how content marketing works?

Could Fred Flintstone Describe How Content Marketing Works?

Table of Contents

 

Is content marketing so easy a caveman could do it?

 

Does Fred Flintstone, the most genial of cavemen, throw up a blog or video on bedrock.io, have prospects click, and the dough starts rolling in?

We’ll explain in this post how it’s a little more complicated than that.

Why You Should Care?

If you’re a business owner or marketing professional looking to expand your skills, you’ve heard of content but have questions. Learn precisely what content marketing is, how it works and why it is a steadily performing tool in any marketing strategy.

What is Content Marketing? 

2 x 280 characters should do it:

 

Content marketing fuels your efforts by keeping your brand in front of your audience and connecting with potential customers. It also gives you the chance to increase traffic to your website, establish trust, develop brand personality and support the conversion funnel where prospects become aware of your brand and progress downward to the point where they become actual customers.

A content marketing strategy is a non-intrusive way to reach your target audience and help them with their pain points and challenges through valuable information like industry news, case studies, guides, and more. Content marketing differs from traditional advertising because it focuses on customers rather than a business’s products and services.

Hypothetical Content Marketing Efforts

Learn how content marketing works?

Let’s say you have a travel agency and want to create brand awareness while helping your customers achieve a trip they’ll never forget.

You understand that your buyer is having a rough time putting together a travel plan that will not make them choose between eating or traveling. So, you establish a documented content marketing strategy that will answer their questions, plus let them know you’re the ultimate guide to building the perfect travel plan. 

You decide to use Instagram to create educational social media posts about the benefits of a complete travel plan, industry news, testimonials, case studies, and other content assets.  Next, you offer them a free guide to help them see hotels, airfare, and the best dates to travel.

Once they have downloaded the guide and given you their contact information, it’s time to nurture them with an email campaign.  You’ll soon determine which leads are interested in buying your services or are still considering purchasing in the future.

This example is a glance at how content works, but there are still a few details ahead. Check out our past blog post on creating content that converts!

The Benefits of Content Marketing

How content marketing works for your business?

Before we see how the gears grind, let’s explore some of the benefits of content over traditional marketing:

Customer engagement: by crafting your content for your blog, social media platforms, landing page or website, you’re more than likely to reach your potential audience and the conduit — search engines like Google. 

Brand awareness and thought leadership: by talking about your industry and educating your audience about what you do, you’re allowing them to find answers and learn more about or process. They’ll see you as a reliable source of information and a credible company. 

Lead generation and nurturing: if you have a free eBook and offer it in exchange for your audience’s contact information, you’ll quickly gain potential leads to nurture them down your sales funnel. Likewise, an email campaign will let you connect with your prospects and provide insight to see which contacts are ready to become a customer based who opens and engages with your email content.

Sales enablement: content marketing isn’t just for the marketing department; your sales team can share the content your team creates to help your audience find the answers they need. If you create a video FAQ on your website, the sales team can copy the link and send it to prospects instead of wasting time regurgitating stock answers.

What Do Content Marketers Do?

What content marketing does?

Content marketers are responsible for creating content that resonates with their ideal buyer persona, follows their brand’s tone of voice, and uses easy-to-follow language. 

These are some of the skills they need to have: 

  • The ability to do deep research on a specific subject
  • They need to understand a brands voice like it’s their own
  • Understand basic search engine optimization (SEO) concepts like keyword optimization
  • Strategy and analysis capabilities to identify which assets work and which don’t
  • The ability to produce content in various formats and with key players like influencers, actors, designers, writers, videographers, etc.

Content Formats and How It All Works

Our top eight content formats will succeed in your marketing efforts!

  • Blog Posts
  • EBooks and Whitepapers
  • Infographics and Visual Design 
  • Videos
  • Case Studios
  • Website Copy
  • Newsletters and Emails
  • Social Media

Blog Posts

These deserve your attention because they help your website become discoverable by powerful magnets like Google. In summary, you have two significant advantages: you’ll educate your audience about your industry and help the search engine rank your content better on a results page (SERP).

With a blog, you have an opportunity to bring people to your site and increase the chances of conversions. For example, let’s say you saw this post on one of our social media channels, clicked on it, landed on our site, read it, saw our eBook, downloaded it, and PRESTO! Now you’re in our monthly newsletter. It’s not too much more complicated than Fred Flintstones’ POST-CLICK-CUSTOMER model.

EBooks and Whitepapers A.K.A. Lead Magnets

If done right, your audience will find enough value in these types of content that they are willing to exchange their contact information for it. It’s not a sale but an indication that your visitors get the answers they need while engaging with your brand. Next, nurture them with an email campaign to get closer to the decision stage.

