First off, let's start with "what is content marketing?" Content marketing is the creation of and sharing of online material that doesn’t explicitly promote a brand but it is intended to stimulate interest in products or services.
❌Content marketing is not branded brochures and sales sheets.
❌ Content marketing is not commercials.
🌟Content marketing is when you provide value to your audience. This is the stage in your marketing funnel when you should be providing value to them. Share your knowledge and show your expertise in the field that you’re in.
People don’t like to be advertised to. This is not something that people want to read, nor do people typically trust ads. There is a fine line that we walk on social media between creating something that stands out and will get noticed, but also blends in to look like user-generated content. If a person realizes it’s an ad, they will keep scrolling.
A few examples of great content marketing:
✔️ Blogs
✔️ Vlogs
✔️ Case studies
✔️ Infographics
✔️ Testimonials
✔️ Influencers
Let’s talk a little more about blogs. Plain and simple. Blogs are time consuming. First off, what the heck do you write about? What do people care to read? And where do you find the time to write it? I get it. Blogs aren’t always feasible but they’re worth it. Blogs drive traffic to your website. You now have other content on your website besides what you’re selling. You're giving people a reason to visit your site and you’re earning your audience’s trust. Maybe they’ll even poke around the rest of your website while they’re there.
Also, assuming that you’ve set up your Facebook Pixel correctly, you can be tracking your website visitors and building an audience set out of these people. This is now an audience that knows about you and is starting to trust you. This is a middle or bottom of funnel audience. It’s almost time to sell to them! If you set up a re-targeting ad, show them an offer they can’t refuse, and BAM! You have yourself a new customer. Simple as that. 👏🏻
Another key reason you should be blogging is because it helps increase SEO. What is SEO? It is Search Engine Optimization. This is basically your Google ranking. When you optimize your web pages, you're making your website more visible to people who are entering keywords associated with your brand in search engines. Because what good is a website without visitors?
P.S. Content can't work alone though. You need a solid plan to get your content in front of your target audience. Organic traffic isn't what it used to be, but lucky for us, Facebook makes advertising cost effective so even the smallest of companies can advertise and compete with the big dogs.