Let’s start at the beginning and ask what’s content marketing?
It’s a way of getting your business found online, building your brand, and giving your customers something for nothing to generate trust.
Consistently high quality content will begin to build you a reputation for expertise in your field.
Sounds great doesn’t it?
Before you go getting too excited, it is hard work. Your content has to be relevant and useful to your audience, but it shouldn’t be overtly promotional.
Granted, the whole idea behind it is to show off your business, but that can be done subtly, so your content should:
- ‘Sell’ you as an expert in your field
- Be optimised for the search engines to increase its longevity
- Spread the word by repurposing other marketing materials
Even though it’s hard work, content marketing is like having a megaphone that ensures your message reaches the parts other marketing can’t reach 24/7 and with an infinite shelf life.
The more your readers see your content across the internet, the more they will believe your company is a market leader, which means they’ll be more inclined to pick you over and above your competitors.
So what is content?
It can be anything from white papers and reports, to blogs, articles, videos, web pages etc.
Having a variety of content on the Internet is ideal as everyone likes to receive information in different ways – some prefer video, some audio and others like to read. By giving a choice, you’re increasing your potential audience.
How to make your content great
- Don’t be over promotional
By giving information to help your readers, you will be showing yourself as an expert that is open and approachable. That alone will promote you without you blatantly pushing your products and services.
- Be relevant
For your information to resonate with your readers, it has to be relevant to them. So do some research and find out what they want and then give it to them.
- Well-written
You may not be writing a novel but your content must still be written like a best seller. It must be engaging, be in good English, and grammatically correct—you can’t afford to put out information that is sloppy and not thought through.
- Relevant to your company
Keep your content relevant to your industry.
You can write a variety of articles, such as ‘how to’ guides, top tips and comments on industry news, just make sure they are interesting and provide information that’s relevant to the needs of your readers.
- Promote it
If you’re going to write it, promote it—otherwise what’s the point?
Use all the tools available to you—social media, PR, search engine optimisation—make it stand out and get it in front of your audience.
So if you want to excel at content marketing, write regularly, write well, write relevant material and promote it.