Newsletter and Emails

Emails are crucial in a content marketing campaign if done right. You have a chance to connect with your target audience even further and lead them down the marketing funnel. To have a successful marketing campaign, you must align your emails or newsletter to your buyer’s context. Let’s say somebody visited your website, downloaded your eBook, and gets an email notification thanking them and inviting them to read more about another topic of interest. It takes twelve touch points or more for people to purchase, so emails are a critical component to splash water in your prospect’s face and keep them engaged.

The power of content marketing

Infographics and Visual Design

This format suits an audience that might not like to read a whole blog post. On the other hand, maybe your buyers prefer quick information. So, infographics or visual design could be the best way to present your content. Remember that content marketing is consumer-centric, so you must choose the type of format according to what different segments of your audience like to interact with.

Infographic elements for content marketing

Videos

People are consuming at least six hours a day of video content. As a result, it’s increasingly common for brands to use video, especially with TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts on the rise. So how would you integrate video into your content marketing mix?

Videos for content marketing

Case Studies

This type of format is a valuable tool for closing sales. It gives you more credibility by showing your prospect a feel of the service through another person’s experience. Think of it as a more elaborate written testimonial where you detail the specific steps that benefitted your customer.

Website Copy

Your site is an essential tool, and the copy is crucial. Visitors will probably bounce (visit one page and exit) if you have very long and dense text on your site. Your writing should convey the essential information to help those visitors understand: who you are, what you offer, and how they can connect with you. There are many templates, but a skilled copywriter can help you distill your copy into easy-to-read nuggets that convert.

Social Media

It’s last but certainly not least. These platforms are vital for distributing your content, but which social media is right for your business? It depends on your ideal customer. Understanding your audience, business value proposition, and products and services in full detail will help you choose the right channel to delight your audience with meaningful content. 

Yabba Dabba Content! 

Flintstones content marketing

Here is a formula that would make Fred Flintstone cry out his catch-phrase of contentment:

Put out content so that people will find it and engage with it. Keep pumping out content to keep their interest until they become a customer.

How content marketing works is simple right?

Not really.

This introduction sketches principles, not details. A successful content marketing strategy is a tremendous amount of work. If you want a company that doesn’t go back to the stone ages but can certainly roll a barrel on a round stone, check out Content with Teeth. Tap HERE for a free consultation, or call us at +1 (888) 552-9235.

If you’re just passing through, leave a comment and share this post!

 

October 12, 2022 Content No comments yet
Yes, Content Is a Buzzword King but there is no doubt content marketing delivers tangibly results over other marketing strategies

Is Content Marketing Worth It?

I bet you’ve come across cliques like ‘content is king’ in your recent online escapades. Or better yet, maybe you’ve heard ‘quality over quantity ‘ or ‘content strategy’ among many other content marketing buzzwords.

 

The truth is, while most people have an idea of what content marketing is, many find it hard to determine if content marketing is worth it. Before we get to whether content marketing adds any value to your business, let’s define it first.

 

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the creation, sharing, and promotion of different media to attract, engage and retain clients. Compared to other forms of marketing, content marketing is an indirect promotion of a brand and its products.

 

You can be the reason this post gets the attention it deserves. So, if this stuff is helpful, please click the “Click to Tweet” button below.

 

Content marketing is the creation, sharing, and promotion of different media to attract, engage and retain clients. Compared to other forms of marketing, content marketing is an indirect promotion of a brand and its products. Share on X

 

The main objective of content marketing is to stimulate interest in potential customers to learn more about your company. The media, aka the content used in content marketing, can include blog posts, video content, podcasts, email newsletters, and social media posts. If content marketing is the road to paradise, content is the signposts that give directions to la-la land.

 

That said, distributing valuable content is only aimed at a clearly defined audience. This can only happen after thorough research and the creation of buyer personas. Furthermore, content marketing only provides a positive ROI or online sales after consistent and strategic campaigns aimed at the target audience.

 

Is content marketing the same as inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing and content marketing are basically the same but often thought of differently, courtesy of industry jargon. Both have the goal of creating value for business prospects, attracting them, and finally, retaining clients. Content marketing, or should I say inbound marketing, does all the above subtly while providing solutions to potential clients. Inbound/content marketing will both involve a blog, video, podcast, infographic, SEO, and definitely lots of words. While most say that the two are different, they mean the same thing and have one common goal: Help the customer see the value of your business and how it solves their problems. This begs the question, are content marketing efforts worth it, or just hype and time waster?

