Content marketing is an interesting presentation of exciting and useful information for the target audience. More modest advertising, more benefits (mostly advertising is completely hidden, while content marketing goes along with crowd marketing).
Content marketing is well-formed messages distributed and created to attract visitors with a bright presentation, structured argumentation.
What is this?
This is content and working with it. And only then - with SMM and SEO.
SEO-specialists without content will have absolutely nothing to optimize. How does SEO work? There is a visible area of the page - article, video, photo - all this is content. There is also a hidden area - metadata that helps search engines index the page. At the same time, each link, each keyword in the text is a small hint that paves the way for people to your specific content.
Tweets and mailing lists, short descriptions and large landing pages of products in various online stores are all separate pieces of content. At the same time, content marketing is a certainwork with any content that helps you achieve your goals. However, everyone has different goals. Someone wants to increase the awareness of their brand, the second - to demonstrate their own expert potential. Some seek to attract new customers, the second think about how to keep the old ones. There are hundreds of different targets. And most of them can be solved by well-crafted content.
In this article we will take a closer look at content marketing, new methods of attracting customers.
What does content marketing do for businesses?
Today content marketing is in vogue. At the same time, many do not dare to use it - the prospects are too vague and the advantages are not obvious. Of course, you want the company to be appreciated by customers, but how can this be achieved? The goal looks very abstract, but how to achieve visible results? Let's understand what content marketing is. Promoting a company with its help is becoming more and more popular today.
Brand Awareness
To begin with, after you have created content, people have something to talk about, and discussions begin not only on the content, but on the entire company that created it. So, people exchange links, exchange impressions, while forming their opinion about a particular company. Word of mouth is a great content marketing strategy.
Trust and reputation
It's worth pointing out right away that gaining trust is not an easy task. This takes time. Moreover, when you prove your competence, they will contact you much more often. people believeexperts. Be it: content marketing (a book on it is now freely available in any store) helps to earn a reputation as a real expert. The main thing in this is to bet on quality, not volume: one good post a week is much better than 7 mediocre ones.
Sites that generate tons of content, while not caring about quality at all, in abundance. They should not be like them. Do not force your readers to rummage through the dump of texts of dubious quality and fish out unverified information. A person needs a site that they can absolutely trust. It should be your resource.
Trust is the ladder leading from content to company services.
Indirect conversion
Properly composed content marketing, the new methods of which are presented in this article, allows you to attract the right audience, in addition, it reduces the distance between your products and people. If a person is genuinely interested in articles, they will also be interested in your services. The main thing is to focus on your reader, on the person you need. Otherwise, you can run into a rake, like the once famous Megaplan.
Megaplan launched a mailing list in autumn 2012. She gained 100,000 subscribers in a year and a half. This is a great example of content marketing: really useful and high-quality articles - and zero advertising. At the same time, the distribution had no commercial potential. According to its former editor Maxim Ilyakhov, it turned out to beloss project. And Mikhail Smolyanov, SEO specialist at Megaplan, said that 100,000 subscribers is good, but this is not enough.
The newsletter became popular, but it was aimed at the wrong audience. The first letters - about sales, management, business - were addressed to entrepreneurs. At the same time, all subsequent ones - about thinking, psychology, personal effectiveness - are exclusively for employees. At the same time, employees are not at all the people who will begin to implement such a business management system.
This newsletter was not associated with a product. And if you plan to launch content marketing, you need to consider this.
What else is interesting about content marketing? Stelzner, author of a book on new technologies for managing it, says that you should not create content that is interesting to everyone. It is important that the larger the audience, the wider the coverage, while you know for sure that you need these people? Let not 100,000 read you, but only 5,000 - but this will be your target audience. People who can eventually become your regular customers.
Increased traffic
Good content marketing management is impossible without it. Properly organized content increases traffic, and this is inevitable. At the same time, the more exciting content is published on your site, the more people you attract. And they will know who you are and what services you offer.
SEO promotion
Considering content marketing methods, it is worth noting that without content, SEO makes no senseIt has. The more your content is in demand, the more often it is referred to and the higher it is in search engine results. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Besides, search engines scan it and include it in their own database. Then, when people create a query, an index is built. In it, your page occupies a certain position. Moreover, the more your content fully matches the request, the higher the page will be in the search results.
Quality content drives traffic. There are a huge number of examples. They all lead to the same. Content has no meaning without SEO.
