The Three Important Steps of Content Marketing

​You may have heard that content is king when it comes to marketing, and that's definitely true. But creating quality content can be a challenge - especially if you're just getting started. So, where do you begin? This post will outline some essential tips for creating compelling content marketing campaigns. 
 
Content marketing is an important tool to obtain, engage, and keep a following. This is achieved by generating and distributing relevant material - blog articles, white papers & case studies, videos, and other media. 
 
This technique allows you to position yourself, your company, or your client as an expert while also increasing brand recognition. This ensures that your company remains top of mind for current and future clients.
 
So what are the three important steps? 

Three Steps to Content Marketing

1. Choose a target market (audience) and create your buyer persona (age, race, location, job title, life stage, & finances). You might also need to create a secondary and tertiary buyer persona but start with one at first. 
   
   When creating your buyer persona, you will need to assess the market potential to ensure enough prospects in the pipeline for an extended period.
   
   
   
2. Content production is the most time-consuming component of content marketing. However, in today's world, where purchasers do research ahead of time, it's critical to have up-to-date and helpful information readily accessible on your website, social media platforms, and other trusted sources. 
   
   You'll want to spend some time getting to know your audience so that you can address their concerns effectively. You will also want to spend time where they spend their time, such as in media that they watch or joining organizations they belong to.
   
   Developed Content. Owned media such as blog posts, white papers & case studies, videos, and other media showcase your expertise and past performance.
   Testimonials. Your customers are an excellent source of future business.
   Article Placements. Earned media in digital and traditional press validates your authority and makes you appear a thought leader/expert.
   Content Calendar. Organize all of the above collateral with a six or 12-month calendar.
   
   
   
3. Leveraging existing resources & content. Once you've created strategic content, you will want to share it on different engagement channels.
   
   

• ​Website. The first place potential buyers will turn to, so you should work to ensure it is engaging and well-organized by developing a captivating design and clear and easy-to-navigate site map.
  
  
• Drip Marketing Campaign. Identify a scalable email marketing platform that will allow you to capture prospects and strategically share content with them to warm a cold lead (lead capture). Emails can then be sequenced and automated to provide structured communications with your audience and prospects that are easily duplicated and scalable.
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• Automated Nurture Series: 1) Thank them for their interest with an Introductory Email that explains who you are and why they should trust you; 2) Send them a value-packed email that assists them in better comprehending the product category they are interested in; 3) Next, drop them an email about you & your business; 4) Offer to schedule a call, 5) Select a myth or mistake – a sacred cow or myth in the industry – to showcase in an email, 6) Quick win/hack email, 7) Answer a question, 8) Offer to schedule a call, 9) Email about your struggle and/or challenges overcome. 
  
  Rinse & repeat. This type of series helps you break down sales resistance while also projecting an image as a professional in your field. So stop selling and start educating instead.
  
  

• Newsletters. Email has the greatest interaction of any communication platform - about ten times that of social media. An email list may be used in various ways many times over. You should segment your list to deliver highly relevant and customized communications and offers to sub-groups of your target audience. 
  
  
• Bonus Tip! Unread well-branded emails in your inbox can still lead to favorable brand impressions.
  
  
• Social Media. Identify the appropriate platforms for your business and which ones you can effectively maintain. While social media can help establish authority in the industry, you are apt to do more harm if you don't actively maintain them. Select two and cross-post content from above into these platforms regularly using your content calendar.
  
  
• Seminar/Webinars. Explore different events to produce that speak to a problem for which you can provide a solution.
  
  
• Bonus Tip! Live webinars are a fantastic way to market yourself without seeming like you're spamming people. Nobody gets upset when they're invited to an event so you may email potential clients several times. This gives you three reasons to email them (invite, reminder, post-email with recording [in case you missed it]).
  
  
• Proposals. Make specific content printer-friendly and include it with your proposals. This allows you to showcase your relevancy and set you apart from your competition.

So, what's the takeaway? Content marketing is hard. Really hard. But it's not impossible, and with a little bit of effort, you can create content that will help your business grow. 
 
If you need help getting started or want someone to take care of all of your content marketing for you, contact 5 Borough Communications today. We'd be happy to set up an engine that drives results for your business.