Looking for a Content Marketing Consultant?
Content marketing means creating compelling content – stories, news items, articles, email newsletters, social media posts, podcasts and videos – to engage with new prospects through blogs, online PR, email, infographics, social media and video. It subtly sells and teaches at the same time, is two-way and delivers trust, the key to generating online enquiries and sales.
We have developed an approach that we call Content Marketing & PR. This ensures that your best content is distributed both online and offline, and combines content marketing and modern PR.
Here’s a good Content Marketing Definition:
The art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyers more intelligent or perhaps entertaining them to build an emotional connection.
(Joe Pulizzi, Founder of The Content Marketing Institute)
Providing a stream of fresh, high quality content on and off your website makes your brand stand out.
Content marketing plays a critical role in ensuring your website ranks high in Google searches. Regularly posting a stream of high quality fresh content is now essential for a successful approach to search engine optimisation (SEO).
The content marketing sales funnel, from left to right, is:
> Attract > Convert > Close > Delight
Content Marketing Drives Inbound Marketing & Credibility
Good content marketing gets your potential customer to stop, read, think and behave differently.
Although it takes time and planning, done well, content marketing is a cost effective means of generating leads and sales:
- Your stories and posts engage and build relationships, positioning you as an expert, a thought-leader and giving you credibility.
- It ensures your website is found in searches (good for your SEO).
- Traffic is increased further by other companies wanting to link to your site.
- It drives traffic to your website through ‘inbound marketing’* (which has a lot in common with content marketing).
*Inbound marketing means using SEO, social media and blogging to draw prospects to your website in an organic and empathetic way. This approach to marketing is the opposite of old fashioned ‘outbound marketing’ which means pushing and broadcasting messages out to people who often don’t want to receive them. Outbound marketing is more often associated with salesy use of techniques like advertising, direct mail and telemarketing. (But these traditional channels still have a place in a well planned multi-channel strategy).
You can read more in my blog “Content Marketing’ and Why It’s Critical to Online Success”.
Are you posting regular blogs? If not, you could be missing a powerful, low cost marketing opportunity.
Blogging is a powerful communication activity. It allows you to share news and views, and nurture your prospects until they want to buy. It also increases the chances of your website being found in searches, by supporting SEO.
Your prospects increasingly don’t want to be sold to. They want valuable, useful information that answers their questions and solves their problems. And they’re interested in your brand’s stories.
Real Marketing Transformation suggests that your blog should work hand-in-hand with your PR, both online (digital PR) and in printed media.
- Is low or no cost (but does take time and hard work!).
- Builds trust, your reputation and cultivates relationships.
- Helps you be seen as a thought leader (particularly for B:B marketing).
- Communicates your personality to support and humanise your brand.
- Your blog should be the hub for your content marketing: edited (repurposed) for social media, email marketing and your search engine optimisation strategy.
- Is a key element of your ‘inbound marketing’ (content which drives traffic organically to your website).
- Your blog allows you to publish new, well written, unique content. This scores highly with the search engines and should drive your content marketing and SEO.
However, you need to enjoy writing to be a good blogger and to sustain a blogging routine. A surprising number of people don’t enjoy writing!
If you don’t want to write your own blogs or can’t find enough time, just contact me, Christopher Lamotte.
