Readers Note: This is the second of a three-part series on content and content marketing. Read “Why Content is Still King Part 1.”
Content Marketing 101
Content Marketing is the long-term online marketing strategy used to captivate, engage, incent, and retain audiences — existing and potential customers — with highly relevant content that builds your brand’s credibility and customer consideration. Content is comprised of your company website, blog posts, emails, infographics, social media posts (photos, videos, text, gifs), paid advertising, ebooks, PDF one-sheets, webinars, and podcasts.
Content can include traditional marketing collateral such as brochures, direct mailers, conference speeches or roundtable discussions, and print advertising. Exceptional traditional marketing collateral can be excellent source material, inspiration, or a starting point for online content and content marketing campaigns.
Traditional and digital content marketing is especially effective when brand messaging is unified and the “call-to-actions” incentivize customers to act — go to a store, make a phone call, visit a website, sign up for emails, or make a purchase.
Implemented with unified messaging across owned, earned, and paid media, content marketing campaigns can:
- Educate customers about your products and services,
- Increase sales leads and conversions,
- Build customer relationships and loyalty,
- Extend customer lifetime value, and
- Position your company as an industry thought leader
However, content marketing is more than creating and publishing content and ads. The effectiveness of your company’s content marketing depends on something more — telling your brand’s authentic story.
Content Marketing and Your Company’s Owned Media (aka Your Brand’s Authentic Story)
It might sound daunting, but every business and organization needs a unified brand voice and story across traditional and online content. Successful businesses are great at something – delivering exceptional products or services to their customers. They are the “Marvel superhero” of their category or market. Content marketing empowers you to tell your superhero story and realize your business goals.
But where do you start?
Some foundational content may already exist in your print collateral, your website, or even your sales pitches. Existing content contains valuable nuggets — brand attributes, product or service features, testimonials, case studies, expertise, and your entrepreneurial story — that serve as the basis for developing your business’ authentic superhero story.
However, the majority of the content that tells your business’ authentic superhero story has to be created…and added to over time. Content marketing is not a one-time effort or campaign. Content marketing requires resources and dedication for the long haul.
One constructive way to start developing content is to think of your business’s unique selling proposition.
- What makes your product or service special?
- What customer need does it meet?
- What customer problem does your brand solve?
- What do your customers say about your brand?
- What makes your brand a superhero in customers’ eyes?
- What are the differences between your target audiences?
- Are there any challenges your customers face using or understanding your product or service or its value?
Exploring these questions can help you identify subject matter areas that resonate with your customers. Once you’ve determined your critical subject matter areas, you create comprehensive master content documents for each subject.
Master content documents serve as the legs of the content marketing strategy stool from which your content marketing campaigns flow. Master content documents are exhaustive and cover all aspects of the subject. Master content documents can build your position as an industry thought leader while bolstering your brand voice.
Sometimes master content documents can be converted into white papers and used in content marketing campaigns (e.g. lead generation email signups, conference speeches, VIP leave-behinds, third-party republishing, etc.).
But master content documents have a marketing superpower. Your content marketing campaigns and tactics for a particular subject area are created from a content marketing document. From each master content document, you can create:
- White Papers
- Ebooks
- Long-format magazine articles or posts
- Blog Posts
- Social Media Posts
- Infographics
- PDF One Sheets
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Video Posts
- Online Ads
- SEM Campaigns
- Paid Social Media Search Campaigns
The content from each master content document you create spawns campaigns that can last for years — building your brand, bolstering your position as a thought leader, and attracting new customers.
Let’s say you launched a B2B SaaS company for an emerging business sector. You attract paying customers but you face the challenge of scaling your business. Existing and potential customers face the challenge of understanding your service and how to use it.
After some market research, you’ve identified four subject areas that can help your clients better achieve success with your service, tell your brand story, and highlight your service’s attributes and benefits for potential customers. The four subject areas are:
- How do you make money using the service
- What are marketing and promotion best practices for the emerging industry
- What are the correct metrics to track
- How do you manage different customer segments
In this example, given the industry is new, the company moved first with the money-making content marketing campaign, followed by marketing and promotion, metrics, and customer segments. Each campaign lasted three to nine months but kept on driving leads and ROI because of the permanent nature of the content marketing.
Additionally, the SaaS company weaved in its authentic origin story and unique viewpoint about the emerging sector into its content and content marketing campaigns.
Within six months of launching their content marketing effort, they were surpassing annual sales goals with a vibrant content marketing strategy utilizing ebooks, blog posts, PDF one-sheets, social media posts, SEM, paid social media search campaigns on Facebook and Linkedin, email, webinars, and videos.
Why Content is Still King in 2024
Still skeptical? Here are some facts and figures supporting why content and content marketing are still kings in 2024*:
- Marketers who prioritize content marketing are 13 times more likely to see positive ROI
- Marketers average an ROI of $42 for every $1 dollar spent on email marketing
- 88% of marketers are increasing or maintaining strategic SEO investments
- 76% of B2B marketers generate leads through blogging
- Businesses with blogs get 67% more leads than other companies
- 55% of marketers are creating more content and posting more frequently
- 53% of marketers are focusing on improving their content’s quality
- 53% of marketers employ email marketing campaigns
- Websites with blogs have 97% more inbound links than those that don’t
- Websites with blogs have 434% more indexed web pages than those that don’t
Are you struggling with your business’ content marketing? Don’t know where to start with updating your company website and marketing campaigns?
Creative Brand Design can help! Our results-driven agency has almost two decades of experience helping businesses and organizations like yours grow efficiently. We’re experts in creating and optimizing our clients’ marketing strategies, search engine optimization, social media campaigns, and much more.
Let’s talk and see how we can help your business grow. Connect with us today!
Stay tuned for the next post in the “Why Content is Still King” series. Part 3 outlines the content marketing strategy and tactics, how content marketing drives paid and earned media, and content marketing’s ROI measures.
Stephanie Farber is the Founder & Creative Director of Creative Blend Design. Since 2004, Stephanie has led the development, launch, and optimization of hundreds of targeted, multi-channel marketing plans for non-profit and business clients in San Antonio, Texas, and across the U.S.
*Statistics sources [Titles linked]
The State of Content Marketing in 2023
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-content-marketing-infographic
100+ Eye-Opening Content Marketing Statistics for 2023 https://www.semrush.com/blog/content-marketing-statistics/
Content Marketing Strategy in 2020
149 Must-Know Content Marketing Statistics for 2023
https://www.siegemedia.com/strategy/content-marketing-statistics#ch3
11 Business Blogging Statistics Marketers Need to Know
https://www.fundera.com/resources/business-blogging-statistics
