Category Archives: Content Marketing

Are you committing these 5 content marketing mistakes?

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Are you committing these 5 content marketing mistakes

Are you committing these 5 content marketing mistakes

Content marketing allows you to promote your business without aggressively promoting it.

You offer useful, entertaining, or engaging information to your audience in the form of blog posts, web pages, videos and social media posts.

Through your content you become a day-to-day part of their lives.

They begin to associate you with positivity and value.

Finally, when it comes to doing business, they choose you over your competitors who is not regularly engaging them.

In content marketing, instead of constantly pitching your products and services, you publish relevant and useful content that helps people solve their problems, or in some manner, makes them happy and feel good about themselves.

Why is content marketing called “marketing” when all you seem to be doing is publishing useful content?

Just like any other marketing campaign, content marketing requires strategy.

You need to promote your content using free and paid channels.

You need to aggressively put your content in front of your target audience.

You need to analyze the performance of individual pieces of content.

Based on their performance, you either revise your existing content, or make changes to your future pieces of content.

How is content marketing different from conventional marketing?

Many businesses use conventional marketing, and it works for them.

Unlike many content marketers, I don’t downplay the importance of conventional marketing.

As long as there are conventional channels like TV and print media, conventional marketing is going to exist.

A big problem with conventional marketing is that it is one way.

You are constantly telling your target customers and clients to buy your product without establishing a lasting relationship with them.

Content marketing doesn’t focus on direct selling – although in some cases businesses do aggressively promote their products and services.

Content marketing goes through different customer journey stages, such as

Awareness stage in content marketing

This is one of the first stages of the customer journey when the customer becomes aware of your existence.

Content at the awareness stage must be educational and helpful.

Selling comes at a later stage.

At the awareness stage you can publish blog posts, videos, e-books and newsletters.

Here are some examples:

  • An amusing video by a restaurant on how to choose the right dress for a dinner outing.
  • A blog post on what all to pack on a bike trip by a biking tour company.
  • An e-book by kitchen chimney installation company advising people how to buy the best kitchen chimney and how to take care of it (I recently revised an e-book on the same topic).

During the awareness stage people become aware of the existence of your business and off your expertise and knowledge.

They are repeatedly exposed to useful information in the form of social media updates, videos and blog posts from you.

For example, there are many people who don’t even know that they need kitchen chimneys.

The book helps them become aware of the need.

It not only helps them become aware, it also helps them to choose the right kitchen chimney for different kitchens and after that, how to maintain them so that they can use the piece for a long time.

Through the awareness-related content marketing material, your prospective customers and clients not only become proactively aware of the benefits of using your product or service, they also have a choice when finally they are ready.

Consideration stage in content marketing

In this stage your prospective customers and clients are ready to buy your product or service.

You just need to provide them more information.

This information can be a mix of awareness and technical specifications about your product or service.

Some examples would be:

  • You explain your content writing and copywriting process through a detailed blog post or web page, or an infographic.
  • A case study describing how your SEO copywriting services helped a company improve its search engine rankings in just 6 months.
  • A legal consulting service publishing testimonials from its clients where they describe how the consulting service helped them solve complicated legal problems and saved them a ton of money.

Closing stage in content marketing

The closing stage is quite critical.

Do you know that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is almost 69.57% (source)?

You put so much hard work and money into bringing people to your e-commerce website, and when you see almost 69 people out of 100 abandoning the shopping cart, it can be quite heartbreaking and crushing.

People may decide to not to do business with you just in the nick of time.

Your content marketing effort in this stage can help you remain with your prospective customers and clients till the last step – making the payment.

People abandon the last step due to many reasons including:

  • Getting distracted
  • Developing doubts at the last moment
  • Getting confused
  • Not being able to follow exactly how to do business with you
  • Postponing so that they can spend some more time taking the right decision (right decision according to them)

You can use the following content marketing material to remain with your prospective customers and clients during the closing stage:

  • As an architecture firm, you can produce a quality video showcasing a portfolio of work you have done so far.
  • As a virtual reality company, you can show a high-profile virtual reality environment people can roam around.
  • A research report by your consulting company explaining people how your strategic approach has helped many businesses grow in leaps and bounds.