 

Content marketing is effective

Yes, this is a bold statement, but there’s a ton of data from Demand Metric to support it.

 

Less expensive, more qualified leads

As per Demand Metric’s infographic, content marketing costs 62% less than any other marketing strategy. This can be attributed to the long-term returns of content marketing. For instance, creating an evergreen post that solves a reader’s need and ranks well on search engines will see you getting leads months after the publish date. Just because content marketing is cheaper doesn’t mean the results are awful.  On average, content marketing gives you 3x as many leads compared to traditional marketing.

 

Go ye to where your customers are at

If that’s not enough for convincing, here’s another stat: 20% of internet users’ time is spent online reading content. Additionally, 57% of people read content marketing titles at least once a month. As the game of brand awareness shifts online, more than the traditional media, content marketing proves valuable. Not only do you get to show off your brand subtly, but you also get to help consumers with their questions, which increases brand recall. You wouldn’t easily forget someone that helped you in the past, would you?

 

Ads are not a customer favorite

While ads are effective to some extent, consumers don’t want nor tolerate them. By 2015, 200 million people were using ad blockers, and the number is expected to rise as privacy breaks the ceiling and rattles ad-dependent content marketers. Furthermore, 86% of people will skip adverts, and 70% will choose articles, any day, over paid advertising

 

Content Marketing is building relationships

On the flip side, 60% of people, after reading brand content, are inspired to seek out a product from the business. What’s more, 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand from custom content.

 

If you dig our vibe, share! Please click the “Click to Tweet” button below.

 

On the flip side, 60% of people, after reading brand content, are inspired to seek out a product from the business. What's more, 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand from custom content. Share on X

 

These stats show that online content marketing, when done right, can hand you the consumer’s heart, loyalty, and brand advocacy. Interesting content takes the spot on why people choose to follow your business on social media, which leads us to the next point.

 

It’s not just about creating content and closing that chapter. It’s a game of consistency, and no matter how cliche it may sound, Quality over Quantity.

 

Content or inbound marketing isn't a numbers game, but quality game

 

As Orbit Media reports, consistency in content marketing leads to better returns. The report shows that bloggers who intentionally pump time and effort into blogging do make money. Orbit Media is not alone in making this claim. HubSpot complements this truth with its own. The CRM company notes that blogs with 16 posts a month can expect to triple their website traffic.

 

As Brian Dean puts it, the more time spent creating content, the better the results. Consumer’s bar for quality is only going higher. The ultimate truth still remains — it takes time to create content that is useful and share-worthy.

 

To achieve this type of useful and share-worthy content, you need a content strategy. The beauty of a content strategy is how it leads to organic lead generation subsequent to compounding traffic.

 

Let’s see content marketing at work with the content marketing examples below.

 

Case study: Realtor’s content generates leads

John Garuti III is a Southwest Florida realtor who invested heavily in advertising to develop leads. He found Google Ads leads were weak and decided to pivot a content-driven strategy focusing on video and written content.

 

He developed a “lead magnet” or buyer’s guide for Babcock Ranch, the community he specializes in. He has earned 270 leads from this content thus far, including 6 in the last month.

 

A piece of content or "lead magnet" generated new business for John Garuti III, a SWFL realtor

 

We started working with John recently to generate content. We created a content marketing strategy and focused on the keywords that he was well-positioned to rank for quickly.

 

For example, we did a post focusing on the keyphrase “homes for sale babcock ranch” a few weeks ago.

 

The result?

 

John is already in the first few pages of Google for this keyword and moving up quickly, as you can see.

 

Content marketing, specifically blogging, helped a SWFL realtor improve his search engine rankings

 

Creative Content leads to even greater results

Remember the stats I shared above? One of them stated that 80% of people appreciate learning about a brand through custom content.  For content to be custom and attractive to prospects, it needs to be creative content.

 

Take our client, Cloud Compliance Solutions, for instance. We got them started on HubSpot and kicked off several email campaigns that framed their services as a NASCAR pit crew.

 

 

IT professionals responded to the creative framing positively, and we achieved an email CTR of 5.2% (the average CTR of email campaigns is 2.6%).

 

Conclusion

Again, we have to admit that a content marketing campaign can be a whirlwind when you have other business operations to think about. However, the value content marketing brings to the table is undeniable. If you want to get the positive ROI content marketing is sure to give, schedule a free consultation with our content marketing team. We will develop a content marketing strategy, custom-tailored to your business needs.

September 8, 2021 Content No comments yet
is creative content worth it?

Is Creative Content Worth It?

