Introduction:
These days, putting out good content online is super important for businesses that want to get more customers. Content marketing is all about creating content like blogs, videos, social media posts and other types of content that help and entertain your target audience.
Instead of pushing sales in people’s faces, you create content that provides value and builds relationships with potential customers. When done right, this smart approach gets your brand out there, is seen as an expert, attracts quality followership, and increases sales over time.
As more people spend time online, mastering creative content is quickly becoming a must-have for businesses of all sizes. Companies that pay less attention to this will be left behind by competitors putting out great content.
Ready to wow your ideal customers with amazing content and watch your business grow? Let’s explore how to develop a killer content strategy to make that happen.
What is Content Marketing:
So what’s this whole “content marketing” thing all about? No fancy words – it just means creating helpful content to attract and convert the right kind of customers to your business.
Instead of pushing sales down people’s throats with ineffective ads, you make blog posts, videos, social media content and other content that provide value. The goal is to help, educate, inform, or entertain your ideal audience.
But why put in all that work? Here are the major payoffs of being a content marketer:
- Get your brand’s name out there by giving away free value that customers go crazy for
- Position your business as the go-to expert on your topic that people can trust
- Drive a ton of new visitors to your website by ranking high on Google
- Attract quality leads by offering free advice and solutions to your target audience
- Increase sales over time by nurturing relationships through your fresh content
Don’t just take my word for it. A lot of businesses have straightened up their content game.
When you get content marketing right, it allows you to genuinely connect with the customers you want in a relaxed manner, not forcing ads on them.
Understanding Your Audience:
Before creating outstanding content, know who you’re trying to reach. Having a deep understanding of your perfect audience is very important.
The first step? Define those buyer personas. These imaginary characters represent your dream customers – their ages, interests, struggles, etc. With clear personas in mind, your content will speak directly to the right people.
But how do you uncover those key insights about your audience? Time to put on your researcher hat and:
- Look at your website stats to see what existing content clicks with them
- Join the online spaces they hang out to understand how they talk and their challenges.
- Do surveys to understand your current customers
- Or have real conversations to learn what keeps them up at night
Once you deeply understand your audience’s wants, frustrations, and what solutions they’re searching for, you can make content to solve those exact pain points.
This relevant, on-target content will instantly grab their attention and create a lasting connection. It shows you legitimately get their struggle and want to help, not just sell something to them.
Your audience should feel like each piece of content was made specifically for them. That’s when the real content marketing magic happens!
Choose the Right Content Formats to Captivate Your Audience
There are different ways to share content with your audience. From written blog posts to eye-catching videos and beyond, you have options!
The key content formats to consider are:
- Blog posts/articles – These allow you to share helpful tips, guides, and advice through writing
- Videos – Show instead of tell by filming tutorials, interviews, product demos and more
- Infographics – Visual graphics that break down complex info into an easy-to-skim and understand format
- Podcasts – Audio shows letting you dive deep into topics on the go
- Social media posts – Short, snappy updates to engage your audience daily
Each format has its strengths. For example, videos are engaging and allow you to get your personality across. But blog posts are great for explaining detailed topics.
The best approach is to use a variety of formats strategically. That way you can repurpose the same content into multiple styles to get maximum reach.
For example, you could film a video tutorial, transcribe it into a blog post, pull out key stats for an infographic, and share audio clips as podcast snippets. One topic, multiple engaged audiences!
No matter which type of content you focus on, always optimize each format using best practices. That means writing compelling titles, including visuals, and making content skimmable and easy to consume.
The more intentional you are about format and presentation, the more your ideal audience will stay hooked on your stuff!
Get Found by Your Ideal Customers: Content Optimization:
Creating content is just the first step. You need people to discover and view your content! This is where optimization comes in – it’s like giving your content a mega boost to get found more easily.
First, SEO – that’s figuring out the words and phrases (keywords) your audience searches for online. Seamlessly using those popular keywords in your content, increases the chances of it popping up on Google and other search engines. It’s like waving a flag to say “Hey, this is the info you’re looking for!”
But optimization goes beyond just keywords. You want to structure and format your content in an SEO-friendly way too, like:
- Use those keywords in your headers, titles and descriptions
- Breaking up text into skimmable sections and bullet points
- Adding descriptive alt-text to images so they get picked up too
The more you optimize for both users and search engines, the higher your chance of getting your content discovered organically.
