Time To Get On-Board With Content Marketing

When I talk to groups about content marketing and repurposing content, it’s best not to assume everyone is familiar with the concepts.

While content marketing is all the rage these days – and for good reason – it doesn’t mean everyone is aware of it.

The word content covers a lot. Your sales copy is content. The graphics or video on your site are content.

When I talk about content marketing, I’m not talking about your sales copy. I’m talking about content just like you’re reading now… helpful, educational and of interest to people who are looking for answers on a particular topic.

Your sales copy is something people have to read if they want to learn more about your business, or your product or service. Your unique, personal and helpful content  is something people want to read – or listen to, or watch – because they get value from it whether they’re buying or not. It’s what keeps them coming back to your site.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say your sell cameras. Your sales copy is obviously going to promote the cameras you sell and why you – among all the camera stores available – are the one to do business with.

But if I’m not ready to buy, why would I need to come back to your site? Or maybe I just bought a camera from you or someone else. Again, why visit your site and keep coming back?

The answer is your personalized, non-sales content.

What are topics of interest to camera buyers or photographers? Here’s a quick list off the top of my head… how to find the right camera, how to take great photos under different conditions, little-known or little used features of cameras, the best way to print your photos, efficient ways of labeling your photos… the list is almost endless.

Your unique content opens the door for you to become a trusted resource for your prospects and customers. By freely giving them information, and being more than just sales copy on the page or screen, you’re more likely to convert prospects into customers and current, casual customers into loyal customers.

I consider a blog to be your content hub. You can setup a blog for free on your site or on a hosted site (like WordPress.com) and post articles to it any time you like. You control it. It’s your 24 hour printing press.

Many who champion content marketing will go so far as to say that you should consider yourself an information publisher. Yes, you sell a product or service, but it’s that unique content that will help people decide whether to choose you or a competitor.

The trouble that many businesses have with blogs is that they run out of steam pretty quick. There’s nothing worse for a blog than for visitors to see that it hasn’t been updated
in months. Believe it or not, that tells people something about your company, and it isn’t positive.

So if you’re going to go down this road (and I believe you should), you have to commit to it long-term. Successful content marketing doesn’t happen overnight and it’s something
that must be maintained.

I know that sounds scary. After all, you’re already spinning a dozen plates, right?

I’ll simply tell you this: The content you publish on your blog can be an important driver of traffic to your site by people who are looking for specific information you’re sharing.
And when you leverage that content by spreading it to other channels, you increase the odds of more people finding you and your solution to their problems.

Personally, I can tell you that content I wrote years ago is still drawing people to my site. How great is that?

Part of my work is to help you get your content marketing efforts off the ground so that you’re creating great content, and spreading it so that content is working for you as hard as possible. Contact me for a free consultation call to either get you started, or better leverage the content you already have.