Content Marketing
What is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing. This sounds like such a strange term when starting out promoting your business online. But don’t worry, very quickly you will realise how important content marketing is to successfully broadcast your brand, and your business, to your targeted audience.
If we were to define content marketing, it would simply be the creation, publishing and distribution of valuable, specific and solid online content for a targed audience. Great content does not just happen. It is not a fly by night result. Much dedication, purposeful thought, research and hard work goes into producing this type of content. Content Marketing has a long term goal – which is to produce sales. The content written does not actually focus on the products or services, but rather, focuses on providing truthful, helpful information that your targeted audience will find helpful and eductional. Content marketing when written well should not only educate, but also engage and hold your audiences attention. Having your audience consume your content is the ultimate compliment!
There is a word for marketing that is not relevant nor valuable – that word is spam! Spam is literally the opposite of content marketing – it is annoying, irrelevant, in your face advertising that is usually thrown straight in the bin without being read. Spam is painful to receive and not willingly accepted. I’m sure we all know what that feeling is to be spammed!
Content Marketing actually shows that you care about your audience. Connecting with your audience by providing them with informative and free information through your online content over time builds a long standing relationship. Content marketing is not actually promotional – it really is educational. When business provides good, beneficial information, people naturally, without even realising it, become loyal to the brand. When the customer is ready to buy, they know instantly who they’ll be coming to.
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Has Content Marketing Been Around for a While?
You may be surprised to find out that content marketing has been used for centuries. Traditional marketers such as Benjamin Franklin used content as a marketing tool to promote his printing business as far back as 1732. Johnson and Johnson released publications starting back in 1888 that contained content in the form of tips for the medical fraturnity as well as to promote bandages that they sold. Michelin distributed 35,000 free copies of their guide providing drivers with information (content) on car care tips, travel and accomodation recommendations back in 1900.
Fast forward to today – its just the vechile that has changed sending out the content marketing to the people. With the arrival of computers and the internet in the 1990’s, everything has changed in the way that content is distributed.
Why is Content Marketing Important For My Business?
Have you ever thought about content marketing for your business before? This is actually a really good question for business owners to ask themselves in the expansive world of online marketing. You may be surprised to know that the answers to the question are even better then the question.
Clicks Marketing cannot emphasis enough just how crucial and vitally important your online content is for your brand, your business and your audience. Over time, people will begin to feel connected and even comfortable with you, as you give them access to your relevant written content. Trust is built up through your content, transferring what once was someone just watching from the sidelines in the audience, to a fully dedicated lifetime customer. This trust is formed through the provision of quality content, way before the business owner has any interaction, or even knowledge of the ‘new’ client.
Consider the above content marketing definition. When you create valuable free content for people to read online, its like you are opening a doorway of a virtual shop. You are welcoming new customers into your world, sharing with them your business and brand through your written content. Customers where it may not be possible for them to come to your physical store due to distance, illness or any other reason, have access to your helpful information. When you create an equal playing field for your audience, no matter where in the world they are, you actually create a game changer for your customers, as well as yourself. Time and distance are no longer a boundary for doing business.
The Rewards and Benefits that Content Marketing Can Bring.
Improved Brand Awareness
Consistently providing relevant and informative content to your targeted audience does, over time, build up confidence in your brand. Brand awareness means that people will automatically think of your brand when the subject matter gets brought up. Their knowledge of your brand has expanded due to reading your frequently presented content.
Expand Customer Base
Expanding your customer base can at times be a challenge for businesses. Finding new ways to reach out with your message is not always that easy. Content Marketing opens a new door to spread this message. Greeting potential new customers with content written just for them at the very beginning of the sales funnel is the perfect place to start to expand your customer base. Not everyone is familar with your brand or offering, so don’t hesitate to produce content that will inform people who are just starting out looking for a solution to their problem.
Content marketing is an extremely powerful tool. When used wisely, a content marketing strategy targets your audience exactly where they’re at with the use of valuable written information. There is power in the written word – it can create and fill a need.
Cost Savings
The content written for your content marketing can have more then one use. Your created content can be used on your social media pages as well as your blog, even if the content was specifically written for your website. People will find and visit you from numeorus avenues – your blog, social media, online video presentations, etc. Part of you audience may find you first through social media before finding your website. When you create various doorways for people to find you, you create more opportunities to have your brand found and followed.