Finally, don’t sleep on promotion! Even with great SEO practice, you’ll need to help give your content an extra push through tactics like:
- Sharing it out on social media and community sites
- Emailing it to your subscribers
- Trying to get backlinks from other relevant, authoritative websites
With a perfect mix of optimization and promotion, your ideal customers will find and devour your best content!
Guide Your Customers With Content At Every Step:
Potential customers are not going to buy from you right away. They go through a little journey before making the final decision to buy. Understanding this journey is important for using your content to get more sales.
Think of it like a funnel or pipeline. Customers enter at the top when they realize they have a need or problem. As they check out different options, they make way through the funnel stages before reaching the bottom purchase stage.
To effectively guide people through this funnel, you need different content for each stage:
Top of Funnel – The “Hey, I Have This Issue” Stage At this point, your audience has a problem or interest, but may not know solutions exist yet. Your content should educate them on the topic and introduce your company. Content Examples: Blog posts explaining core concepts, social media tips, intro videos
Middle of Funnel – The “Exploring Options” Stage Now your audience is considering you and comparing you to other options. Your content should position you as the best solution.
Content Examples: Product videos, comparison guides showing why you’re better, customer stories
Bottom of Funnel – The “Make My Mind Up” Stage Your audience is pretty much ready to buy, they just need that final nudge over the line. Your goal is to convert them into paying customers. Content Examples: Email newsletters, pricing/sales pages, free consultations
Throughout the journey, you’ll want to optimize your content with calls-to-action and free incentives. Things like “Sign up for our free course” capture contact details so you can keep nurturing those potential buyers.
By purposefully creating content for each funnel stage, you’ll smoothly guide more of your ideal customers from the first realization through to purchasing
Measuring and Improving Your Content Marketing Strategy:
Creating content is just the starting point. You’ll want to regularly check in on how it’s performing so you can improve and get even better results over time.
There are a few key stats to keep an eye on:
Website Traffic – How many new visitors are your blogs, videos etc. bringing to your website? More traffic = more potential customers discovering you.
Engagement – Are people reading, watching, commenting and sharing your content? This shows whether your content is truly connecting.
Leads – How many people are signing up for your email list, downloads, or other incentives? These are hot leads you can nurture.
Conversions – Most importantly, how many leads are turning into paying customers? This shows direct content marketing revenue.
Some tools make it easy to track and analyze all these numbers, like Google Analytics. They’ll show you which content is performing best.
Once you know what’s working (and what’s not), you can refine your strategy. Double down on the types of content, topics, channels etc. that are resonating with your audience.
Maybe your how-to videos are killing it, so you’ll focus more on that format going forward. Or perhaps your social media content gets way more engagement than your blog, so you’ll adjust your priorities.
The name of the game is constantly optimizing and updating your approach based on what your audience tells you they want through their actions and numbers. That’s how you’ll continually level up your content marketing game!
Essential Tools and Resources to Make Your Content Better:
While you’ve got great ideas and skills, some tools can help take your content to the next level and make your life easier!
For writing, tools like Grammarly and Hemingway are super handy. They’ll help catch grammar mistakes and suggest ways to make your wording more clear and concise.
When it comes to visual content like videos, graphics and more, you’ve got options like:
Canva – Easily create stunning visuals with pre-built templates and a drag-and-drop editor Visme – Make presentations, infographics, and product shots pop off the screen Adobe Creative Cloud – Advanced design software for video editing, graphic design, and more
This type of visual content is huge for grabbing attention and explaining things more engagingly.
Finally, you’ll need ways to efficiently share and promote all the great content you’re making. Tools and platforms that are perfect for this include:
Email marketing tools like MailChimp to stay in touch with your audience Social media scheduling apps to automatically feed your channels Content platforms to easily re-share others’ relevant content too
With a well-stocked toolbox of resources helping with creation, design, and promotion, you’ll be utterly unstoppable at this content marketing thing! Just don’t go too overboard with tools – always make sure you provide value.
