6. Content Marketing
6.1 What is Content Marketing
What does content marketing mean?
Content marketing is a strategic way of marketing that involves making and sharing useful, consistent, and valuable content to attract and keep a specific audience and, eventually, to get customers to do something that makes you money.
A content-driven strategy doesn’t focus on selling goods or services. Instead, it gives prospects and customers relevant and useful content that helps them solve problems at work (B2B content) or in their personal lives (B2C content).
For this method to work, you need a written strategy. It doesn’t have to be hard to build one. Learn how to write a one-page content marketing plan here: There are 6 simple steps you can take to learn what questions to ask and how to make a plan.
Just what is content marketing?
One thing is that you can’t do marketing these days without great material.
Content shouldn’t be seen as a different thing from your marketing; it should be a part of it. Good material is an important part of all kinds of marketing, such as
Email marketing: If you send out great emails regularly, your subscribers will look forward to them and be more likely to open and read them.
When it comes to social media marketing, your content strategy should come before your social media strategy.
- SEO: Search engines like it when businesses post regular, high-quality content.
- PR: Good PR plans should talk about things that people care about, not your business.
- PPC: You need great information behind your PPC ads for them to work.
Inbound marketing: Content is very important for getting leads and people to come to your site.
Digital marketing: Content is the building block of a better or new integrated digital marketing plan. Content strategy: You need to think about the content strategy, which tells you how to make and manage content across an organization
6.2 Types of content marketing
It can be hard to figure out which ones to use in content marketing and which ones will stand out. There are different kinds of content marketing that businesses can use. Southwest, for instance, likes to change things up by putting gifs, blog posts, ads, and retweets on their Twitter page. Delta has been sharing only ads, videos, and gifs about flights lately.
1. Blogs
If your website has a blog that is related to your product and its market, people who are looking for the answer your business provides will be drawn to it. Putting up blog posts can help your SEO and bring in more free visitors. Remember these things when you’re writing blog posts: Make your information SEO-friendly. Set up your blog posts using a pillar or cluster model. Focus your content on your offering and make sure it is useful. Jeff Bullas, for instance, has been named one of the most important global marketing officers. Because of this, his website has blog pieces about social media and content marketing around the world. For instance, this post is about how to turn fans into buyers.
2. Videos
Videos quickly grab people’s attention. It was found by HubSpot that 54% of people want to see videos from brands they like more than any other type of material. Videos are also very flexible, and you can use them to make a range of content that is relevant to your audience and leaves them wanting more. We’ll show you how to make the most of video marketing in this post.AR video marketing, which gives you a digital copy of what you see on your phone, can help create businesses, for example. How to video market like a pro can be taught in 12 steps, one of which is how to use an iPhone.
Microsoft gives everyone power through its technology. Recent ads for them have shown how broad their meaning of “everyone” is by showing how powerful technology can be in motivating many people to reach their goals
3. Infographics
Infographics are a lot of fun, and they can wake up a marketing plan by adding interesting material. They are colorful and interesting ways to show facts or steps. Infographics are great for marketers because they are quick and don’t cost much.
There are 10 ways that an infographic can help you get more leads in this content marketing infographic. Try putting it on Facebook instead of Twitter or Instagram if it doesn’t get much attention there. When data is shown in this way, it can be easier to understand and recognize. Also, if your product has hard facts in it, infographics can make it look more trustworthy.
4. Case Studies
Case studies are good for getting leads who want to know more about your business from real buyers. Buyers can see the whole journey of a customer through case studies. They can also see how similar products are used in real life.
In this case study from LinkedIn, we see how Adobe uses the site to sell their business and get people to apply. It shows data and screenshots from Adobe’s campaign and how the company used the workplace platform to measure its progress. Businesses that like the one, in this case, study could learn from how using LinkedIn in the same way could help their applications.
Video case studies, like this one about HSBC, are also done by LinkedIn. It shows that LinkedIn’s marketing plan includes showing their information in different ways.
