Although you might not think about it, truth is you are exposed to content on a daily basis. Every time you perform a search on the web and come across an article, those pictures and videos you see on social media, blogs, video tutorials, and even the newer ones like GIFs and memes all make up content. Content makes up a large part of your daily life and it's what keeps us informed, entertained, gives us answers to our questions, and helps us pass the time amongst other things.
Providing content for your audience not only keeps them up-to-date but it also improves engagement, drives traffic, attracts new prospects to your site, and essentially generates revenue for your company. Think about it this way, if you're not constantly providing content to your audience then you're most likely falling behind other businesses who are.
Now, you may be wondering why content creation is so important compared to other marketing strategies. As you create content, you are using inbound marketing which means you are providing free and useful information to your audience, while attracting prospective customers and preserving existing ones via quality engagement.
As explained in this article by HubSpot, content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing and costs 62% less. Imagine the magnitude of customers you can reach while spending less! Not to mention blogs also play a big role in customer engagement and acquisition. The previous article from HubSpot additionally explains that 61% of online purchases are solely from customers reading a blog. So the more blog content you create, the more you're helping your return of investment.
If you need help getting started with content creation follow these quick steps:
- Brainstorm what you want to teach your audience
- Perform SEO research
- Write
- Edit
- Upload and publish!
Although content can be easy to master after a few trials, there's a set of strategies that must be set in place in order to guarantee prime leads and engagement. Before creating a campaign and rolling out content you must have a clear understanding of your brand, voice, and how you will promote your content.
Set goals for your content strategy. Align your marketing goals with those for your content so they can work in unison to reach one optimal result which correlates with your company's overall objective. This will also help you get a clearer vision of what exactly you want to accomplish through your content.
You also want to create a buyer-like persona and know who you're speaking to, how you want to speak to them, and where to identify them. The secret ingredient behind successful inbound content is to make your audience feel like you're speaking directly to them. In order to do this, you must get to know your audience in a deeper level, like a close friend. Keep in mind you are marketing to humans who want to feel understood and that they can trust you to solve their biggest obstacles and issues. A buyer persona will help you identify your ideal customer through analytics and real time data about your existing customers.
Content creation can be overwhelming so consider using a content calendar in order to facilitate your posting strategy and organize ideas. Once you've rolled out your content don't forget to analyze as you go. Measure the page views, traffic, conversion rates, engagement rates, and audience growth. This will help you improve constantly, understand your audience, and see how effective your content is.