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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.
On this page, I’ll break down all the basics of content marketing in simple terms so that even if you’re new to this world of content, blogs and videos, by the time you reach the end of this article (or any other post on our blog!) you’ll have learned some helpful tips for getting started with your own content strategy!
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Content marketing is the process of creating and publishing useful, relevant, and interesting content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Content marketing has proven itself to be one of the most effective ways to grow your business. But it can also feel overwhelming because you’re constantly producing content. How do you know if your strategy is working? And what do you need to do to make sure it succeeds?
As a business owner, it’s important to build trust with your audience. That’s why content marketing is such an effective strategy — it helps you build a community of loyal followers who are interested in learning more about the products and services that you offer.
Content marketing also allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your field, thereby building your brand. This is especially important when dealing with B2B clients; once they realize that you have valuable knowledge about their industry and its challenges, they’ll be far more likely to choose your company over competitors.
And finally, content marketing can have a major impact on sales; according to Hubspot (a leading blog for entrepreneurs), 84% of companies reported their website generated leads at least occasionally during Q4 alone!
We’ve covered what content marketing is and how you can use it to build trust with customers, but there are many more reasons why you should start using content marketing. Here are five important benefits of starting a content marketing strategy:
First, you’ll need to choose a hosting provider. There are lots of options out there, but we recommend SiteGround. They have great customer service and fast servers with all the bells and whistles like SSL certificates and daily backups. Plus, they’re super affordable!
Step 1: Sign up for Siteground
Head over here: https://www.siteground.com/web-hosting and click on “get started now.” That will take you to a page where you can enter your email address, choose a domain name for your site, and set up billing information. If you don’t have an email address yet, just make one up! It’s free and easy. You can also use this opportunity to set up your domain name (which is what people will type into their browsers to get to your site).
Step 2: Install WordPress on your Siteground account
Next, you’ll need to decide where you want your site hosted. I recommend WordPress as it’s easy-to-use and has tons of add-ons that make it easy for anyone (even beginners) to customize their website. I have a simple 4-step tutorial on installing and using WordPress here.
After you finish signing up, click on the “Manage” button in the upper-right corner of the screen. This will take you back to a list of all the accounts you’ve created with Siteground. Find the one that says “WordPress,” click on it, then click “Install.”
The last step is actually writing content for your blog! The good news is that this isn’t as hard as it sounds—you don’t need to be an expert (or even very tech savvy) to write interesting articles that people will love reading! Just make sure that each post has a clear call-to-action at the end so readers know what they should do next (like buy something from your store or subscribe via email). You can read all about blogging in the Ultimate Guide To Blogging.
And there you have it! You’ve got yourself a blog that anyone would be proud of—and the best part? It cost less than $5 per month!
Ok, so now you have a blog, and maybe you’ve even added a social media account on Tiktok and Instagram. Now what? Content marketing is a great way to get your brand in front of people who are already searching for what you have to offer. But it’s not enough to just create “good” content—you have to create the right kind of content for your audience, at the right time.
Here are some questions to get you started:
Content marketing is all about creating and sharing content that your target audience will find valuable. The goal of content marketing is to provide something that will help your customers or potential customers make a decision in your favor.
This means that you need to share content that is relevant to your product or service, and give them the information they need to make a decision. You can do this through videos, social media posts, articles or even blog posts.
For example, if you are selling bicycles then you might want to create an article about how to choose the best bicycle for kids. The article would provide them with what they need in order to make an informed choice about which one is right for their child.
If you’re still struggling with what kind of content to create, take a look at these examples:
Content marketing is all about the consumer. It’s not just about you and your company, it’s about your customers and their needs.
If you want to succeed in content marketing, you need to understand what your audience wants and needs, and then provide that information.
You can’t just write whatever you want—you have to write what they want. You can use tools to write that copy for you, but you’d still need a content marketing strategist to work out the details, create a content plan and calendar to make the most out of your content.
Content marketing is a great way to build your audience, but it’s not easy to come up with ideas for new content. Here are some tips for creating content that will make your audience fall in love with you:
Social media is an easy and powerful way to build your business, connect with customers and grow your brand. Although content marketing isn’t just about social media, it is a big part of your content marketing mix these days.
Social media marketing can help you:
Now that you’ve got a good understanding of the basics, let’s take a look at how to turn your headline into something people want to click on.
To start, think about what kind of content works best for your brand and audience. If you run an animal shelter, maybe it makes sense for you to post pics of cute animals. If you’re selling luxury watches, maybe gifs are more your speed (and yes — you can insert them into Facebook posts). The point is: choose something that fits both the topic and your target audience.
Once you’ve got an idea in mind, think about using images or videos as part of the post itself rather than just sharing links outwards and hoping they’ll click over themselves. This can be harder than it sounds but there are some great tools like Canva which help make this process easier!
If you’re not a writer, or even if you are but aren’t sure how to get started with content marketing, there are plenty of great ways to create engaging and useful content for your business. Here’s what we recommend:
Check out the Ultimate Guide To Blogging to get you up to speed with all things blogging.
Content marketing is a great way to promote your business, gain more customers and build your brand. It also helps you build your audience and authority. You can use content marketing in many different ways:
At this point, I hope you understand why and have a plan for getting started with content marketing yourself. If you need any help along the way or have more questions, feel free to reach out. You can always check in with me to see if I’ve any free spots available.