more now. Marketing over social media is leading the market now.

Now days marketing comes with a new perspective all together. Let’s discuss all about a spectacular marketing with great contents in the modern life.

What is Content marketing

Content marketing, based on the expert comments, can be defined as a strategic approach for marketing, that is focused on creation and distribution of consistent, relevant and valuable content for attracting and retaining a cluster of well defined audience in order to gain profit from business.

To clarify the concept, it indicates that this marketing form is meant for building a strong and meaningful relation of the entrepreneur with the target customers based a long-term strategic plan. You need to provide your customers with top quality of contents in different forms but on a regular basis. Your consistency matters here.

This shows your care for your customers.

In the modern world, people love to get attention. Trust me, consistent quality marketing approach provides consumers with a sense of personalization and people tend to align more to your products.

Overview on Content marketing

The concept of content marketing evolved from 2010 to a new level in the modern generation. The statistical study in videography form, from the Institute of Content Marketing explains the evolution better.

We learn a lot from the pre-dated forms of marketing. We incorporate those learning with the modern technologies, not to forget the internet and give rise to a perfect amalgamation of storytelling, top-quality content and online marketing strategy.

This is definitely a great idea for modern promotional campaigns.

How to take forward a successful content marketing campaign?

A common question for every marketer seeking success. Simple, the new marketing trend happens in 3 ways-

1. Online
2. Offline
3. Hybrid phase

If you want to be a successful content marketer, the best learning process will be by understanding examples and then interpreting them. But before that you need a strategic planning.

Strategic planning for content marketing

When it comes to marketing, you will come across millions of strategy ideas to refer to. This was not the scenario in the older days. However, even with less choice for strategic methods in those days, people never stopped playing the content of their advertisements.

Now the modern world has seen more options in methods and medium of marketing. Naturally, there are more strategies now.

According to the online deductions, the best strategy perhaps is the “3-D Content Model”-

1. Pain Point content mapping
2. Using the right kind of content for mapping
3. Buy the consumer’s cycle, who is facing your topic related issues, with mapping techniques.

This moves the marketing focus to the consumer rather than the marketer. This is an important steppingstone for every strategy related to content marketing.

Remember, the content you market needs to address to the proper set of audience who are facing issues solvable by your product. If that is not the scenario, then the strategy probably got wasted.

The contents you create should be meant for your targeted audiences only. If you manage to do so, you will be able to draw their attention towards your product.

Few tips that will help with your marketing strategy planning are –

• Content marketing strategy and content strategy are not the same thing.
• Strategy development doesn’t have any universal template.
• Prepare a strategy that clearly outlines the needs of your consumers, business features and how you wish to address them.
• Don’t ever go for verbal strategic planning. Documentation is important.
• Internalize the mission and goals you expect from your strategy and keep them posted on the workspace.
• Frequent referring to the content is essential to tuning up whenever necessary.

The ultimate motto of these tips is for you to develop a content after thorough understanding of your target clientele. This will help you to develop something that addresses to their issues and assists in business growth as well.

Of course, you the prime motto of the marketing is business improvement. But is it possible if enough audiences don’t get attracted to you?

One can create variable strategies in the modern world owing to the convenience of social media, unlimited space on internet, free tools for graphic designing and companies that self-publish.

There are several formats of content marketing that you can refer to here to plan a strategy.

Before getting into the marketing options, their benefits and when it is ideal to use them, we will discuss on the history behind the marketing with quality contents.

History of Content Marketing

How old is the concept of content marketing? Any guesses?

If you are thinking 20 or even 100 years, you got the guess wrong. You are not even close.

The come in 1732 when Benjamin Franklin published his annual report on “Poor Richard’s Almanack”. He took wrote this article in order to promote the new business of printing he started. The aim was to motivate other for printing their own articles from his example.

Based on the institutional insight on the timeline of marketing with contents, this was the first ever reference of promotional event in the history.

It was a hard guess wasn’t it?

However, the concept of “content marketing” seems pretty modern. Well, may be the term is, but the concept dates 300 years back. If even people didn’t realize, generations of businessmen used this marketing strategy, even if they were not expensive ones.

Another eminent publisher, John Deere, used this marketing in 1985 as a result of understanding the old saying, “What goes around comes around”. His concept was simple, you gain promising customers when you provide them with helpful yet free contents. It eventually draws their attention, engages them in a conversation with you, spreads the message you wanted to convey and ultimate results in prospective sales.