Direct conversion
Nothing convinces people more than accurate descriptions of a service or product. This is also stated in the book "Content, marketing and rock and roll" (D. Kaplunov). If clients notice that you are unusual, they will be drawn to you. Important: "true" - means well-made and aimed at your target audience, specific, interesting and clear.
Flywheel principle
Don't think that this will all happen very quickly, which is also discussed in the book "Content, Marketing and Rock and Roll". D. Kaplunov, the author of the book, says that it is always a very long voyage. In achieving quick goals, it is absolutely useless. If you think it's worth starting your own blog, and after a month, crowds of customers will come to you, and organic traffic will grow significantly - you are sorely mistaken.
This type of marketing works like a flywheel. It takes effort to get it going. You push the flywheelyou expend energy, the wheel accelerates - and only after it spins up, it begins to produce energy itself. Be patient enough - everything comes with time. Content marketing is not a panacea, here the results are not instant. If the traffic remains at the same level tomorrow, this does not mean at all that the content does not work. Wait, while continuing to do everything according to the plan drawn up earlier.
Without team and budget
You don't need to refuse content marketing if you have little or no money for it, while there are only 2 people in the team. Of course, if there is not enough capacity, then you simply cannot physically generate good content all the time. In this case, focus on the content.
Let's take Google's search algorithms as an example. It all started with a small material that the author of the company created for his own needs. At the same time, it resulted in … you know what. Today, anyone who wants to know about the changes in Google's algorithms finds himself on this page. She has gained 1,700,000 views since 2011. Moreover, all this with a small budget for further promotion. And also with little effort: the author replenished the material bit by bit, while fixing only the important.
On the other hand, at low capacities, you will fight harder for the quality of the material and plan your goals more carefully. Here it is worth noting that less is better, but better.
How to convince a client or boss that they need it?
Content,of course, the king, but the people who produce it often try too hard to convince everyone of the value of such marketing. The reason for this is simple: the most popular types of content (guides, articles, videos, newsletters, webinars) are at the very top of sales, the stage that is a few steps away from conversion.
This content helps people find you. You may even be loved or remembered for it. You are able to reach a large audience. At the same time, educational content is not the final stage, and it rarely leads to sales. There are more conversion versions of it. Its effectiveness and value are hard to test, and therefore explaining to a boss or client what the beauty of this marketing is can be difficult.
Educate
Initially - tell them the benefits:
- Experience.
- Long-term relationship with the audience. This is how you build trust with people who will come back to you.
- Be completely frank about virtues. Don't make unrealistic promises. Build the right expectations. Interested in creating an image? Audience increase? Increasing awareness? All this will be. Just be careful. This type of marketing is the very first stage of sales, the period of awareness, when the client only remembers and recognizes the company. Therefore, it is foolish to think that customers will flock to your store in case they read 2-3 blog posts. At the same time, it is necessary that the boss understands this as well.
- Start the flywheel, allowing you to achieve the desiredmarketing purposes.
Many people refuse content marketing, because they think that their business is too specific and people will not be interested in reading about a cement plant, as well as about the production of mineral fertilizers or matches. But this is absolute nonsense.
It is important how, not what. Not exactly what you are talking about, but how you do it. The question is the right strategy. If you do content marketing competently, customers will be interested in learning about anything. Including matches and cement.
Speak numbers
Despite the fact that content marketing is at the top of sales, this does not mean at all that others cannot be convinced of its true value. Can. You just have to build a complex calculation method for this - one that will demonstrate how the content leads to conversion.
Google Analytics will help us with this. We will use the model of multichannel sequences in it. It will be necessary to set up the analytics correctly - it will start tracking all touchpoints right before the conversion.
What does it all mean?
If a user came to your site through social networks, they receive a conditional score in the analytics. If you read a blog post, then the blog gets the same score. After that, it will be necessary for you to analyze what role each used channel plays in sales. And already draw conclusions based on all this.
Now you need to know only one thing: everything can be measured, including content marketing. SoThus, you will have to justify with numbers how profitable the content will be.
Show your competitors
“Already all our competitors use content marketing with might and main”, “Everyone does it” - these are rather strange arguments. Moreover, if you need to convince someone that he is needed and useful, then in this case all means are good. Showcase competitors doing it. At the same time, get ready to be told: “Do the same.” Just don't be in a hurry: for content marketing, copying is always a losing strategy.
