Content Marketing is a Marketing strategy focused on attracting potential customers in a natural way, based on relevant content that is distributed in the different channels and digital media in which the audience is.
Digital Marketing ceased to be a market trend to become an essential investment for most companies, but you already know that, right? Today, whoever wants to remain relevant to their customers needs to have online visibility.
For this reason, the issue is no longer the need to be on the Internet, but how to be present in it to win the public’s attention and stand out among your competitors who are already there.
You have to adopt the best and most modern customer acquisition strategies, the main element being: an Inbound Marketing strategy. One of the main ones is Content Marketing, which is used and recommended by the greatest specialists in the world.
If you still do not know Content Marketing or do not master this modality, we have prepared this definitive guide for you so that you can learn everything you need to know to become an expert.
- What is content marketing
- The Inbound methodology in Content Marketing;
- Benefits of Content Marketing;
- Overview of a content strategy;
- Content planning;
- Strategy execution;
- Measurement of results;
- Tools of a Content Marketing strategy
What is content marketing
Content Marketing is a way to engage your target audience and grow your network of leads and customers through the creation of relevant and valuable content, attracting, involving and generating value for people and, in this way, creating a perception of your brand, generating more business.
But, to make it even clearer in your mind, I am going to break down the concept and explain it to you in detail:
“Content Marketing is a way to provoke the engagement of your target audience and grow your network of leads and customers…”
First of all, you need to understand that the time when we were forced to passively watch television commercials is gone.
Today, the public has more power than ever to choose the content they want to consume and how they interact with it. And you have the power and knowledge to produce exactly the content your audience wants.
“…through the creation of relevant and valuable content…”
Traditional professionals have a hard time stopping talking about their products and focusing on what the audience wants: really useful content.
Good content does not focus on selling, but rather on bringing some benefit to whoever reads it, such as solving a problem, clarifying a question or teaching something. The sale is only a consequence of this process.
“…attracting, involving and generating value for people…”
The content you create is not only useful, but also delivers the right message to your audience at the moment they need it most. You exceed expectations by providing content so amazing that your audience will want to share it with others.
“… in order to create a positive perception of your brand and thus generate more business. “
That’s the most interesting part! Because you helped them when they needed it most, your audience will come to have a positive view of your brand.
And, as we well know, people are more likely to do business with brands they know and like than unknown brands.
How Content Marketing is linked to Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is the main Digital Marketing strategy today. And, within it, is Content Marketing. In this topic we are going to show you how the principles of Inbound make a difference in a content strategy.
To talk about the benefits and importance of Content Marketing, it is essential that we first understand what the Inbound methodology is.
Inbound Marketing is any marketing strategy that seeks to capture the interest of people without invading or interrupting their experience.
Unlike push ads that shoot ads in people’s faces when they’re not ready, their goal is to subtly engage the audience.
You let the public come to your company respecting their time and you wait for them to give you permission to pass on your message. That is why Inbound is also called attraction marketing.
To achieve this, Inbound is based on four pillars:
- Attract: through relevant content, the inbound attracts visitors interested in the business;
- Convert: here, the intention is to transform visitors into leads, bringing them closer to your business and transforming them into potential sales;
- Sell: is your lead interested in the product or service that your company offers? This is the time to show him that your solution is the best and close the sale;
- Enchant: the relationship between your company and your client does not end with the purchase. The Inbound preaches a lasting relationship, in which you offer all the necessary support, in addition to enhancing the client with interesting materials and competent attention.
Basically, what you need to know is that doing Content Marketing is following the Inbound methodology .
That is, it is to attract your audience to gain their trust and win loyal followers for your brand. But there are several other benefits of Content Marketing for your business, as I am going to explain to you now.
Access our complete guide to Inbound Marketing if you want to delve deeper into the subject.
What are the benefits of Content Marketing
Why use Content Marketing? In this section we will show you the main advantages of the strategy for your company to achieve its business objectives.
According to a report published on Neil Patel ‘s blog , 93% of B2B marketers use this methodology in their customer acquisition strategy.
As the numbers show, most companies already know the benefits of this methodology.
But why are they betting on it?
Well, the reasons are several and very interesting for your business. In addition to generating value for you, Content Marketing:
1. Increase your site traffic
The digital transformation has made most people use the Internet to search for information, especially in search mechanisms such as Google. That is, your site is the main gateway for new customers, and Google is the path to it.