As time passed, content marketing evolved and now is storming internet with moving articles. The methods of marketing may have changed with time, but the basic concept of using an excellent content is still in vogue. The formula says –

• Push the pain point of the consumer
• Agitate their pain
• Resolve their issues

In the modern days marketing happens through infographics, blogs, pictures and videography. YouTube series like “Wild it Blend?” can be considered a classic example of modern marketing with content.

Why does big companies indulge in such marketing plans? We the answer is simple. They are not outright sellers, but they generate attention from people caring about the product you have to offer and then buying them.

Why should one use content marketing

We now know that marketing with great content is in vogue for long. But is it a great idea for your business? It is not necessary that this marketing trick will work the same way for you as it did in early days and for even for many B2C and B2B businessmen in present days.

Some facts and figures will help in understanding the importance of content marketing in modern day business. You will be able to do the budgeting accordingly.

To get to the base of this first let’s understand the priority of this marketing-

• Creating contents that are engaging for consumers.
• To understand the type of content that affects people.
• To understand the scope of improvement.

As a matter of fact, 60% of the marketers in the B2B sector, face difficulty in creating a content that is engaging and measuring the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

Based on study reports 70% of B2B business are trying to create more and more engaging contents over time span.

Why are they trying to do so? Simple, so that they can stand as unique marketers in the internet space cluttered with terrible or mediocre blogs, videos etc.

This clutter is definitely an excuse of to use content marketing as fruitful promotional method.

But the question related to its worth is still remained open.

We know that many companies are struggling thoroughly for creating attractive contents. Isn’t this a clear indication of the power these strategies have. It has been observed that top companies try the paid search methods. Somehow, they seem overrated as compared to blogging and other SEO related marketing technology.

Let’s prove that marketing with strategy with quality content is worth for every business. It is very competitive in the market. Their worth is evident from the fact that in the world of digital marketing, everyone while searching refer to the top 10 business results first. So, having a keyword rich content is essential.

This is applicable for all kinds of businesses. From an e-commerce company to restaurant chain, if you want success in the modern world you need to be above the online business rush. Clearly, the worth of quality content with keywords is evident.

Mapping the contents based on the journey of the customers

We discussed about content mapping before. Is the concept clear to you? If not, we will discuss this now.

Content mapping is the concept that helps in understand the audience in order to create a content that makes their buying journey memorable for them.

For many consumers, they spend less time on discovery and then go straight for buying. For others, they locate your website, check your products, think about that for some time and then proceed for a purchase. In short, some consumer goes slow with buying.

Content marketing is a strategy that works like a top-of-funnel. It creates awareness of brand, evangelism and engages audiences. But still, measuring revenue is not its cup of tea. To generate revenue, you need to understand the behavior of customers.

Facts say, 555 of the customers buy products when they have excellent experience. Even 82% of B2B consumers do the same. 89% B2B agents back off from business when they get poor customer service.

If you want to provide your customer a great experience with your content, then follow the below 3 stages of creation –

1. Awareness
2. Consideration and
3. Decision

Content marketing is different for each of these stages.

The awareness stage of marketing

This is the first phase when people gain awareness of your brand from the contents you create. It’s important as one can buy only when know your brand. SEO and content marketing together stand as strong pillars for this job. To spread awareness, you need to have an excellent SERP. You can measure the awareness effect with high-level-metrics to be sure of your investments.

Measurement of failure and success is the key to the formation of the top-funnel-strategy.

Consideration stage of marketing

People don’t buy out of awareness. They consider the product, take time and then decide. Content marketing plays the game here as a guiding tool for consumers and aid their consideration. The tactics are, however, likely to be different from the awareness phase.

Keep track of the downloads and re-visitors to understand their interest and pitch accordingly. To get this job done keep creating interesting contents. Try to generate a sense of faith in your consumers. If you provide consumers with informative and reputable content, they began to trust you. One needs to consistent here.

When people consider you, don’t forget to stay connected.

Decision stage of marketing

This is the best phase as it involves purchase. People already trust you. So, you now need to attract, capture and convert them i.e. optimize the time for conversion. The content of this phase might need improved keywords. Using CTA is not helpful here. You need to show commitment here.

Forms of content marketing

Some forms of content marketing in the online field-

• Social media marketing
• Live videography
• Paid advertisements

Hopefully, you have got a clear picture of how content marketing works in our lives. Of course, there are more tips on its operation. But understanding the above will work sufficiently for your business initiation.