In our last section, we provided you with a list of places to source images for your web content. Did you get a chance to go through and register with some of those sites? Great! Today, I want to help you lay the right foundations for outsourcing the creation of web content for your business. It helps to have a clear understanding of what a "Content Marketing" strategy means, so let's begin with that.
WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?
You often hear the phrase "content marketing" mentioned when people discuss digital marketing.
Content marketing is using media to increase exposure and sales for your company or organization.
So, media can be anything that you create, like blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, images, infographics, special reports, e-books ... even software!
Right now you're engaging with media by reading this content.
Whether you create a large item of content or media like a video or e-book, or a small piece of content like a blog post or even a forum signature, it's important to keep in mind that the purpose of your content is to make a statement that is compelling, attractive and engaging to your target audience.
This is very important, because the goal of your content marketing strategy is not to "sell" people a long or short advertisement, but to educate, inform and engage them with the aim of helping them become your customers.
In a previous section we talked about creating content that gets attention, gains your reader's interest, help build desire for your offer and then encourage them to take the action you want, whether this is to click on a link, fill in a form, make a call, subscribe to your newsletter, share the information with their friends on social media, etc.
The key to creating a content marketing strategy is to focus on providing value and to use information to help your potential and existing customers understand that your business, company or organization can add value to their lives.
Essentially, you are using an indirect sales method to create a content pipeline that enhances people's lives in some way. Like any sales pipeline the goal of your content marketing strategy is to help people move from being your prospect to being your customer, and then from being your customer to being not just a client, but someone who will also champion your business.
To achieve this goal, you need to set your sights on getting people to become your loyal customers and also become part of an active community of clients that use your company regularly and promote your business to others consistently. The key is to focus on creating content that educates, informs and engages your audience and also motivates them to share it with others.
Content marketing, therefore, is a dynamic process for communicating and interacting with the world at large. It is more than just communicating AT customers. It's communicating WITH your customers. In this sense, you are not using content to advertise your business like a commercial, but instead, you're sharing information with people that is actually beneficial for them.
If you're advertising your business to prospective customers, there really is no room for dialogue or any type of meaningful engagement with your audience. In today's world of social interconnectedness, this kind of communication is simply no longer as effective as it once may have been.
People quickly catch on and start tuning out advertisements, so the only way to make an impact using that approach is to continually spend more energy and effort making it bigger and louder because whatever impact it has, will actually be very short-lived and quickly lose its effectiveness.
On the other hand, people don't tune out information that benefits them. Imagine for a moment that your business genuinely helps people save money, and that every time you put out another piece of content, people end up saving more money. Pretty soon, you have a crowd of people who are paying attention and actually waiting to hear from you, and sharing the news with others. Before you know it, you would start to attract a large crowd of people who like saving money, because your information actually helps their lives improve and it's only natural that they will want to share it with other people too.
We're in the "Information Age" and people are consuming information in large amounts. Look at cable TV and 24 hour news channels. Imagine how much content is required to keep the wheels of those information vehicles turning. Those networks wouldn't be thriving if people weren't hungry for the information they provide.
Your business is no different. Your job is to define, find and connect with your target audience in a meaningful way. The digital age gives you many opportunities to help quench people's thirst for knowledge with information.
All you need to do now is work out what type of content people want to consume from you online and then start creating it, so you can give it to them.
It's time to dive into content marketing!
IN SUMMARY
Content marketing is communicating with customers and providing them with content and information that adds value to their lives and benefits them.
ACTION STEP
Before you begin outsourcing the creation of content for your digital marketing, you need to be absolutely clear about how you will use this content to add value to people's lives. If you have never done this before, sit down somewhere quietly and write down all the ways your business can benefit others and add massive value to their lives.
One technique for doing this, is to make a list of all the possible objections your prospects could throw at you (e.g. "your product is too expensive," "I can get the same thing or better from your competitors, why should I buy from you?" etc.) and then begin to answer these objections successfully. It will highlight what is unique about you, your product or service, and show you where you can add value to other people's lives.
I hope you have found this information useful. I have some more great information to share with you about it in my next section that I'm sure will make a difference to your results.