Producing relevant content is the best way to get your site on the first page of Google — where your audience will always find it — and let that door invite them in.
The proof of this is that companies that use Content Marketing have, on average, twice as many visits to their sites. And if you produce more than 13 pieces of content per month, that number quadruples!
2. Generate brand awareness
The production of content helps more people recognize your brand and learn about the products and/or services that your company offers.
As I’ve already explained, people tend to buy brands that are familiar and sympathetic to them.
A regular reader of your blog, for example, will prefer your brand when they need to buy a product or service. After all, he already knows you and, probably, you have already helped him several times with your content.
3. Increase engagement with your brand
While brand awareness increases the number of people who know and have a positive perception of your brand, engagement seeks to build a close and ongoing relationship with a select audience.
By producing quality content, you increase people’s interactions with your brand, creating real engagement .
The result of that is evangelizers who recommend and defend it.
4. Educate the market
Many times, your target audience does not fully understand the market in which it is inserted, what the products offered by your company are for, etc.
In that case, don’t give up! Produce content that answers customers’ questions and teaches them everything they need to know to make the purchase decision for themselves.
If your content is really of quality, you will overcome objections and increase customer satisfaction, since they will arrive at the time of purchase knowing your product in detail and how to use it.
5. Generate sales in the medium term
Surely you are thinking: but isn’t generating sales what all companies want?
Yes of course! However, it is not always the ultimate goal of the Content Marketing process.
Increasing the number of sales, in this case, means focusing your content production to guide your leads through the entire purchase process and prepare them for decision making.
In any case, business opportunities arise naturally when the content strategy is carried out in a disciplined manner and following good practices.
From the production of rich materials in an editorial calendar, the attraction of the buyer person to your website is favored. Thus, your potential customers access your website and find you before the competition.
Nothing better for a sales team than reaching a perfect potential customer first, right?
Creating content focused on the terms that your buyer persona is searching for on Google exponentially increases the generation of qualified leads.
This is the great difference of a company that does Inbound Marketing: potential customers come to your sales team, preventing you from wasting a lot of time looking for them.
In this way, it is possible to optimize the efficiency and productivity of the sales department, which will contact only those that are revealed as real business opportunities.
At the same time, the advanced and comprehensive content is very useful for traditional outbound prospecting.
Using them in email flows, it is possible to educate your prospect about your offer and your company. In addition, they reinforce the authority and visibility of the brand, positioning itself as the main reference on the subject for the potential client, generating value to their search for information.
But these are just a few examples of goals. The important thing is that you identify yours to direct your planning in the right way.
6. Boost lead generation
Ok, you already have visitors on your site. But without information about them, you won’t be able to send the right content to convert them into leads and put them in touch with a seller.
That is why generating leads is the main objective of 64.7% of companies! And some of them are already getting triple the number of leads doing Content Marketing.
And the best: with a solid strategy, which will continue to bring long-term results, generating traffic and leads even if you don’t produce content regularly.
7. Increase lifetime-value
Lifetime-value (LTV) is the total value that a customer spends on your company as a whole. For example: if your customers buy a $50.00 product twice on average, your LTV is $100.00.
Every business owner knows that it is cheaper to sell to a current customer than to attract a new customer. So, using a content strategy with this objective is a good move because it keeps the customer engaged with your company.
You can use various types of post-sale content, such as exclusive newsletters for customers, to offer new products or discounts in your virtual store .
8. Reduce the cost of customer acquisition
The CAC, Customer Acquisition Cost, is a metric that points out the value that you invest in the Marketing and Sales areas to get a new customer.
If conquering a new customer is cheap, the income generated by him covers the expenses created up to there and gives profit. Therefore, the objective of any company is that its CAC is as low as possible.
But why am I explaining this to you? Because most companies still have a large sales team focused on prospecting and injecting money into paid media to get new customers.
These actions are successful at many times, but also result in a fairly high CAC. Even because staff and publicity are not cheap, right?
With a Content Marketing strategy, you reduce CAC by providing materials that eliminate customer doubts at the time of purchase and, at the same time, provide your sales team with e-books, webinars and other content that can facilitate the sales process.
And also, you can use Content Marketing to train your sales team, improve the conversion of your leads, build authority in the market, etc., just to name a few of the benefits.
But it is clear that, before reaping the fruits, you will need a well-defined strategy.
Content Marketing, in general, is a job in three stages: planning, execution and measurement. And that’s what I’m going to teach you now.