Table of Contents

 

  1. Get a Digital Tool to Help Your Creativity
  2. 10 Benefits of Creative Content for Your Company
  3. Creative Content: Why Does My Company Need It?
  4. Original Content Creation is Key
  5. Dope Content Formats in 2023
  6. Creative Content Helps ROI
  7. Creative Content Marketing
  8. Content Marketing vs. Creative Content
  9. It’s All About Value, Baby!
  10. Types of Creative Content
  11. How to Promote Your Creative Stuff
  12. Spice Up Your Content Today

 

Your boss’ name is Ed.

Ed hates dinosaurs because his Charmin-soft kid was emotionally scarred after a too-early viewing of Jurassic World.

Creative Dino

 

If you don’t read this whole post on creative content, we will force you to go to your next employee review with Ed while wearing a dino head and taking selfies.

Why You Should Care…

Ed is asking you to outsource content. You are stuck between the bottom-dollar copywriter with the WhatsApp number flashing on Facebook (inexpensive) versus the woman with an MFA in creative writing (expensive). We aim to show you why it’s vale la peña to go with the MFA writer and select a choice of steak over flavorless ground round.

 

Get a Digital Tool to Help Your Creativity

Hundreds of posts, emails, and articles are published every second — does your content have what it takes to get noticed?

You need to know how to sell your brand as an experience rather than just a two-dimensional logo attached to your product.

A pleasant content experience fostered by a creative approach will help create strong first impressions and keep your product or service in the minds of your potential customers.

If you want more creativity in your content, your dinosaur-hating boss Ed recommends a helpful tool like a swipe file where you can scan images and copy that inspires you and gets the ideas bubbling.

 

10 Benefits of Creative Content for Your Company

If you are still doubting the power of creative content, here are ten eye-popping benefits:

  1. Organic search authority and visibility
  2. Increase referral traffic
  3. More social engagement
  4. Target customers during the customer journey
  5. Increase conversion rates
  6. Multi-format
  7. Evergreen (constant exposure)
  8. Original research data
  9. Long-term cost savings
  10. Unique brand voice

Move product with a bright, creative approach to content

 

Creative Content: Why Does My Company Need It?

You’ll benefit from having enriched multimedia content your brand could use to form a solid online presence. Below, we highlight several examples and why it’s essential to your company’s success.

You’ve probably heard the phrase: “content is king.”

But why?

 

Original Content Creation is Key

The days of using rewashed ads in a local newspaper are in the past.

Consumers are online, and marketing has gone digital. This is why content creation is CRUCIAL for your company.

According to Red Crow Marketing, Americans are exposed to over 4,000 ads a day!

With such abundant delivery, sticking out from the crowd is essential. This means posting consistently and supplementing your organic efforts (a.k.a. non-paid) with digital campaigns to reach a higher exposure.

Search engines and social platforms algorithms seem to have a mind of their own, learning and ranking differently daily. It sounds almost like a script for the next Terminator movie that your boss Ed’s damaged kid won’t like either!

"I'll be back" with inspired creative on landing pages and other marketing efforts

Dope Content Formats in 2023

The advertising industry is ever-changing, so keeping up with the latest trends can help you stay ahead.

With the rise of social media, marketing managers at small and large companies now have equal opportunities to reach potential consumers online.

We have to find new, exciting ways to catch people’s attention. Still, we recommend always providing value and focusing on being helpful (your boss, Ed, is demanding results after your dino-mask-and-selfies stunt.).

How people interact with brands and make purchases has changed, so it’s only natural that how we promote our company changes too.

Here are three formats of inspiring content for people in 2023!

 

Video Content

Videos have proven to be a successful form of creative marketing for any business.

It’s a format most people can enjoy because it allows them to learn about your brand, product or service quickly and excitingly.

Blending sound with visuals creates a fun experience that helps consumers understand the problem you’re trying to solve with your business.

One main advantage of videos is that they allow users to watch them while navigating your website or social media page.

You don’t need to pay as much attention to videos as you do when reading an article, making them an easy-to-share experience.

 

Creative videos

Interactive content

Another growing trend is anything from polls and questionnaires to interactive eBooks. Plus, this type of content engages people with your website and gathers insights into your target audience.

Interactive

Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI plays a vital role in the latest marketing trends.

Computers can use natural language processing to determine what real people are typing and generate proper responses.

This format can create personalized conversational experiences that engage people and help them with specific problems.

AI also lets your team know more about the types of users viewing your content, helping you develop new creative ideas to meet customers’ preferences.

 

Artificial Intelligence can boost your brand image

Creative Content Helps ROI

Return on investment (ROI) is a business investment’s financial benefit; it’s excellent in helping business owners and marketing people measure their effectiveness in generating revenue.