Don’t be hesitant to use your content to your advantage by sharing on other online platforms, such as social media. This makes the most of your investment into content marketing. Social media broadcasting of your content provides a free opportunity to connect with more of your targeted audience. Your social media audience may choose to share your content with their own individual network. When this type of promotion happens, you reach an entire new audience.
Boost Sales
Content marketing not only helps your presence to be found and seen in the search engines ( eg, google), but your purposeful content will also contribute to a boost in sales. When there is solid, valuable information for people to read and digest about something that interests them, they will at some stage make a decision that what you have to offer is for them. Though boosted sales may not be the ultimate end goal of content marketing, it is definitely one of the rewards and benefits that content marketing does bring.
Engage an Online Community/Audience
Having an active and engaged online community is one way to know that your business is alive and well. Though the people on the other side of the computer screen may not be visible, the reception received from people who read your content will show you that they are present. There is something quite special about receiving response from your online community. This shows that the hard work being implemented into your content writing is gaining traction and being seen.
Clicks Marketing - What Services Do We Provide With Content Marketing:
Successful content marketing begins with the realisation of your potential customers needs. What is your online audience looking for? What keywords are they typing into google to find a solution to their problem?
Research must be done to bring us to this conclusion before any content writing is done. Clicks Marketing do provide succesful content marketing strategy to many businesses. One of our tools that ensure great success is our ability to research.
1. Identify the Broad Niche we are writing about and do very strong keyword research on the overall topic.
Strong keyword research ensures that specific, relevant content will be written for your niche. This step is so important to implement BEFORE any writing begins. Clicks Marketing have strong systems in place that allow thorough research for keywords. A very specific and thorough content marketing strategy is then designed for the content writing process.
2. Identifying all the keyword clusters inside the topic, we group up all the keywords that belong to each article we produce.
Identifying and including all relevant keywords in the written content is a must. For the success of the written article, a proper process must be implemented and followed. Clicks Marketing have fine tuned the successful inclusion of all relevant keywords into our articles whilst keeping a very natural, easy to read flow. The search engines then crawl, find and accept the content and begin to rank the pages throughout the search engines (such as google). The inclusion of these keywords in your content assists your website moving up the pages of google.
3. The articles we produce are published on our clients websites. We also produce content that other people will publish on their websites.
Ensuring your website has informative, high quality, easy to read content is so critical today. In this instance, your website is where your content will live. Publishing content is no easy feat. Much thought and care is required for the content to not only be relevant and valuable to your audience, but the content also needs to be accepted by the search engines. The finished articles that Clicks Marketing produce for our clients have a two fold aim. To be highly informative and relevant for the reader, and to be written so specifically that the search engines bring it up the pages of google with the aim that it arrives on the front page.
Clicks Marketing have been providing content marketing services to the marketplace for decades. Each content marketing strategy that we set in place is thoroughly planned down to the finest detail. We take your content writing very seriously – just as if it were our own.
What Services Clicks Marketing DO NOT Provide With Content Marketing.
Content marketing can, and is produced in various formats. Each individual business owner needs to assess and determine what form of content your potential customers prefer. Clicks Marketing DO NOT provide content marketing for the following formats: video, social media, email and blogs. We have included these options here for your records and to give you a small overview of these alternative options.
Top quality video marketing is often used to present businesses brands to platforms such as YouTube. Youtube has a large and vast audience base that enjoy ‘watching’ content in this video format.
Video content marketing can be expensive and out date quickly. More money and more time are often required to produce more videos as older videos outdate. One of the aims when using video to content market is to keep the message as timeless as possible to avoid the need to produce more videos.
Video content requires the use of specialised video equipment that many businesses often do not have. Video content marketing does give expression to face contact rather then just the written word.
Email content marketing at times can be viewed in a similar light to spam. Your email contacts may not have reached out to you and not be expecting an email from you. Emails can often be overlooked due to the fact that so many peoples inboxes are often overflowing. People often will glance at the heading of your email to determine whether or not they will open it.
The right way to do email content marketing is for people to willingly opt into your list to receive relevant valuable information from you. This way, when your email arrives into your subscribers inbox, they will happily open it and have a look at what you have to say.
