Content marketing is often confused with thoughtless publishing of words that may or may not be useful to the readers. The results of such marketing strategy are short lived. It is a very old and well accepted fact that the greater you sow, the greater you reap. This applies more to quality than quantity.
So how to go about content marketing? If done properly, content marketing can build a sturdy foundation on which you can base your entire business. Here are a few points on how to do this right.
Firstly, while creating content, you must never settle for second rate content. Always share the best of what you have with your readers. Only when they like it, they will share it and you get the much needed exposure in the online space.
In modern marketing scenario of today, it is the network of people or the user base that defines your success more than anything else. Unless there is a good number of people who have actually benefitted through you in any way, your chances of surviving the competition are pretty dim.
You not only need to attract the people but also engage them and keep them glued to your business for as long as possible. There are different forms in which you can offer your content to your target audience. Content does not need to be text alone. It can be in the form of videos, slides, podcasts etc.
Spend a good amount of time figuring out what your target audience needs. Some good research before actual content development builds a solid foundation. Recycling the same content over and over again, stuffing with keywords and depending on search engine rankings is so old fashioned. Look for real people, cater to their needs and you are on your way to success.
Make your readers feel important. Marketing does not mean non-stop blabbering about your business, goals and achievements. Of course, your ultimate goal is getting return on your investments, but don’t make it too obvious.
The content should be such that the reader finds it useful and feels compelled to read it till the end.The reader must consider the content as valuable. Remember what is valuable is sharable.
Publish your content on websites that humans actually read. There are millions of article websites that claim to get ‘Google-Love’ for your website. Most of the link building content is never read by a living human being. So what’s the point? Why not write for the people that you actually want to approach?
It doesn’t hurt to get some ‘Google-love’ along the way. Even Google is smart enough to give more weight to websites with real human traffic. Just don’t go by the numbers but seek relevant traffic. This means share your content with people who are interested in it and are actually looking for the content you created.
Content marketing is not just a cool thing to do without any expertise and planning. The results may be magically quick, but age old skills like strategic planning and traditional marketing methodologies still hold good. Creating awesome content for marketing is definitely one of the best decisions that any business owner can take.
Anyone who gains anything from your content might not pay you anything upfront but it does bring you a lot of good will and customer loyalty in the long run.
Great points Larry! I strongly agree that content marketing is not just a cool thing to do without any expertise and planning. We should always aim to provide a quality and meaningful content to our target niche.
Hi Steve, this is true I at one time didn’t understand that.. Actually I think I was being lazy like many other folks.
..When I decided to actually get serious about what I do online, my blogging skills increased.
Now I love blogging…
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Very good points! As usual, most marketers out there seem to not even care for their audience. They’re just pitching their businesses and spaming their links… No value provided. That’s why the few people who focus on helping others get better and faster results. Good work, Larry! Keep it up 😉
Thanks Ed,
your absolutely right ed, some “marketers” I should say wanna be marketers don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing.. They spam the shizzle snot out of everything and at the end of the day they wonder why they aren’t making any money..
..What’s even scarier than that,
Is a few people actually buy into that type of pitching. What they are not aware of is they just bought themselves a one way ticket to failure ville…
I mean I wouldn’t call making $69 a month a good income…
Thanks for commenting..