Content Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Content marketing mainly aims to create, distribute, and share online content with a target audience. The concept was originally developed to increase sales, attract attention, and increase lead numbers for businesses of all sizes.

Content marketing attracts customers to create and share valuable free content. Publishing high-quality content helps companies maintain strong brand loyalty, offers helpful information to potential consumers and encourages customers to buy products.

To be successful in content marketing, you need to produce content that is high quality and engages and hooks the reader. In other words, you need to create content that stops the reader in their tracks and makes them want to keep reading. This can be done using various techniques, such as pattern disruptors, strong visuals, or provocative statements.

If you want your content marketing efforts to succeed, it’s essential to learn how to create content that stands out from the crowd and grabs attention. By following the tips below, you can start creating content that will stop readers in their tracks and help your business succeed. 

What is content marketing, and how it can help any business?

Content marketing is a way to attract customers and prospects by creating interesting, engaging, and relevant content. This type of marketing can be used with any business, regardless of size or industry. There are many content forms available to use in content marketing. Social media and blogs can be effective for content, but all content used in content marketing should:

• Be relevant and interesting to the target audience
• Convey a clear value proposition
• Improve upon content previously provided by competitors

Also, content must provide information that is useful to the reader.

Content mapping based on the customer journey

Content mapping is a content strategy designed to help companies map the content they already have and strategically plan content for the future.

How does Content Mapping work?

This process can help content marketers:

• Identify content gaps and opportunities
• Highlight content that is performing well and content that needs improvement
• Prioritise content creation by having a clear idea of content types required for the future
• Map content to events and touchpoints throughout the customer journey

Content maps can be done by understanding a specific audience to create a content plan that will help them in the process as they travel from purchase to purchase. Often a person’s journey is from discovery to purchase. Most customers see your site first, think about your products for months, then see a retargeting advertisement and then buy.

So, understanding how your customers interact with your brand is critical to creating the right types of content they will love. 

What are the different types of content available?

There are many different types of content available, and businesses can choose which type will work best for them. Some of the most popular types of content include blogs/articles, videos, podcasts, and social media posts.

Blogs / Articles

Blogs are a great way to share your thoughts and ideas with your audience. They can also be a great way to attract new prospects and customers to your business. As a long-form piece of content, they are a great way to share in-depth information about your products or services and establish you as an expert in your field.

Social media

When it comes to digital marketing, social media is one of the most effective channels available to businesses. It allows companies to connect with potential and current customers in various ways and reach many people quickly and easily. Additionally, social media provides an easy way for businesses to keep up with current trends and connect with their target markets.

Video

Video content is one of the most popular and engaging content types available. It allows businesses to show their customers what they’re all about and connect with them in a more personal way. Videos can also be used to show how a product or service works and help customers make a decision about whether or not to purchase it. Additionally, videos are perfect for social media, as they can be easily shared and watched by many people.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great digital marketing tool because they’re a way to connect with potential customers more personally. They’re also a great way to provide fascinating and engaging content, which can help attract more prospects and customers to your business. The beauty of podcasts is that people can listen to them when doing other activities like commuting, exercising, working or doing household chores. In addition, they can be listened to live or downloaded as MP3s. Podcasts are also shareable content, so they have the potential to spread your content further than it might otherwise go.

Choosing the right type of content is an integral part of content marketing. Each content type has its own benefits and can be used to achieve specific goals. Understanding your target audience and what content they might respond best to will have a significant impact on the success of your content marketing efforts.

How to choose the type of content that will work best for your business

There are many different types of content to choose from when it comes to content marketing. So how do you know which type will work best for your business? Here are a few tips:

1. Identify your target audience.

You need to know who you’re targeting to create the right content that will appeal to them. Once you have a clearly defined audience, you can tailor your content to fit their needs and interests.

2. Choose the right format.

Not all content formats will work for every business. You need to find the one that will be most effective for reaching your target audience and delivering your message. For example, if you’re targeting busy professionals, a blog post may not be the correct content format for you. A video blog may be a better option.

3. Experiment to see what works best.

As content marketing becomes more popular, it’s even more essential to find out which content formats are working best so you can stay on top of your competition. Start with one content format and use split testing to experiment to see what content works best for you.

4. Make it easy for readers to digest.

People are busy, and content marketing success depends on how quickly they consume your content. Keep the content short and sweet by using subheadings, bullet points or numbered lists to make content easier to scan.

5. Use content analytics tools to gauge content success.

It’s important to use content analytics tools to measure how content marketing is impacting your business. For example, use a content performance dashboard or content scorecard to track blog traffic, social media reach and conversions.

