Tag: content marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Effective Content Marketing Strategies for Business Success

October 19, 2023

Content is king. This is an adage you’ve likely encountered in the realm of digital marketing. It’s more than a cliché; it’s a fundamental truth. In today’s fast-paced, digitally driven world, content marketing is your ticket to success. It’s the means by which you engage your audience, build trust, and drive your business forward.

To navigate this ever-evolving landscape, we’ve assembled the ultimate guide to content marketing strategies. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting, there’s something here for you.

1. Know Your Audience Like the Back of Your Hand

Your content won’t resonate if you don’t understand who you’re talking to. This goes beyond basic demographics. You should know their pain points, desires, and behaviors. Build buyer personas to guide your strategy. For example, if you’re selling fitness equipment, your audience might include fitness enthusiasts, busy parents looking to stay in shape, and seniors wanting to maintain their health. Tailor your content to address the specific needs of each group.

2. Start with a Solid Content Plan

Success in content marketing is often a matter of planning. Develop an editorial calendar. Decide what types of content you’ll create, when you’ll publish, and what goals you want to achieve. A solid plan is your roadmap to success. You can plan a series of blog posts about a topic related to your industry, with each post building upon the last. This creates anticipation and keeps your audience engaged.

3. Quality Over Quantity

It’s not about churning out content like a factory. It’s about creating content that matters. Invest in well-researched, high-quality pieces that provide real value. A single great article can outperform a dozen mediocre ones. Suppose you’re in the travel industry. Instead of publishing daily articles with shallow insights, create comprehensive destination guides with in-depth information, stunning visuals, and local tips.

4. SEO is Your Best Friend

Optimizing your content for search engines is crucial. Proper keyword research, on-page SEO, and an understanding of the latest search engine algorithms can propel your content to the top.

If you run an e-commerce store for organic skincare products, conduct keyword research to discover which terms potential customers use when searching for these products. Optimize your product descriptions and blog posts accordingly.

5. Engage, Don’t Just Publish

Your content should initiate conversations. Encourage comments, ask questions, and be responsive. Engaging content is often shared more and can go viral. For example, after posting a blog about the latest smartphone, ask your readers which feature they find most appealing and why. Respond to their comments, keeping the conversation going.

6. Diversify Your Content

Don’t stick to a single format. Mix things up with blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, and more. Different people prefer different mediums. Imagine you’re a culinary brand. Alongside your traditional recipes, consider creating short, engaging cooking videos for busy home cooks.

7. Tell a Story

Storytelling isn’t just for bedtime. We’re wired to respond to stories, so weave narratives into your content. This could be the story of your brand, your customers, or a fictional tale that illustrates your point. For example, if you’re a craft brewery, share the story of how your brewery was founded. Include anecdotes, struggles, and successes to humanize your brand.

8. Leverage User-Generated Content

Your audience is a goldmine of content ideas. Encourage user-generated content like reviews, testimonials, and social media shoutouts. It’s authentic and persuasive. For instance, if you’re a fashion brand, encourage customers to share photos on social media wearing your products. Feature these images on your website to showcase real people enjoying your clothing.

9. Measure and Adapt

Track your content’s performance using analytics. See what works and what doesn’t. Be ready to adapt your strategy based on data. In particular, if you’re running a blog, analyze which topics generate the most engagement and traffic. If posts about healthy eating outperform, consider creating more content around this theme.

10. Promote Your Content

Don’t expect people to magically find your content. Promote it via social media, email, and other channels. A great piece of content is wasted if no one sees it. Suppose you offer productivity tools. Share your latest blog post about time management on LinkedIn, where professionals actively seek such advice.

11. Be Consistent

Consistency builds trust. Whether it’s your publishing schedule or your brand voice, stay consistent. It helps create a reliable image in the eyes of your audience. Such as if your brand has a playful and humorous tone, ensure all content, from blog posts to social media updates, reflects this style. Consistency in tone builds a recognizable brand image.

12. Monitor Trends

The digital world evolves quickly. Stay updated on the latest trends, both in your industry and content marketing. Adapt to what’s new and relevant. for instance, If you operate a tech-related blog, stay up-to-date with emerging technologies like AI or blockchain. Write articles that explore how these trends affect your industry.

