What is content marketing?

 

Building trust and brand loyalty by providing information people want to find is all about content marketing.

 

By providing the correct, useful information, you will be building brand loyalty. Then when your loyal brand follows, who are reading and keeping up with your content, are ready to make a purchase, they will choose your company because they trust your company. 

 

When your web pages contain high-quality content that can solve your customer's questions, problems, and issues, you are doing them a service. You're providing content they want to read. They are finding what they want. That is the purpose of content marketing.

 

Content marketing is not advertising.

 

Content marketing is not about selling, although you could make future sales once the consumers begin to trust your brand and the information you are providing.

 

Don't sell to your consumers or searchers. They want information. Selling will make your customers turn away and go elsewhere to find the information they so desperately need.

 

The content you put on your web page should NOT:

​

• Be Advertising

• Be a print brochure adapted for your website.

​

Your site should contain information people are searching for at each stage of the sales funnel. The stages of the sales funnel are Awareness, Inform, Decision, and Action.

 

Leave out the sales pitch until the time is right.

 

Your customers don't want a sales pitch when they are researching a subject or topic. 

 

Content marketing is creating sustainable brand loyalty. But you need to understand it does not happen overnight. Building brand loyalty through information is a reliable way to build your company because it keeps growing and expanding your customer base all the time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

 

When you create content that customers are looking for, you build trust with your audience, and then your audience will develop and expand over time.

 

Use fresh content that is informational, problem-solving, and helpful.

 

Think about it, the last time you "Googled" something, you were looking for information. Am I right? You wanted to know the best answer on how to do something. You didn't even know there were products or services out there to solve the issues that concerned you. So you typed in a few words or even a whole question into a search engine to find an answer. I bet you didn't stop at any site that had sales pitches.

 

Content marketing is about audience engagement.

 

According to the Content Marketing Institute:

 

"Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."   – Content Marketing Institute

 

Pitching your products and service is old-school advertising that may still have some value elsewhere but not on your website. Instead, marketing online today is about supplying relevant, helpful information that your customers want to solve their issues right now.

 

Make sure to focus on SEO at the beginning.

 

SEO professionals and content creators should work together. Both are key to creating the right content that real people and search engines can find. Please, bring the SEO professional to the table at the beginning of the content project. Their research is essential to success. Getting them in at the end may mean rewriting the content because many SEO issues weren't addressed.

 

Your SEO professional will:

 

• Be searching for the best keyword phrases to use. 

• Be sure keywords are in all the right places, h1, page title, URLs, etc.

• Be checking all the other ranking factors that could impact your content.

• Be working on backlinks, which only happen if your content is exceptional and linkable.

​

You must reach out to a Search Engine Optimization Professional at the beginning of content marketing and content creation for the most efficient outcome. Optimization, in the beginning, saves time by reducing copy edits.

 

On-page SEO and Content Marketing.

 

Content marketing uses on-page SEO to build a better web page that has everything you need to help the search engines find and index your content. FYI, the search engines like in-depth, high-quality content with the on-page SEO applied adequately. Your SEO professional can help you with getting it right for search engines.

 

Sharing your content is off-page SEO.

 

Through social shares, your content marketing can reach many more people who are interested in the content you are providing. Sharing on social media is one form of off-page SEO. Social shares will boost visits to your website and maybe created backlinks to your site. Backlinks are another indicator to search engines that your site is the trusted authority on the subject.

 

Another form of off-page SEO is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads. These ads use your keyword phrases to attract people to your content. PPC ads can be expensive, but if your content is what people are looking for, it will help you build your audience.

 

Use caution when using PPC, it can be costly if you do not understand the process. You may want to contact a PPC professional before you start running ads to help you understand the bidding process that is involved with PPC ads.

 

Marketing Funnels and Flywheels.

 

Your content marketing strategy should include content for each stage of the marketing funnel.

 

​A marketing funnel has different stages a customer will be going through in the research for an idea, a problem, or an issue. Your customers will be at various steps in the marketing funnel. You will need content for every stage of the marketing funnel.

​

There are five steps to the marketing funnel:

 

1. Awareness

2. Opinion

3. Consideration

4. Preference

5. Purchase

 

If you would like to learn more about marketing funnels, here is an excellent resource.

​

Marketing professionals also use the flywheel funnel method to measure the stages of their potential clients.

 

The three stages of a flywheel funnel are:

​

1. Attract

2. Engage

3. Delight

 

If you would like to learn more about a flywheel, here is an excellent resource.
The flywheel has gained popularity in recent years because of its simplicity. 

 

It is essential to have content on your website for each stage of whichever funnel you choose.

 

Conclusion. 

 

The four most important ideas to understand about content marketing are:

 

1. Solve the problems and issues your customers are having through your content.

2. Use your customer's words in your content; an SEO Professional will research the best keyword phrases to use.

3. Both teams, SEO professionals and Content Creatives need to work together to do the best job possible.

4. Make sure you provide content for each stage of the marketing funnel or flywheel.

 

If you are looking for a content creator or web designer, please let me know, because I know people.