Content marketing

content marketing

Your customers, leads, and audience members want valuable content from your business. And that content needs to reach audience members in a way that feels natural and organic versus being disruptive. Content marketing helps businesses do this, and it describes the process of attracting, engaging with, and delighting your target markets.

By honing in on effective content marketing, you can do just that — and as a result, increase conversions, improve brand awareness, boost revenue, establish yourself as an industry leader, and more.

Whether you’re just starting to devise a strategy or you’re refreshing your existing one, it never hurts to re-assess your process and come up with new ways to create and share the content your audiences want. In this guide, we’ll give you a birds-eye-view of content marketing, types of content marketing, content marketing examples, and how to get a strategy strategy going.

Content Marketing

Today, outbound marketing strategies (or anything that interrupts your audience members) aren’t as effective at resonating with and converting audience members as they once were.

Today, your content needs to reach your audience in a way that feels natural (a.k.a. inbound). A common way of doing this is by creating a narrative for your content — or telling a story. In doing so, your content will feel more authentic, engaging, and tailored to your audience.

Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content to reach your target audience. It can boost factors like brand awareness, sales, reach, interactions, and loyalty.

Educate your leads and prospects about the products and services you offer

Boost conversions

Build relationships between your customers and business that result in increased loyalty

Show your audience how your products and services solve their challenges

Create a sense of community around your brand

Now let's look at the various types of content marketing.

Types of Content Marketing

There are many types of content marketing that you may choose to incorporate in your strategy — here are some of the most common:

1. Social Media Content Marketing

With over 3.6 billion global social media users, it’s easy to understand why so many businesses invest in social media marketing. There are a number of platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat) to work with and several ways you can create and share content on each of them (e.g. photos, live videos, pre-recorded videos, stories).

Featured Resource: Social Media Content Calendar

2. Infographic Content Marketing

Infographics display content, information, and data in an easy-to-understand, graphic format. With a mix of simple wording, short statements, and clear images, infographics are a great way to effectively communicate your content. They work well if you’re trying to distill an educational and/ or complex topic down so all audience members can understand it.

Featured Resource: 15 Free Infographic Templates

3. Blog Content Marketing

Blogs are a powerful type of inbound content and allow for a lot of creativity in terms of their purpose and topic. With a blog, you can do things like promote other internal and external content and blog articles via links, add social share buttons, and incorporate product information.

Featured Resource: Start a Successful Blog

4. Podcast Content Marketing

A 2020 survey found that 49% of 12-to-32-year-olds in the U.S. had listened to a podcast within the last month, with an average of six listening hours a week. For this reason, many businesses and media outlets have began creating and sharing their own podcasts.

Podcasts allow for a lot of creativity as they can be about any topic of choice. Additionally, you determine other factors related to the podcast such as cadence of episodes, who's on the podcast, where you advertise the podcast, and how long episodes are.

Featured Resource: How to Start a Podcast

5. Video Content Marketing

According to Wyzowl research, 69% of consumers say they prefer to learn about a brand's product or service through video. Additionally, video marketing can boost conversions, improve ROI, and help you build relationships with audience members. You may choose to share your video content on social media platforms, landing pages, or on a co-marketer's website.

Featured Resource: The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Pack

6. Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid ads can help you reach a broad audience and allow you to position yourself in all of the places you want to be seen — paid ads are especially beneficial when paired with inbound marketing. There are many places you can share paid ads including on social media, landing pages, banners, and sponsored content.

Featured Resource: The Ultimate Google Ads PPC Kit

Next, let's look at some content marketing examples that are associated with those types of content marketing we just reviewed.

Content Marketing Examples

The following examples will give you a better understanding of how you can incorporate content in your greater marketing strategy.

1. Example of Social Media Content Marketing

Lush Cosmetics’ Instagram account is on-brand and complements the rest of their marketing content — if the page didn’t say “Lush Cosmetics” anywhere on the profile, customers would likely still know the profile belongs to Lush.

The Instagram page shares the Lush product line, displays different color and scent options for the products, and shows the various ways each product can be used. The profile feels and looks colorful and uniquely Lush, and depicts members of their wide customer base.

2. Example of Infographic Content Marketing

IBM created an infographic when they launched their Cloud marketplace. Their infographic is on-brand, well-organized, and easy to read. It clearly explains what they’re doing with their Cloud marketplace and how customers can benefit from it. It also tells audience members how they can access the marketplace and get started using it.

3. Example of Blog Content Marketing

Expedia has a blog called “[Out There Starts Here]” that shares travel-related information including hotel recommendations, great places to visit, and travel-related activities you can take part in around the globe.

Expedia regularly publishes their blog content to keep readers interested and engaged. It includes a wide range of topics related to any type of trip you could imagine. The blog is on-brand and all articles relate to the travel technology company’s goal and mission of gaining customers and boosting brand awareness. They do this by linking to their services and writing about customers who have already had positive experiences with the company.

4. Example of Podcast Content Marketing

hardvard business review podcast content marketing example

Source

Harvard Business Review (HBR) has a weekly podcast called HBR IdeaCast which features industry leaders in both business and management. You can either subscribe to consistently receive their hundreds of podcasts or pick and choose which ones you want to listen to.

The podcast is on-brand and complements the rest of HBRs published content. It also serves as a great way for HBR to connect with their target audience, enhance brand awareness, and gain a following of audience members through a medium that differs from their typical work (e.g. podcast versus HBR article).

5. Example of Video Content Marketing

Source

Much of Dollar Shave Club’s video content has gone viral. Their marketing efforts are on-brand, humorous, and entertaining. In fact, one of their videos has over 27 million views on YouTube. By establishing a name for themselves via online video content, Dollar Shave Club has experienced impressive growth and brand recognition.

6. Example of Paid Ad Content Marketing

paid-ad-content-marketing-example

Source

Revolve — a clothing and accessories company — uses paid and sponsored ads on social media (like this one on Facebook) to reach their target audience while they browse their news feeds.

The content ads feature some of their products as well as details about their free shipping and return policy to drive target audience members to their site (and, hopefully, convert them into paying customers).

Lastly, let’s cover your content marketing strategy. By implementing a strategy, your content marketing efforts will be impactful and effective in converting leads and reaching your target audience.

Content Marketing Strategy

Set SMART goals.

Determine your KPIs.

Choose your content channels.

Decide on the type of content.

Set a budget.

Create and distribute the content.

Analyze and measure results.

1. Set SMART goals.

The first part of your content marketing strategy is to set SMART goals. These should be specific to your business — they’ll likely complement your broader marketing and company goals.

Here are some SMART goal examples:

Improve brand awareness

Boost revenue

Increase conversions

Improve brand loyalty

Increase customer engagement

Build rapport and trust among prospects and customers

Attract strategic partners

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