Content marketing isn’t just about creating content; it’s about creating value. Your content should inform, entertain, and inspire. It should meet your audience’s needs and help them solve problems. When you focus on these principles, content marketing becomes a formidable tool for achieving business success.

Sunny weather converts: Unbounce CTA Conference Recap

July 26, 2017

Web marketing + Vancouver + Summer – what’s not to like? For the second year in a row, we attended the Call To Action conference by Unbounce in Vancouver.

Let’s be real – when the CEO offers to go to a Conference in summer in Vancouver to see speakers like Rand Fishkin, April Dunford and Andy Cresotdina – you say Yes! Even when you have a pregnant girlfriend at home and house remodel in progress (yes, that’s true and yes I paid the price).

CTA 2017 Summary:

  • Top takeaways from my perspective
  • Vancouver rocks
  • 7 dozen oysters, 6 tacos, 3 days

Top takeaways from my perspective

 

Oli Gardner
Unbounce’s Co-founder Oli Gardner kicked off day one, touched on some good stuff and was a champion dealing with some sound/video issues. One thing that specifically impressed and resonated with me, both for its authenticity and sincerity, had little to do with web marketing tools or data. Oli mentioned the importance Unbounce places on making the event a safe space for all attendees, and that they had deliberately chosen an equal mix of male and female keynote speakers for the conference.

I’m a Californian who fell in love with a Berkeley girl and lives in New York City – so sometimes I tend to take these things more for granted than I should. That being said, the web marketing industry and tech in general has a long way to go when it comes to diversity and specifically gender equality (as Uber so blatantly showcased this year). Hearing from the co-founder that this was part of his company’s ethos should be a great lesson to all current and future companies – especially in digital marketing. It was also clear from the Unbounce staff and general vibe that this wasn’t just lip-service – it really was part of the company’s core culture. (I wrote this post before MozCon happened, which I did not attend, but I heard the same sentiments were expressed there and shout out to them as well!)


Speakers that rocked
To be honest, I didn’t catch all the speakers both days (see my excuses below on the distracting weather & oysters) so the shout outs below are taken from the presentations I did catch. After 15 years working in digital marketing I’ve learned you can’t be a pro at everything and sometimes you have to focus on what’s most important or effective in your own role at a marketing agency. Sometimes it’s also just hard to sit in an auditorium seat all day, even when awesome conversion optimization tips and web marketing jewels are raining from the sky.

April Dunford | @aprildunford
One of my favorite presentations. Some blunt talk on something myself and many marketers have run into head first in their careers – trying to successfully and effectively market something that is lame/boring/complicated. April gave some actionable tips and examples on how to step back and re-position or re-frame the context and turn crap into fertilizer. This presentation was delivered well but was also very real – we’ve all had challenging products to market and hit walls figuring out the best way to do it. At my marketing agency, it made me think back to some past clients (who will remain nameless) with products I really had no motivation to promote or just wished would go away as it was so difficult to find success. Next time I’ll think of April and try to approach this situation differently. More on April’s presentation thanks to Unbounce

Andy Crestodina | @crestodina
We’ve all heard of how big a deal content marketing is these days. I’m both personally interested in this and we’re focusing more on this as a service at VWM. Andy had a lot of actionable and smart tips on content and ranking that are relevant right now and you can take and run with. Part of what made this great was you could literally put some of the tips he suggested into place immediately, just from what he shared. If you can create quality content with value and then use some of the conversion optimization best practices to steer your audience where you want, you’re golden. More on Andy’s presentation thanks to Unbounce

Scott Stratten | @unmarketing
I’d never seen Scott speak before and probably one of the more entertaining and engaging speakers of the conference. The big takeaway for me here is that morals and behavior really matter online and too many companies gloss over this in the hyper-current celebrity viral crap-o-sphere side of marketing  (I made that description up). He had some good examples of both good and bad tactics and it was refreshing to know good still triumphs over bad and that there are moral and professional people out there who care enough to call out bulls#@t when they see it. Mostly. More on Scott’s Presentation thanks to Unbounce. Also, best not to use tactics that make Scott mad – it may cost you, literally!