It’s essential to set goals to ensure it’s worth it; it’s usually represented by a ratio or percentage and is found by dividing the net gain earned from the total cost.

Creative marketing will bring assets like the email address of a valuable prospect

 

Creative Content Marketing

Companies that focus more on the quality of their content begin to yield better results. However, no single strategy will help you improve your returns.

Instead, you need to view each part of your content marketing as parts of an interconnected machine.

Each part must be able to pull its weight for the whole strategy and decision-making to work.

An analysis by HubSpot found the impact of content strategy in today’s workplace, with 70% of marketing managers actively investing in content marketing.

A creative piece of content brings love

Your cranky boss Ed is making an ultimatum. Get creative or get out. Get our free swipe file, a digital tool that will help!

 

Content Marketing vs. Creative Content

These two are different, but they’re like brother and sister.

Content marketing is a strategy that takes your target audience as the primary source of inspiration to produce content that adds value to your buyer’s context — following the inbound principle of attracting, converting and delighting your potential customer.

Creative content is how you format specific content to generate emotions, raise awareness or persuade your audience.

Check out our other blog on creating innovative videos that will skyrocket your engagements.

 

It’s All About Value, Baby!

Include a strategy to craft content that provides value to your niche.

Plan and determine how your content matches your target audience’s needs with their buying journey.

We’ve crafted a complete guide to content marketing on one of our blog posts. Please click here to read the full article.

The definition of B2B marketing, chart.

 

Types of Creative Content

Remember that creativity doesn’t mean you have to force your boss Ed’s traumatized kid, to watch The Exorcist from start to finish. You must use all the possible formats in your arsenal and create something original that matches your brand’s voice.

These are some of the most common ones you could try out and use to your advantage:

  1. Blogging – update your audience regularly and rank higher on search engines.
  2. Case studies – they provide solid social proof that validates your brand’s credibility.
  3. eBooks and guides – high value to users and powerful lead generators.
  4. Social media posts – give your community an inside look at your brand.
  5. User-generated – it raises your brand credibility, and you can leverage the power of fans.
  6. Newsletter – stay in contact with your prospects and build relationships.
  7. Research and data – great for driving traffic to your site and making your brand trustworthy.
  8. Webinars – a high lead-generating tool that helps boost brand awareness.
  9. Podcasts – expand your online reach and showcase your expertise.
  10. Interactive content and tools – reduce your site’s bounce rate by allowing potential buyers to answer polls, quizzes, surveys, and more.

Formats

 

How to Promote Your Creative Stuff

You can rely on digital strategies like SEO and social media.

SEO and Its Power

Along with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices and traditional marketing methods, one of the best ways to shape an immersive experience around your brand is by using creative content.

SEO is the best way to help your website to gain exposure and become available at the top of Google search results or any other search engine.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Chart

What is SEO?

It’s a technique that uses keywords to match the user’s search intent and display it on the result search page according to a few variables: the quality of your content, backlinks, credibility, and so much more.

We’ll discuss SEO in a later blog post and determine its power to spread your message like wildfire to your target audience. However, you can learn more about SEO in this article; click here.

seo, google, search

Utilizing Social Media Platforms to Distribute Content

Types of Social

New platforms are already on the work, and some have gained popularity over the years, like TikTok. The bottom line is that you need to be creative, speak in your brand’s unique voice, and not be afraid to explore.

If you have a plan and understand your consumers perfectly, you’ll certainly increase your social presence and grow your audience. Here are six more tips for using social media to your advantage:

  • Focus on customer service
  • Promote your accounts
  • Pay attention to trends
  • Focus on eye-catching visuals
  • Engage with your audience, don’t just post
  • Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.)
  • Be human (sometimes a face is better than using stock images.)
  • Create an editorial calendar
  • Automate your process

 

Original Social = More Clicks

Social media demands consistency and adaptability. It’s difficult to become famous overnight, but remember that originality can drive traffic to your website or other digital platforms.

Research your buyers and give them what they’re looking for; you have a lot of knowledge about your industry.

So, you could share plenty of information to help them understand how your products and services are the best options to solve their challenges.

 

Spice Up Your Content Today

Although content creation is critical to growing your brand, most business owners don’t have the time or energy to sit back and think all day creatively.

Content With Teeth is the expert who can help you spice up your content by delivering your message creatively and persuasively.

We heard your boss Ed has your neck on the guillotine after you bought a DVD of The Shining and Amazoned it to his snowflake kid. Get a free digital tool like a swipe file to develop creative ideas that will keep Ed off your back!

July 7, 2021 Content No comments yet

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