Creating content works in the opposite way of paid advertising and companies have the possibility to get more visitors to their website by constantly creating relevant and interesting content that can be rapidly spread on the Internet. It is an effective way to stop interrupting consumers with annoying advertising and give them something of interest and need, that being optimised, relevant content. The idea about content is that the more you give, the more you get. Creating and publishing content that is transparent and adding more links to your website will significantly increase your search engine ranking.

“Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing.” – Content marketing institute

Nowadays, given the amount of hours spent online and on social media, there is a good chance that your content will spread like wildfire within your marketing, if you create good content. But what is good content? A few characteristics describing good content are:

a)      It is direct and assertive

b)      It starts with that the prospect/reader already knows

c)       It’s linear and argumentative

d)      It’s relevant to your target audience and your business

e)      It’s not too short and not too long

According to the GfK, 80 percent of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. Seventy percent say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60 percent say that company content helps them make better product decisions.

So, you’ve decided that you need to create more content because you want your prospects to love you, but you don’t know what content you need to start working on?

Blogging. We have talked about blogging in our previous posts and how businesses can effectively gain more visibility through blogging. Creating a one page article on a topic related to your industry will help you gain more visibility, humanise your brand and win more leads. However, a lot of companies that have decided to create more content and start blogging have fallen into a big, black hole after publishing a few blogs. The lesson is, once you start, don’t stop. Publishing blogs on an ongoing basis will help you reach those objectives we talked about a minute ago. It does work.

White papers and eBooks. Five to ten pages (white papers) or ten to twenty pages (eBooks) that educate your marketplace on a concept, industry trend, challenges etc. Be careful not to fall into the temptation of writing about your products or services. Remember, content is about educating and creating a closer relationship with your prospects. Don’t scare them off being too sales-minded.

Videos. Short videos are very good if you want  to tell people about your industry or keep them updated with interesting concepts you have been working on.

Webinars. Webinars are a good way to reach out to your target market and share your industry knowledge, gain online visibility and build your brand reputation. If they are done right, webinars can bring clear value to your target and lead them down the sales funnel.

Quality content is part of all forms of marketing, including social media, SEO, PR and PPC. The key thing to changing that traditional marketer mind-set is to become half publisher & half marketer and create good, relevant content on an ongoing basis. If you don’t have the time and resources to start creating content, look at hiring people or agencies that are content marketing experts. Are you ready for this content journey?

 @ralucasaceanu

Do you have any questions about content marketing? We are here to help. Get in touch with us.