6. Create more than one piece of content

If you’re just starting out with content marketing, you should aim to create content consistently. You can start small by creating one piece of content or sharing content with your social media sites. But keep it regular so people know when they should expect to see something new from you.

7. Experiment with content formats and content types.

As mentioned above, not all content formats will work for every business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t experiment with content formats. For example, share content in different ways through videos, podcasts, or infographics. You also don’t have to stick with blog content. Experiment with other content types like how-to guides, ebooks, and whitepapers.

8. Keep content fresh by adding content regularly.

You should regularly add content to your content marketing efforts, but you don’t have to publish content every day. Not only will posting content more than once a day be difficult for you to maintain, but it also may not be the best frequency for reaching your audience. However, people won’t want to wait too long between content pieces, so try to publish something every week.

9. Promote your content across all your websites and social media sites.

Be sure to promote content across all of your content marketing outlets ‘ blogs, social media, and email’ each time you create content or share content that others have made. You can also take this opportunity to share content with your content partners who are promoting content. You can share content with content partner websites or social media accounts, but before you do, make sure they are creating content that is relevant for your target audience.

10. Use different content formats to tell a complete story.

Content marketing isn’t just about creating blog content. It’s also about creating content for other content marketing outlets. For example, you can produce a podcast that supports a blog post that you’ve written or make a video that provides visual content to accompany an article that you’ve shared on social media. Experiment with different content formats and see what helps you tell your story more effectively.

Tips for creating great blog content

If you’re looking for tips for creating great blog content, here are a few to get you started:

1. Understand your audience’s problems

Your audience wants answers to their questions, so your blog needs to help them get the information they need. Think about the questions that customers typically ask you when you first meet. What are their problems? What don’t they know?

2. Choose a catchy headline.

Your headline is the first thing that people will see when they read your content, so make sure it’s catchy and relevant to the topic.

3. Write in a conversational tone.

When you write in a conversational tone, it helps readers feel like they’re having a conversation with you. It’s more personal and starts to build a bond with your reader.

4. Use a style that’s easy on the eyes

You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to read your content, so avoid posting content that contains big blocks of text. Break up content with subheads, images and videos.

5. Include images and content graphics.

Images and content graphics will help break up your content, making it easier to read for readers while also adding some visual appeal.

How to promote your content

When you create content, it’s essential to promote it to reach your target audience. Here are a few tips for promoting your content:

1. Share content on social media.

Be sure to share your content on all of your social media sites. Keep it consistent, so people know when to expect to see something new from you.

2. Send an email blast to your subscribers.

Let your subscribers know when you’ve published new content and provide them with a link to read it. You can do this by adding the content to your email marketing campaigns or creating content just for subscribers.

3. Reach out to influencers and partners with content shares.

Reach out to content partners who have a big social media presence or large email subscriber lists and ask them if you can share content on their sites while they can share content on your site.

4. Promote content through social ads and content upgrades.

You can also promote content by using Facebook ads or other social media ads promoting the content you’ve created. Research shows that content upgrades increase conversions by more than 300 per cent, so it’s a great way to get people interested in reading your content if you have the budget.

Tools and resources to help you create better content

Many different tools and resources are available to help you make better content. Here are a few to get you started:

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a tool that helps you see the most popular content across all social media platforms. This can give you an idea of what content resonates with your audience and help you create content that’s more likely to be successful.

2. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

The CoSchedule Headline Analyzer is a tool that helps you create better headlines for your content. It analyses your headline and provides feedback on how well it will perform, allowing you to create headlines that are more likely to be clicked on and shared.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides insight into the performance of your content, such as how many times content has been viewed and how traffic is directed to your content. It also includes information on where content viewers are located, what type of content they prefer and more.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends helps you see the latest trends in content related to keywords that you enter or topics that interest you. As a result, you can get a feel for what content will be popular and valuable for your target audience.

5.AnswerthePublic

Answer the Public is an excellent research tool that shows you the questions people type into Google based on a seed keyword that you supply.

Conclusion

In conclusion, content marketing is the use of content to help a business grow. Content marketing has grown to be used in many content formats, including video, content for social media and content to share with content partners. Keep your content short and sweet, use content performance tools and promote content across all of your content channels. You’ll have a successful content marketing strategy that will help ensure your businesses growth.

Thank you for reading this content marketing guide! Now go out there and create content that will inspire your audience to grow your business!

The Copy Surgery provides content writing and copywriting services for businesses to build and grow their audience of potential customers. So why not get in touch for a chat, and let’s see how I can help you boost your business with scroll-stopping content now?