Other stuff – the good, the bad and the bitchy micro-narrative

A unique welcome to the after party at Science World

Liked – Science World after party location, food/drink at the conference, location, company culture and vibe from employees, the amount of younger people,men-women ratio/international attendees.

Above may be the best slide of the conference from Oli’s deck

Less Liked – WiFi speed seemed over-burdened, seats in auditorium not greatest but splitting hairs here. Also, I’m sorry Vancouver but your local beer wasn’t as great as Montreal…someone had to say it.

Overall Impression – We already bought tickets for 2018 – speaks for itself.

 

Vancouver Rocks

What a great city! Apologies to Unbounce, but hosting a marketing conference on conversion optimization in a dark auditorium when there is sunny summertime weather begging you to get outside makes it hard to focus. Especially when you have been grinding away for months back in the New York office of a marketing agency with regular clients & projects. Fortunately, VWM has always realized the value in work-life balance and is one of many reasons I love working here (other marketing agencies take note: flexibility in balancing work/life is as valuable as pay rate for a lot of us marketing professionals).

Yes, I’ll admit it – disclosure #1

When my boss offered to blow off the pre-conference workshops on Sunday (sorry Unbounce), rent some bicycles and ride around Stanley Park – the answer was a hard YES. After all, the Vancouver weather was beautiful and this seemed like a good way to clear our head before sitting in a conference for two days. We also needed the exercise after a long travel day getting into town. This was a great way for me and the CEO to connect outside of the office and our regular lives. It gave us a chance to talk about our business, operations in general, future strategy and really tune in on some big picture things. Developing both a personal and professional relationship with my CEO makes it easier to come to work everyday. Even though most days are filled working hard for our clients, we still like to have fun at work sometimes. It makes the late night server troubleshooting or off-hours development timeline all worthwhile.

The route below had great bike lanes, coastal views and was a pretty mellow, flat ride. We spread it out over 4-5 hours with stops for beer and snacks on some rented bikes from Spokes Bicycle Rentals . Highly recommend if the weather is good and you’re visiting the Vancouver area.

(created with http://www.mappedometer.com/)

 

7 dozen oysters, 6 tacos, 3 days

Yes, I’ll admit it – disclosure #2

 

Rodney’s Oyster House

Over the course of 3 days the two of us ended up eating 7 dozen oysters at Rodneys Oyster House and the staff there was awesome. It’s in Gastown and my personal favorites were the Royal Miyagi and Kusshi oysters. Shout out to the staff for the hospitality here as well and was a fun group of guys.

 

Gringo Tacos

Being from California I was a bit suspicious when I heard ‘Brisket Taco’ but turns out they are delicious, as well as the other tacos they have. Owner and staff were overly hospitable at this place and cozy back alley spot to go for ‘white trash Mexican’ style tacos – their words not mine, accurate and delicious. Gringo

Unbounce:

For those of you unfamiliar, Unbounce is a landing page builder that makes it quick to build a good looking page, A/B test, monitor and all that good stuff. At Van West Media, we started using the platform a year or two ago for one specific client but have since worked it into out digital marketing service offerings. The experience has been positive so far and we like the tool.

How our Agency Uses Unbounce:

Yes, we are actually Unbounce customers and like their platform. I’ll elaborate a bit more on a future post about how we use the platform as it might be a bit different than most. Aside from the A/B Testing and design stuff, we make heavy use of the webhook/API to help our clients track and manage inbound URL parameters, attribute these leads to marketing campaigns, and qualify visitors based on how they answer a multiple choice form question. Every 24 hours, we automatically post a CSV file of client leads to their server, in a specif format their CRM needs and with specific codes/values that allow the client to differentiate between qualified and unqualified leads.

