What is content marketing?

Want to know what content marketing is? If so, you are in the right place. Keep on reading to find out what content marketing is, learn about the different types of content you can use to market your business and understand what you need to do next to take full advantage of using content marketing in your business.

What is content marketing - Pin

This page includes affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.

According to the content marketing institute,

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

I’m sharing this definition, rather than writing my own because I think the content marketing institute have summed content marketing up perfectly. I find it especially helpful to break the definition down.

STRATEGIC MARKETING APPROACH

Nowadays it is easier than ever to create content. Even with just a smartphone you easily make a wide range of content. However, content marketing isn’t just about creating content. It is about creating content strategically. Businesses that excel in content marketing will have a clear strategy in place so they can ensure that the content is supporting the overall marketing and business objectives.

CREATING AND DISTRIBUTING CONTENT

When it comes to content there are two stages. There is the creation phase and then the distribution phase. In the creation phase, you’ll need to work out what are the best types of content to use in order to meet the objectives set in your content marketing strategy. The types of content you decide to use should showcase your business in the best light possible, whilst also be in a content format that your target audience consumes. Once you have created your content you’ll then need to focus on the distribution. There is no point having great content that is sitting on your website, or somewhere else, that no one sees. For content marketing to work, your target audience needs to be aware of your content and that is where distribution comes in.

ATTRACT AND RETAIN A CLEARLY DEFINED AUDIENCE

A good content marketing strategy will focus on a clearly defined audience. This audience will be your target market, or someone who influences the person who will ultimately buy your services and/or products. Being crystal clear on your target audience will help in the creation process and you’ll be able to keep them in your mind and ensure that the content matches their needs.

DRIVE PROFITABLE CUSTOMER ACTION

Ultimately content marketing is designed to help you sell. Even though it might not come across as ‘salesy’ as other types of marketing, don’t be fooled! Good content marketing will move people along the buyer journey and should eventually result in a sale.

As you can tell a lot there is a lot to think about when it comes to content marketing.

Content Marketing Types and Formats

Now that you know what content marketing is I thought it would be helpful to discuss the different types or formats of content that businesses.

Content can essentially be broken down into four categories:

Written
Video
Audio
Visual (Graphics, images etc)

Now you might have heard a lot of people mentioning that video content is the future. That may be true (and there are a lot of stats to back that belief up), however, that doesn’t mean you should ignore written, visual and audio content. Depending on your business and your audience they might still be a valuable part of the mix.

Within the four different types of content, there are so many options. Here are a few to get you started:

Blog posts
Ebooks
Podcasts
Videos
Infographics
Cheat sheets
White papers
Case studies
How-to guides
White papers
Workbooks and templates
Webinar
Q&A
Interview
Quiz
Charts/Graphs
Press Release
Testimonials
Demos

As you can tell there are lots of options. To work out what is best for you you’ll need to think about your business, your audience and your resources.

An example of content marketing for a small service-based business

Since there are so many options, I thought I would walk you through an example. The majority of my clients are solo and small service-based business owners such as coaches, consultants, designers etc.

They will usually use a combination of:

Blog, podcast or video – They will choose one place where they create and publish content frequently (ideally weekly). This is a place for them to showcase their expertise and build a loyal audience.
Social media – This is where business owners will bring awareness to their other content, as well as creating content to help build an audience and strengthen people’s relationship with the business. Depending on the platform it will usually be a mixture of text-based, video and visual content.
Email Newsletter – Usually business owners will send out a regular newsletter. This is sent to people who have signed up to your mailing list and will be a mixture of distributing other content, as well as providing content that isn’t shared anywhere else.
Checklists, templates, workbooks – These are created as part of a list-building strategy with people having to provide their email address in order to access the checklist, template or workbook.
Testimonials – Testimonials are very important to help potential clients to understand what they will experience when working with you. This is an essential part of a content marketing strategy for any service-based business owner.
Interviews – In addition to creating content on their own blog, podcast or video channel they will also look for opportunities to be interviewed and features on other people’s blogs, podcasts and video channels.

If this seems like a lot of content to create please do not panic. Firstly, you don’t have to start by doing everything. When I work with clients, I create a strategy that outlines how the content strategy evolves and increases over time.

The benefits of using content marketing

Hopefully, by now, you understand what content marketing is and can see how you could use it in your business. However, you might still be thinking ‘This all seems like a lot of work. Why should I use content marketing? Is content marketing really worth it?”

There are numerous benefits of using content marketing including:

It will help you to create sales faster
It will reduce your customer acquisition costs
It will help position you as an expert in your industry
It will help you to build your email list
It will increase the number of keywords your website ranks for and help you rank higher in Google.
It will bring a targeted audience to your website

I really hope that by now you can see that content marketing is a powerful type of marketing that can really help you to generate more leads and sales, and ultimately, grow your business. So here is the super short version of how to get started with content marketing.

How to get started with content marketing in your business

STEP 1: CREATE A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a content marketing strategy. You can create a strategy yourself or you can work with a content marketing strategist, like myself, to create one for you.

I’m certified by Hubspot as a content marketer, as well as having over 5 years of hands-on experience of making content day in and day out.

STEP 2: PLAN YOUR CONTENT

Now that you are clear on your content strategy it is time to plan the actual content. Now depending you might start planning in weekly, monthly or 90-day cycles. I recommend planning content in at least a monthly cycle, but as with everything that is something to aim for. When planning your content you’ll need to create a content plan so you are clear on what type of content you are creating for what platform or channel.

STEP 3: CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Once you have your plan you can get down to the fun part – creating the content. You might decide to do this yourself or you can outsource this. There are so many options when it comes to content creators, which is why having your strategy in place first is key. Your strategy will ensure you know exactly what type of content you need to create and therefore can hire accordingly. If you are going to create your content yourself (which is fine – I create all of my own content) then you’ll need to be aware of what equipment and software you need.

You can see exactly what equipment and tools I use to create all of my content here.

STEP 4: DISTRIBUTE YOUR CONTENT

The next thing you’ll need to do is distribute your content. Your distribution strategy will have been outlined in your content marketing strategy so it should simply be a process of following that through.

STEP 5: ANALYSE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING

Last, but definitely not least, you’ll need to analyse the performance of your content. In your strategy there should be metrics that directly relate to your key objectives. Keeping an eye on those metrics and seeing what works best for your audience is key to ensure that your content marketing remains as effective as possible.

There you have it! You now know what content marketing is, how it can benefit your business and you know how to get going.

Now obviously you can do all of this by yourself, but if you would rather work with an expert to create your content marketing strategy, calendar or content then please do get in touch. You can drop me a message here or if you would prefer to discuss your situation on a call then you can book a call here.