The First Step To Content Marketing Success
Over the next month I’ll be providing a complete step-by-step process for creating a successful content marketing strategy to grow your business.
I’m sure you’ve at least heard the buzz around “Content Marketing” lately.
- But what is it and how can you use it to…
- Build your authority
- Drive traffic to your website
- Improve your Google ranking
- Build stronger relationships with past and potential clients and…
- Boost your leads and sales
The simple answer is that content marketing works so well because it positions you as an industry leader, someone who knows their profession inside/out and uses their experience to educate and help others.
How Content Marketing Influences Buyers
Say for example you are looking to buy a wedding cake on the Gold Coast, so you type “Gold Coast Wedding Cakes” into Google.
Next thing you see right up there on the first page is one company that has 3 blog posts about “How To Choose The Right Wedding Cake For Your Theme”, “What To Look Out For When Choosing A Wedding Cake Decorator” and so on.
They also have Youtube videos on “How To Cut The Cake At Your Wedding”, “5 Ways To Improve The Appearance Of Your Cake” and whole bunch of other free content based around wedding cakes.
Now there might another local cake decorator with more experience and just as much skill but we all know who is going to get the call.
This is because they have shown their skill and expertise and turned themselves into an authority on the subject of Wedding Cakes.
All this simply by providing information that any quality cake decorator would know, but the difference is that they took the time to get it out there into the market.
The Sooner You Start The Sooner You’ll Reap The Rewards
Content marketing is not something that will change your business overnight.
Gaining traction in your market and growing your authority on search engines and social sites takes time depending on how competitive your market is.
Now don’t get me wrong you will see some benefit immediately as you deliver fresh content to your database of current/potential customers and social networks, but the true value comes as you start to see a snowball effect from your efforts.
If you provide quality, valuable, actionable and insightful information in your content, before you know it, it will be getting shared and seen by people who’d never heard of you before…People in your target market.
This then spreads to their network of friends and contacts, all the while building your traffic and rankings on Google and other search engines.
The rewards are truly there if you are consistent and provide information your target market is hungry for.
Even if you don’t have time to create the content yourself you can have professional content creators take care of everything from researching interesting topics, to writing the content and even sharing it with your database and social networks.
The Crucial First Step
Now that you know how valuable content marketing can be for your business and finances, and also that you must be consistent to be successful, you need to decide in what format you want to deliver your expertise and experience.
It needs to be something you can consistently produce on at least a weekly basis.
Blogs, Video, Podcasts, Newsletters and Email are some of the most popular and effective forms of content marketing in use today.
So your task for this week is to decide what format you want to use in your content marketing.
- What are you most skilled at?
- What tools do you have?
- How does your target market prefer to learn?
- How much time can you invest in your content strategy?
These are the questions that will influence your choice.
Blogging is obviously one of the simplest because as long as you can type into a computer you are ready to go.
Next week I’ll show you what types of things you can write about and specific places to find more ideas for engaging, fresh content than you know what to do with.
Be sure to sign up below to be notified when the next crucial step becomes available.
If you have any questions about content marketing or want a head start on next weeks blog call me on 0423 311 683 or email james@jamesbribemarketing.com
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