We use AWS and some custom programming to do this. We can track duplicate records across multi step forms, convert time code/zones, concatenate URL parameters and changes to pre-determined codes the client CRM uses and arranges all the data in certain headers and add some other values. Of course we love that the raw data is still stored by Unbounce and we use this when auditing to make sure nothing is missed. If the API or dev team from Unbounce is reading this – kudos to you and our developers are impressed with your web hook and we’d like to express some gratitude to your team instead of all those fancy frontend UX design types you have there:)

Here’s a link to the Unbounce CTA 2016 recap from the prior year for anyone who’s interested. We’re looking forward to next year!

Why Content Marketing Is Critical To Your Business Strategy

October 19, 2016

“Content is King”

Today that phrase is thrown around marketing magazines and articles left and right. Everyone loves a good story, and every consumer wants to be wooed, entertained, and engaged when they’re eyeing brands and companies. Consumers are inundated with millions of ads, information, and marketing materials, and content marketing is key for businesses looking to distinguish themselves from the enormous competition that exists in today’s marketplace. Furthermore, content marketing allows you to convey your brands personality and offering to the consumer in a highly tailored and specific way.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is exactly as it reads: it’s focusing efforts on developing thoughtful, engaging, and informative content that is going to draw in the right consumers to a particular product. It falls under the Inbound Marketing umbrella, which works by intriguing and alluring consumers through posts and materials that particularly appeal to them. Gone are the days of blindly bombarding consumers with Outbound Marketing and newspaper ads.

Content marketing includes website copy, social media posts, video content, blogs, and articles. It’s not just the words on a page, either. It’s the total content that consumers can absorb by visiting a company’s website, social media profiles, and video streaming platforms. In a perfect world, all of this content would be working in harmony to push your business.

Quality is Key

Successful content marketing is the combined efforts of creative, energetic, and passionate writers and designers. Unique and eye-catching content has the ability to take any brand out of the shadows and into the consumer spotlight in a matter of months. Social media and other inherent aspects of the Information Age allows consumers to have an immense amount of online control and choice, and there expectations for quality marketing is incredibly high. The better the content marketing, the more your message will resonate with your consumer.

It’s Only Going Up From Here

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2016 Content Marketing Budgets Benchmarks and Trends, 76 percent of marketers use content marketing in their campaigns, but less than half have a documented strategy. The study also found that businesses plan to expand their content marketing initiatives over the course of the next year.

Additionally, this year, B2C companies are allocating roughly 32 percent of their budget into content marketing compared to 25 percent from last year.

What should this tell you? Content marketing is here to stay. When done creatively and thoughtfully, it is a great way to differentiate your brand or product and engage your target audience in a meaningful and memorable way.

Our content marketing experts can help you. LET’S GET STARTED.

How to Avoid Content Quality Failures

January 15, 2014

2014’s marketing plan for call-to-action involves quality content as the amount of content being produced is increasing greatly. This is due to the increased number of marketeers that are using content marketing along with social media feeds that allow for the content to be spread at an exponential rate. To create quality content, it’s important to understand what NOT to do and we’re here to help you.

Don’t be a constant stream of promotional messages. If you keep shoving your “buy, buy, buy” message in you audience’s faces, they will eventually get annoyed and stop listening. Consumers know the basics of marketing talk and are used to avoiding advertising on a daily basis. Their advertising detectors  are able to block out phrases that are primarily promotional.

Don’t just use generic information. If you can apply what you’re saying to everything, then it means nothing. A lack of specificity can confuse your audience and make it harder for them to relate to your content. By adding specific details about your company and product, you can tell a better story that shapes what you represent. These intricate stories will leave details that will remain in your audience’s mind when they think about your product.

Don’t make it too difficult to read. Illegible fonts or colors make for bad design and keep your audience at bay. Difficult words do the same. When you are speaking to your audience, you want them to understand what it is you are trying to convey without having them turn to a dictionary. Use simple words that everyone can understand because you don’t know what kind of audience you have and you want to have the largest possible reach.

Don’t forget to be human. You don’t want your content to sound like it was written by a machine or is a reciting. Your audience wants to feel important; not just another number. They want to really be convinced and feel special for it. When you speak like a human, they will respond accordingly and feel a stronger connection to what you have to offer.