Examples of Successful Content Marketing Campaigns:
Paystack (Fintech):
Paystack shares helpful articles and guides on their blog, teaching people about online payments, e-commerce, and finding the right business ideas. Their detailed write-ups show they know their stuff in the fintech world.
Key Lesson: Provide free, informative content to prove you’re an expert in your field.
Domino’s Pizza (Food):
Domino’s gets people laughing and engaging with their funny memes, polls and contests on social media. Their creative, humorous posts spread quickly and stick in people’s minds.
Key Lesson: Create fun, shareable social content that entertains your audience.
BellaNaija (Media/Lifestyle):
BellaNaija constantly puts out new blogs, videos and photo galleries covering celebs, fashion, beauty tips and more. Their non-stop stream of interesting content keeps readers hooked.
Glossier (Beauty/Skincare):
This company used a blog called “Into The Gloss” to share beauty tips, interviews, and posts about their philosophy. It helped build a huge following of engaged customers before they even launched products!
Key Lesson: Create content that builds community around your brand’s lifestyle and values.
Mark Angel Comedy (Skit Makers):
The Mark Angel Comedy team has built a massive following by consistently churning out hilarious skits and comedy videos on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. Their relatable, family-friendly content resonates widely.
Key Lesson: Create highly engaging, shareable content that your audience finds entertaining and can relate to.
Toke Makinwa (Media Personality):
Through her YouTube channel, podcast and social media posts, Toke Makinwa shares unfiltered stories, life advice and opinions on relationships, self-love and more. Her raw, authentic content has cultivated a loyal fanbase.
Key Lesson: Don’t be afraid to open up and connect with your audience through personal, helpful content. Even if is sensitive, uncensored etc,
Shayo Business/Skills Blog:
Shayo Business/Skills Blog regularly shares super detailed guides, real-life examples and practical tips on starting businesses, creating great content, making money on the side and more. The hands-on advice helps readers gain valuable money-making skills.
Key Lesson: Become the go-to helper by creating comprehensive, step-by-step lessons that genuinely help your audience. Focus on providing solutions to their problems and challenges.
Those are just a few examples, but the possibilities are endless across industries! The common thread is creating content that authentically connects with your audience’s interests and pain points beyond straightforward product promotion.
Getting Started With Your Content Marketing Plan:
Feeling inspired to launch your content strategy? Here are some tips for starting strong:
Don’t Bite More Than You Can Chew When you’re just beginning, it’s easy to go overboard and burn yourself out. Start small and sustainable with just 1-2 content pieces per week.
Stay Organized With a Schedule. Having a visual calendar mapped out, is a key way for consistency. Write your content themes, deadlines and promotional plan so nothing falls through the cracks.
Divide the Content Workload You don’t have to do everything solo. Look into affordable freelance writers and designers to handle some content creation group work. Or explore working with an agency if you want more hands from experts.
The key is finding the right balance for your budget and capacity. Script and plan everything in-house, but hire a video editor for polishing. Or perhaps an agency to lead your big campaigns while you handle day-to-day social content.
No matter what, get your roles and processes clearly defined so the content delivery runs smoothly. Assign responsibilities and deadlines and approve all the content before letting it go live.
Start Small, Then Evolve Don’t stress about being perfect from day one. Launch with a humble but consistent content operation. Then analyze what’s working, and what’s not, and optimize your approach over time. Evolve your strategy as you get more experience.
The most important step is starting! Even a modest content marketing effort gives you a huge leg over the competition. Stay patient, and remain audience-focused!
Conclusion:
The key to content marketing is truly helping your audience. The content that works best is the one that genuinely relates to your audience’s interests and daily struggles. It makes them feel heard and understood.
While having a solid game plan is important, successful content puts the audience first – not just promoting your products. It builds a real connection beyond just trying to make a quick sale.
Consistently creating content that provides value pays off big time. You’ll get more fans, website visitors, potential customers and income. Businesses that focus on giving the audience what they truly want will zoom past competitors.
So don’t be afraid to start your content game plan, one small step at a time. View it as an upfront investment that drives long-term growth. When your audience loves and actively looks forward to your fresh content, you’ll form a tight bond that keeps your business booming for good.
Ready to take action? Let us know in the comments below! What’s one step you’ll take today to get started with content marketing?
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