So Today we will learn Beginner’s Guide for Content Marketing. One of the most commonly used aspects of digital marketing is content marketing. More than 90% of marketers view content as a valuable business asset.
This marketing approach utilizes content to raise brand awareness. Using content marketing means providing content that’s consistent, relevant, and valuable to the readers.
Making use of both digital and traditional marketing covers a lot of ground and allows us to massively increase our profits. Content marketing is unbeatable when it comes to saving costs, customer loyalty, and sales increases.
Intro to Content Marketing
Here are some of the most important things you should know about content marketing. First, content marketing heavily relies on the quality of content your marketing team produces. Second, it targets the audience of your choosing online.
Third, it increases your online sales, improves your brand awareness, gets the attention of your customers, and gets your customer base to grow. Fourth, the best thing is that content marketing helps you form an online community around your brand.
Finally, content marketing allows you to influence most parts of the customer’s journey. This is done by designing an effective content marketing funnel. Let’s discuss what a content marketing funnel is.
Nevertheless, it takes a lot of strategies, and you need to consider all aspects such as blogs, videos, social media, etc. It might be great to consider using some great social media templates for your strategy.
What Is a Content Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a common term in marketing. It’s also called a sales funnel because it results in generating revenue. It’s all the same principle and it works the same, only with a content marketing funnel, the main tool is content marketing as the name suggests.
Content is a powerful tool for the experienced marketer because it is the first step on the ladder toward becoming a customer. There are four phases your audience goes through, and they all serve the purpose of generating revenue:
- Strangers: Before they even have any contact with your content, the audience is made of strangers, and this is the first phase of the cycle. This is where the content your team provides attracts strangers, and it should always include video.
- Prospects: Once they’ve consumed the content, and they’re still interested in getting more, they become prospects. These potential customers are now looking for more content to engage them.
- Customers: Once the prospects are engaged, they become customers. This is the time they start buying products you have to offer because of the impact your content has on them. Making content engaging should be a high priority.
- Promoters: Finally, once they’re satisfied with your product and the content you’ve offered so far, they start promoting your brand. This is what attracts more strangers and the cycle continues.
How to Design an Effective Content Marketing Funnel?
Now, to design an effective content marketing funnel, we need to think about the customer’s journey. There are different stages of the journey that need to be catered to, and these stages are much like the previously mentioned funnel:
- Connection: Again, the first time your targeted audience makes contact with your content. This is where your marketing team needs to come up with content that’s attractive to the audience. Something that sparks interest.
- Cultivation: By providing attractive and engaging content, you start developing the relationship between your brand and your prospects. This stage heavily relies on the quality of the content.
- Consideration: During this stage, the content provided to the prospects should cover the benefits of your product. This is where the prospects assess all the purchasing options. They will be looking at similar products that aren’t yours.
- Conversion: When conversion happens, the prospect has become a customer. Once they reach this stage, you still have a job to do. Prepare content that encourages customers to share it and advocate your brand. This is where holiday marketing comes in handy.
- Continuation: Finally, you need to continue providing content that discusses the benefits of the product and other products from the same line that go well with it. Of course, this means that your customer will continue to buy from you.
Here are a few more things to keep in mind. The first step is to attract the attention of your potential customers. To do this, you need to focus on ‘how-tos’, the type of content that answers specific questions your audience might have. Try creating a viral video to drive traffic.
This type of content also guides your customers through the next part of the funnel. Finally, the last part of the funnel should be content based on customer experiences, i.e. generated by customers, or case-related that shows how something works and why it’s good.
Content Creation and Promotion in Content Marketing
When it comes to content marketing, there are different types of content you want to publish. This content will end up generating some revenue for you, so you need to consider carefully what kind you’ll use, and how you’ll do it.
1. How-To Guides
As discussed, the best type of content to attract your audience is guides on how to do something. This is how you grow your authority in your industry niche. Don’t forget to include a YouTube video if possible.
Including links in your how-to posts gets you to promote other aspects of your website and drives internal traffic. Also, you can partner up with other similar businesses and increase your marketing efforts.
2. Success Stories
Stories about your success, or the success of other people are something that sparks interest among potential customers. It’s quite amazing how people react when they hear that someone was successful and how they achieved that success.
These stories make prospects believe that they can achieve the same success with your product, or by using your services. It mostly depends on what kind of business you’re running. They work much better than other types of content.
3. List Posts
Strangely, posts that contain lists are attractive. This is because they are easily readable and quite comprehensive. Having a list that defines what the prospect is looking for makes the prospect trust you, and it’s easy for them to read it.
If you create visuals that go alongside these list posts, the posts will drive traffic to your website and help you boost your revenue. Great visuals are key for successful posts. So, consider that before you post anything.
4. Posts With Videos
These can be product presentations, service presentations, product guides, and product promotions. All can be implemented in posts, especially tutorials you can record for some hidden features of your product.
A simple screen recording can get you a high-quality video tutorial on how to use some distinctive features of your product. It also works great for services, and there’s little to no effort because you’re recording your screen all the time. Add some royalty-free music to make the video more pleasant.
5. Expert Opinions
One of the authoritative types of content you can create is an expert opinion post. This is an opinion from an expert on your line of products or your type of product. Many marketing teams employ a digital agency to find experts that will write posts such as these.
6. Social Media Content
Social media is a giant part of content marketing because you need to get great video content on there in the form of Instagram reels, YouTube videos, and others. It’s something that you can post on TikTok.
Just make sure that you get some free video editor and make the videos short because this is what captures the attention of your audience. Long videos tend to bore the targeted audience and this is why they’re not the best choice for marketing.
It’s also a good thing to consider a social media influencer when posting content on social media unless you’re aiming to become one. They can be quite useful when you need fast conversions and larger engagement rates.
Conclusion
There you have it, your guide to content marketing as a beginner. Make sure you pay attention to the stages of the customer’s journey, and how you can improve your content for those stages. Catering to the needs of your customers begins with the content you create.