Quality content is very important when it comes to marketing as it is the craze of this year’s tactics. Make sure you don’t make any of these mistakes in your marketing efforts. Not only is it important to make sure you are creating great content, but you need to make sure that you aren’t doing anything to hinder the influential things you are trying to say. These mistakes will hold you back and it’s important to understand them firsthand before they hold you back!

3 Ways to Blog Success in 2014

January 10, 2014

Blog success is pretty difficult due to the number of blogs on the web. In perspective, WordPress powers 74.1 million blogs and that number doesn’t even include those on other platforms including Blogger, Tumblr, etc. You need to understand and recognize your audience’s time and focus in order to gain the best feedback possible and here are some marketing tactics to help you.

1. High-Value Content – There is a difference between high-priced content and high-value content. Your audience could care less about how much you spend to provide content as long as you solve their problems. Problems can range from giving product information to answering customer service questions. Extend these offers with how-to’s for your product including photos for visual learning. When you show prospects how to incorporate your product into their lives, they are more likely to engage in what you have to offer. From recipes to styling and accessorizing, there are endless ways to portray your product into one’s everyday life.

2. Entertain – Don’t just give facts on top of more information for a mundane informational blog. Have a few breaks here and there that give your audience a laugh or cheers them up with things like BuzzFeed articles, memes or gifs that can engage your audience. You can also lighten up your content by telling stories including those that involve your product’s history, how your company is doing in the advertising realm or even a background of your company and its employees. Stories are entertaining and easy to remember when trying to consume knowledge about something. Giving a history of your product or company and employees also gives off the human or “real” aspect of your brand that your audience can relate to.

3. Mix Up Your Content – People get bored of reading the same kind of content over and over again. Discuss an array of topics so that you cover all different aspects of things your brand is related to. By having a organized social media calendar, you can decide what type of information to present and when you want to present it. A calendar allows you to see a whole spread period of time so you don’t talk about the same type of content in such a short period of time. You can even add small changes to your blogs to add some zing such as including quotes, third-party links or videos. Providing different content formats allows you to test out different channels and audiences and see what is the most effective.

Blog success isn’t guaranteed but there are ways that can definitely improve your potential. By providing valuable information in different ways including the content itself and the platform it’s spread from, you will see a change in your audience’s view of your brand. It may only increase by a little at a time or it could double or triple your blog viewership.

Content Marketing Forecast Changes for 2014

January 7, 2014

As the weather is freezing over, so is our audience’s ability to invest their time in our marketing content. Here are some ways to ensure better content marketing for 2014.

Diversify your content in type, format and size. You want to create small, medium and large content to give your audience so that they can get both little things and the whole story. People don’t have time to read large amounts of content all the time and small doses are necessary to keep your follower’s interest, especially in this age of social media.

You also need to change the type of content as well. From answering customer’s questions to how-to’s to new information, you will keep your audience guessing what’s next. Don’t be so mundane and place the same kind of content over and over again. Variety makes a difference.

Let go of “corporate-speak.” That died long ago. You need people to create different types of content that is of value and unique. When people see that you are placing the effort to really make a difference in their lives through personal experience and research, they are more inclined to listen to what you have to say.

Not only does your content matter, but your design and language does as well. Make your brand become recognizable through your content without its logo. From layout to colors to font, you want to be recognizable and get people know its your brand.

Lastly, get your content to be tracked with sales. From call-to-actions and offers within your content, you can achieve new prospective leads and sales. Give some information about your product and then link to a place where they can immediately purchase it. Giving your audience the right stepping stones to purchase what you have to offer is key to getting sales.

Don’t let your audience breeze past your marketing content. Make these changes and you will grasp their attention for the long run and achieve sales for your brand.

Actionable Content Marketing Options and Their Benefits

December 23, 2013

Marketing through content is the most effective way to attract prospects and convert them into leads. Making that content marketing actionable furthers that concept and increases its potential that much more. With the amount of advertising in New York and its surrounding areas, it’s difficult to get ahead without having a strong successful tactic for your content marketing. Here are some the top actionable content marketing options and their benefits:

1. Social Media (other than blogs) – By adding sharing icons for social media, you are encouraging action with every piece of content you post. This will allow others to spread your content for you and expand your content marketing distribution.

