How To Understand And Create Effective Content Marketing

 

Are you familiar with content marketing? If not, let me start by defining it.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing according to the Content Marketing Institute is 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.

Given this definition, it is also right to understand content marketing as the intersection of advertising and publishing.

The reason I wanted to make this clear is because so many people assume that content marketing stops at creating blog posts or finding creative content ideas. And that’s why these same folks don’t get to increase their income whether as a business owner, blogger or employed content marketer.

Contents are entertaining and educative stories that help brands create an audience of people who have come to know, like and trust them largely because of the valuable information they create continually.

Why is Content Marketing Important?

The importance of content marketing is a no brainer. Let’s look at it this way. Why do you think people read newspapers and have favorite radio and TV shows? The answer is simple; they have great {information – contents}, whether entertaining or educative.

Have you also wondered why businesses advertise on radio, TV or newspapers? Well, your guess is right, it is because these media channels have aggregated an audience who have become ‘fans’ of their contents, which then makes it logical to place adverts there because customers are on it. This is how content marketing came by.

Great content builds audience which in the end allows for advertising

However, technology has changed how this works. These days, businesses have their own media properties. They have blogs, YouTube channels, make podcasts and use these properties to lead their targets from awareness’ stage to conversion stage effortlessly.

Content marketing puts you in control and it is the reason the phrase “Content is king” became popular.

How do You Create Great Content?

It is not enough to have contents for the sake of it, you must be intentional for it to have an impact on your business as I’d imagine that every business owner would like to reduce cost and increase revenues. Now let’s get straight to the 4 key things to keep in mind for you to create great contents.

1. You must be definite on who you are creating contents for. Who are your target audience? Where do they hang out on the internet and most importantly, how do they prefer to get the contents delivered to them? Remember, you must make them know and trust you first.
2. Give value first. After identifying your target audience preferably with a well-researched customer avatar, the next thing to do is to give value to this group of people. Let them feel blessed to have known your brand with the kinds of information you offer to them, trust me, they will trust you.
3. Another important thing to do is to have a content plan. What topic/subjects do you want to deliver contents on for the next 60 days and in what order will they get delivered? This will help you avoid being boring and getting out of content ideas.
4. Don’t be boring. Learn to distribute your contents in different formats, you can turn your mostly read articles to podcasts and turn your best ‘how to’ articles to videos. You should ensure a deep understanding of the best practices of your target market’s most preferred social media channels.

With these 4 things, you’re very much going to be creating viral contents that will have an impact on your business.

While you certainly have learned a lot about content marketing we’ve only really just scratched the surface when it comes to its mastery. And that’s why I’d like to conclude by pointing out a few resources you can use to help you have a deeper understanding:

• If you want to learn more about social media marketing, then you’ll want to read this piece.
• If your primary interest is email marketing, then you can’t go wrong with this .
• Need to know more about search engine optimization? Here’s the a place to learn it.

Check them out – you’ll be glad you did! And if you have any question, please ask away in the comments box.