How content marketing really works – explained simply

Content Marketing may sound like a buzz phrase to you. Maybe you feel it doesn’t really mean something. Let me prove you’re wrong…with arguments, of course.

Content Marketing is important to Online Marketing, just like radio shows and music are for radio advertising… even much more. Put it simply, content marketing is about using content in order to market a business, a product/service, a brand or a person.

The most important thing to remember is that Content Marketing gives you and your company the power to stand out, get contact details and start a conversation. Similar with a good flirt.

Another good, but more complex definition is available at copyblogger: “CONTENT MARKETING means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.”

Now let’s get back to our subject: How content marketing works – explained simply:

You create the content -> prospects/clients consume it -> if they like the content they will keep in touch with you (subscribe or contact you) or, even better, they will recommend your company or buy from you.

Content creation in this situation follows the principles of marketing planning and sales. So, when you create online content, you first need to understand:

What are your marketing and sales goals that you want to achieve with your content marketing plan?
Who is your target market, or buyer persona?
Who are your competitors?
Why is your content different and why it deserves to be “consumed”?
What do you sell?
What is the “price” of your content?
What are your distribution channels for your content?
How is the sales process integrated with the content marketing plan?
How your customer service process looks like and where exactly it contributes to your content marketing strategy?
What is your call to action for the content you produce?
How do you promote your content?

Ok, after you figure out the answers to all of the above questions, you have to plan your online content. Write down what content you want to create, when you want to publish it and how you will promote it.

Here are the most used types of online content you can create:

Blog posts;
Newsletters;
EBooks;
Whitepapers;
Study cases:
Webinars;
Podcasts;
Presentations;
Videos;

After you have your content plan is time to start creating the content. Invest time to research your ideas, produce the content and prepare the design for your content and ads. Next step is to publish your content and promote it.

In the end do the follow-up with your sales and customer service/marketing team or just produce more content. Analyze if you’ve reached your goals and improve your work for the next campaign.

So, let’s recap the process of content marketing:

1. Analyze how your content can help your marketing and sales activity
2. Plan, plan and plan your content
3. Create the content
4. Promote it
5. Follow-up and improve