2. Website Articles – The new content you add on a regular basis should be placed on your company’s home page. This will provide current and new product information and advertise exactly what you want to promote for the time being. It also supports search engine optimization so others will find you easily when they are searching for your type of product without even being aware of your brand.

3. E-newsletters – When you include links to the articles on your site and to third party sites, you offer product information directly to your prospects. This also offers customer engagement as they need to click through the links to learn more. You will filter out those who go to your website that are truly interested and know some information from those who are just searching the web.

4. Blogs – You should publish at least 2 to 3 posts per week to get the most of your customer acquisition impact. Your blog entries can provide product information and also support search engine optimization as well. Constant entries provide more content to bring more keywords to your pages and bring you higher in search engines.

5. Case Studies – This will show how related businesses can use your product. From websites like Pinterest and Instagram, you can show your prospective customers the many different ways your product can be used. Images and video are very important for this to excel as customers need visuals. Testimonials and reviews are great add ons to this.

6. Live Events – Through this, you can extend reach with the use of live tweeting or live blogging. You can even have a live example of how your product works through demonstrations. You will provide product information and also build trust and get instant feedback as you are physically in front of your audience.

7. E-books – You can educate your prospects and customers to generate leads though this. Only those that are willing to download your e-book will receive the information as well so you will know who is actually interested in what you have to offer. You should also incorporate a related promotion into the book content so that they are lead to purchasing. Call-to-action is the highly important to this concept as you want to educate your audience and then convince then to purchase after.

8. Annual Reports – This will provide statistical information so you have official documents to back your reviews. Testimonials and feedback is important but sometimes, people want a business official document to see your statistics and reviews. You should reference your online content where its appropriate. Add call-to-action after all of your extremely positive statistical content so that they are inclined to click through after they are convinced.

With content marketing, there are so many options and these are only some of the few top ones. When you have actionable content marketing, you give information to your potential prospects and lead them straight to where they can purchase what you have to offer. By paving the path to a shopping cart, you are more likely to convert leads into sales. These tactics also help you to understand those who are actually interested in your product compared to those just searching the web. These options will help you achieve more successful conversion rates and results.

How to Make Your Small Business Look Big

October 21, 2013

Small business naturally have a limited amount of resources. This causes them to often work from project to project rather than look at the objective of their business as a whole. When you start out small, you need to maximize your core strengths to appear bigger to your audience.

Define your niche. It allows you to focus on a specific kind of audience rather than everyone as a whole. By understanding that, you can concentrate on aiming to please that crowd and you will have more loyal customers in that area. If you are a small business, it’s difficult to convince everyone to work with you. However, if you go towards a more specified crowd, you can cater to their specific needs successfully and be able to have a loyal crowd and work on other aspects of the business as well without worrying as much.

Create a business plan to get things done. When you do things without a plan, you are likely to be all over the place. Action plans set things in place and help you with time management as well. This method gets more things done and helps you to keep track of what you have done and what is still necessary. This will keep you more organized and is the foundation of your business.

Consistent brand presentation makes it seem like you are a big company that is highly organized. Many small companies feel as if they can’t fully brand themselves without having a large budget. This isn’t true. Take your core values and place them in each of your marketing aspects whenever presenting yourself. Consistency from everything including a logo, font, color scheme, layout, etc. defines your company as a brand rather than just another business. When people see that those definitive things, they should reflect them upon your company.

Create effective content. A small amount of effective content is better than a myriad of common content. When you show people that you can give them information that others can’t, then you can become a main source to viewers. This is very important because it makes you stand out among the rest. People will turn to you rather than having to present yourself to others. The advantage of this from a small company is what can turn you into a big brand.

Regardless of your budget and the actual size of your company, it is what your customers see from you that matter the most. They want to see the experience and professionalism of a large company to get the results they want. There are many companies that seem big on the outside but are actually only composed of a small number of people and we are here to help you get in the right direction.

Content Creation Marketing Research Strategy

October 17, 2013

Content marketing depends not only on the content itself. There are many aspects to consider including the platform used, the audience and much more.