Having a blog is a popular way to share content with your readers and subscribers. When you blog, you have a more open space to create creative content. A blog can be much more free spirited, allowing the writer to share stories and less serious information in an informal manner. You can blog articles via links. You can also add social media share buttons at the bottom of your blog for greater reach of your information. Product information can be incorporated throughout the blog, creating awareness and a need to your targeted audience.
Are You Looking For a Content Marketer?
The facts are – your audience, leads and customers are actually looking for, and wanting, content from you. Good, solid, reliable, valuable content. They need this content to ease their mind. To assure them that they are making the right decision before entering into a transaction with you. And this specifically designed and written content needs to be easy to read, natural – organic to you and your business and its offerings.
Engaging the help of a Content Marketer to do this for you could be just what you are looking for. Good Content Marketers aid businesses in attracting, engaging – and even delighting your targeted audiences through well written, specific content. Its actually not easy to create this content on your own whilst running the business end of things.
No matter who you are – whether you’re a garden warehouse, a speciality tea provider, or a medical supplier – there is a content marketing strategy that will benefit your business and bring you a great return on investment. We have well established, English speaking content marketers on our team here at Clicks Marketing. Our intention is to produce high value content for your targeted audience, resulting in increased sales as well as a loyal, dedicated, ever growing customer base committed to your brand.
Without Great Content, Marketing is Impossible.
The goal of content marketing is to help your potential future customers with great information, not to sell to them. Providing helpful, truthful and relevant information to people with no alternative to sell to them, allows a relationship to begin to develop. There’s a saying thats been going around for a while now. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Your content can voice this message. The message that you actually care.
At the very beginning of this article, we talked about spam marketing. Spam marketing is usually annoying, painful, unhelpful and in your face. There is no care factor. The product that is being sold is being pushed on you, whether invited or uninvited.
Your content doesn’t need to repulse people like spam marketing does. Instead, it can be full of helpful information, creating an open door for marketing down the track. Great content marketing allows a natural conversation to flow between new and existing customers. Great content marketing builds up a library of wealth of information over time, with extremely high rewards found in your visibilty online as well as with the community of faithful customers that follow you over time.
Clicks Marketing create valuable, powerful content. This is one of our joys. We have provided strong, on point content for our customers for many years. Content Marketing is one of our strengths. Content marketing can be a very competitive arena and at times it can be very overwhelming to know where to start. Other times, the thought of the sheer amount of content that may need to be written may just grind you to a halt. Clicks Marketing takes content writing very seriously. When our machine starts to roll, you will be surprised at the results.
Content Marketing Examples.
Earlier on in this article, we shared a little about the history of content marketing. Benjamin Franklin, Johnson and Johnson and Michelin all used content marketing in a free format providing quality information to the general public which led to increased sales of their products. All are amazing content marketing examples that were extremely successful, initiated well before the internet exploded into our lives today.
Another interesting content marketing strategy was used by Jell-o. Jell-o produced a cookbook back in 1904, then sent their salesmen out into the communities distributing these cookbooks for free, door to door. The cookbook promoted that dessert was part of the evening meal, and in turn, their jelly sales rose to over one million by the year 1906.
Bacially these 4 entreprenurs and their companies were way before our time. They all realised that by producing free and helpful content to the public marketplace, your audience will engage with you, be influenced, spread your message to others, and somewhere throughout the process purchase from you
Clicks Marketing - Your Content Marketing Specialist.
Well, by this stage of this article, you probably have realised that what you are reading right now is content marketing. The team here at Clicks Marketing really have a deep passion for producing top quality, solid and valuable content for people and their businesses. With so many aspects to consider and address when running a business, there are some things that you might just need a helping hand with.
Whether you already have an exisitng content marketing strategy in place that may need relooking at, or you are brand new to Content Marketing – Clicks Marketing can help to re-assess your exisitng strategy, or come up with a new, detailed plan of action.
So if you are at the stage where you realise you need assistance reaching out to your target audience with specific content for your brand and business – you have come to the right place. A detailed content marketing strategy is what lies behind the production of much great, quality content. Clicks Marketing have the resources and experience to come alongside you in this often daunting world of content marketing. Please – reach out and pick up that phone for a chat to see how we could help you today.
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