5. eBooks
If you have never made an eBook before, think of them as long blog posts. There aren’t many pages, and it’s not an advertisement for your business. Instead, they’re a way to share useful information with possible clients.
A free eBook called The Experience Optimisation Playbook by Optimizely looks at optimization strategies used by Fortune 500 businesses. You can find a detailed guide on how to make eBooks here. It includes advice on how to write good copy (keep it short, use keywords, and check the font sizes).
6. User-generated content
User-generated content is a great way to promote your content because it gets people involved. People are more likely to be interested in your business if you talk to people who are like them.
These are examples of user-generated content from Twitter. Hannah Gadsby has a stand-up special on Netflix, and this tweet is from a fan who liked the special and wanted to share a quote from it. Netflix’s comedy account got a video that could be shared right away from a single tweet.
This tweet from a Wendy’s fan gave the fast-food chain a way to celebrate Friday the 13th and get people to buy more fries and customers. Twitter fans also got to see a creepy mix of Jason and Wendy.
7. Checklists
Lists are useful for possible customers, especially small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). They show you how to solve a problem step by step and can be changed to fit your social media pages.
When you tick the last box, this example from HubSpot Academy shows how marketing is linked to the content. Just think about how your product fits into the daily lives of the people you want to buy it. You can also make a private checklist that the team can use. Just make sure that some of the content is always tailored to the client.
8. Memes
One way to explain this type of content marketing is “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” Memes are a fairly new way to market material, but they work well. A meme is a set of pictures with text that is culturally important and quickly shared online. It’s smart to use memes to get more people to your site if you can time them right and make sure they fit with your social style.
Memes are a great way for Hulu to get people to sign up for its streaming service. It’s not a surprise, since those are some of Hulu’s most-tweeted messages. For memes, you need to look into how people are acting right now and see where your business fits in. Listening to other people can help with that.
9. Testimonials and customer reviews
Reviews and testimonials from customers and other customers are also information that comes straight from your audience. If your business is in a niche market, references are a quick way to show why your company is unique.
Top athletes write reviews for Nike to help sell their shoes. To be exact, a lot of their Instagram and commercial material comes from reviews and endorsements from famous people. It’s good for small businesses to have customer reviews on their website or in emails since no one wants tennis star Simona Halep to take over their social media.
10. Whitepapers
A lot of people get these things mixed up with eBooks. Both types of material are long, but whitepapers have a lot more data and information packed into them. 71% of buyers say that white papers are an important part of their study process. This is based on the Demand Gen Survey Report.
This white paper by Tata Communications about network optimization is a great example of a detailed, beautiful document that uses charts and graphs to break down data. White papers can look good, even if the information they contain is more… useful. Design should be in mind when you arrange the page layout and main points. When you make your pages, use fonts that look good and are easy to read. This will make people more likely to keep turning the pages.
11. How-to guides/academies
Should you sell a CRM or any other type of software, you should include how-to tips in your content marketing. Training lessons, like those on Google Ads, Skillshare, and even HubSpot, let new and potential customers try out your product in a fun way before they buy it.
If your business is too small for a school, Instagram Carousels might be the right choice for you. Carousels on Instagram let you show more information about a product or service. You don’t have to write a whole guide; you can just make a highlight of a 30-second clip or several shots in one post.
12. Influencers
Influencers in a field can be very helpful to a marketing effort. Influencers who support your content can help you reach a whole new group of people you weren’t able to reach before.
Caitlin Shoemaker, a vegan YouTuber, often works with other vegan brands to get more people to follow her and their brands. To get in touch with an influential person in your field, all you have to do is email their PR firm with a press release or call their company or boss directly.
These are the things we think are important for content marketing, but this is by no means a complete list of all the types of content marketing. Not afraid to try new things when it comes to content marketing. Pick the types that work best for your business. Read this post to learn everything you need to know about content marketing.