Platform: Over 70% of marketeers cite websites and social media as it is the most used forms of content. This provides a base for your business as you are in full control of what content goes into them. Your website should be set overall, with a few updates to some pages as recent news and offers arise. People who have been to your website previously should expect to understand the navigation the next time they visit. In the same sense, hose who follow you on social media should also be aware of your voice and the type of things that you post. Along with this, you need to understand how critical it is to be available on the go. If your business isn’t accessible on a smartphone or tablet, you are risking being left out of this area of business.

Audience: Are you a B2B or B2C company? It’s important to understand what kind of audience you are catering for as there are different ways to go about content marketing. B2B marketeers use traditional elements of marketing including white papers and case studies. Compared to B2C , B2B marketeers use these tactics more as it reaches larger audiences. 52% of B2B companies use white papers compared to 10% of B2C companies. Also, 51% of B2B companies use case studies compared to 9% of B2C companies.

Creation: What content are you putting out there? From images to videos to formatting text, there are different influences on your audience when it comes to what you are posting. Over 70% of marketeers use images as the advantage of seeing other people participating in your offers attracts an audience. Images such as infographics are also easy to share and are easier to understand than blocks of text. Videos are also easily sharable but have bigger risks. Yes, it can tell the story but it takes up time and is very expensive. You need to analyze length of the video and whether you have the budget for this method. Over 25% of marketeers find video production to be very difficult. Long content formats are also seen as challenging to roughly 20% of marketeers. This includes white papers, case studies and ebooks.

From platform, audience and creation, there are many aspects to content marketing to analyze. You need to offer a variety of content to reach the most people. By thinking about what content to create, where to create it and who you are creating it for, you will be able to make the most of your content.

An Inbound Marketing Strategy

September 20, 2013

Inbound marketing is difficult to get started as it take a lot of effort. That’s understandable but you need to start somewhere. yes, content is very important but what’s just as important, maybe even more, is your marketing strategy. With our insight in this field, here are some tips to help you get in there to convert your customers into leads.

1. What is your target audience’s persona? This is important because then you can gear your product towards a specific kind of person rather than having a generalization. Yes, you do want to have a large audience base but sometimes, specifying things can make the road a lot easier for you. The persona you are targeting will give you a chance to really get towards the people who share common problems, needs and wants. Through this, you will be able to have an audience base that knows that they can turn to you for their exact wants and needs.

2. Understanding customer buyers is the next step once you find out what demographic you are gearing your product or service towards. Awareness is the ability to find out what their problems. You can find this through blogs, PR research, ads, banners, analysts, etc. By searching for a problem or need, you will then be able to form steps to help your potential customers solve them.

3. Performing research at an educational standpoint gives you a starting commitment to your customer’s issues. By learning about the problem, you will finding different ways to solve them, helping your audience out as they do their research on their own. You can do this through ebooks, buyer guides, industry whitepapers, events, Q&As, etc. Through this, you can learn more about your customer and the issues they have. This starting commitment makes your customer feel like their problems are also yours and that gives you a stronger bond between your audience and your company.

4. Establishing the buying criteria tends to be the solution to the problems. Yes, there are many different kinds of products that can cater to your customer’s needs but you need to make yourself stand out and give them reason to choose your product over others. If your product is unique enough, you may have little to no competition. That is a large advantage but that usually isn’t the case. You need to help your customers understand why your product or service is right for them from an educational standpoint. Make sure you aren’t in a sales mode yet so that they can trust you as “one of them.”

5. Vendor evaluation from the customers themselves is how they proceed to the next step. They have all of their research and are educated in the different solutions for their problems. Now, it’s time to steer them in your direction full-on. from product demos to free trials, you can give them an inside sneak-peek at why you really are the perfect solution for your customers. Specific information and overall experience is what really speaks to people and if you give this to them, they are more likely to give in to what you have to offer because they already experienced it. They understand it and already have an idea of what it’s going to be like in the future or long run.

It’s important to have great content for marketing but you need to have people there for you to actually market to that will want to listen to what you have to offer. You need to have a great inbound marketing strategy to get there. With these ideas in mind, you can make a greater impact on your audience base.