Although content marketing has arrived late in the game (compared to other forms of marketing) there are many companies like Coca-Cola who have completely eliminated their conventional marketing budgets and are now focusing entirely on content marketing.

Content marketing is effective compared to traditional marketing, but some mistakes can be costly in terms of money and time.

In case you are committing these 5 content marketing mistakes, I hope after reading this blog post you will be able to take corrective measures and enjoy the full benefit of content marketing.

Here they are

Not being regular with content publishing

This is the first mistake I have observed my content writing and copywriting clients committing when they implement their content marketing strategy.

They think that publishing 5 blog posts that they can then display in the footer is enough.

Content marketing is an ongoing process because you need to remain in front of your target audience.

There are multiple reasons for that.

There is too much information on the Internet.

If you are not consistent with your content marketing (in the form of consistently publishing content) your competitors definitely are.

You see, content marketing is not the magical wand.

You can’t publish a few blog posts and case studies whenever you have budget or inclination and then expect content marketing to work for you.

Even highly successful businesses who choose to depend on content marketing, publish high-quality blog posts, podcasts, and infographics on regular basis.

You need to remain in front of your audience constantly.

Even if you are absent for a few days, they lose track.

You must have seen advertisements from famous brands on TV.

Why do they need to promote themselves when their brands are already well-known?

Because the competition is constantly round the corner.

People’s memories are short.

They easily get swayed.

Someone can always out-inform you.

When you are implementing your content marketing strategy, consider the expense of publishing and promoting content as an essential business expense.

Not focusing on the target audience for content marketing

If you’re not focusing on the target audience, you are not going to generate target response.

Whom are you planning to attract to your business?

Of course, your customers and clients – a simple answer would be.

But what happens with your content might be completely different than what you want it to do.

This is especially true if you want to attract search engine traffic to your content.

Remember that how well your content is received doesn’t depend on your desire – it depends on how useful your audience finds your content.

Therefore, choose your topics carefully.

All your topics might be able to deliver value to your readers, viewers, and prospective customers and clients.

By mistake, sometimes you may also end up targeting people who are just looking for free content and they will never turn paying customers and clients.

For this, you need to publish content for all stages of customer journey, as mentioned above.

These days I’m publishing content that attracts traffic from people who are looking for

  • Useful information to spruce up their content strategy.
  • Useful blog posts to link to (consequently, improving my SEO).
  • A blog where they can pitch their own guest posts.
  • Businesses looking for platforms to publish sponsored content.

What about work-related content?

I have already published enough content that tells people how I can help them with their content writing and content strategy.

Through this blog, I’m also helping my main website content improve its search engine rankings.

Not promoting the content you are publishing

There is a reason it is called content marketing.

You don’t just publish content, you also need to market it to make sure it reaches the right audience.

Where is your audience?

Your audience may be on Google.

Your audience may be on social media websites like LinkedIn and Twitter.

Your audience may prefer receiving email updates.

But it isn’t as simple as it is often made out to be by digital marketing experts.

Even if you want to use these platforms to promote your content, you first need to build an audience on these platform by constantly engaging people over there.

The same holds true for Google.

You need to improve your search engine rankings and help your content appear in search results before people can find you for relevant content queries.

For creating a presence on various platforms, you need a consistent effort.

Simply posting your links on LinkedIn, for example, doesn’t help you much, if not many people click the link.

If you don’t have a mailing list, how can you publish your email updates?

Hence, you need to follow a multipronged approach.

That is, not just, regularly, publish high-quality content, but also build different platforms where you can promote your content.

I know, it seems overwhelming, but most of the businesses who want to leverage content marketing, follow this multipronged approach.

Not repurposing existing content

There is massive potential in content repurposing.

You may like to read: Should you delete or re-purpose your existing content?

What does content repurposing mean?

It means either creating multiple blog posts from a single blog post that you have already published, or creating social media feeds, videos, content mashups and infographics from already published content.

I regularly go through my existing blog posts to get new blog post ideas.

Sometimes, from a single heading or subheading, I can create a completely new blog post.

You can also extract sentences and paragraphs from your existing posts and publish them as updates on social media websites like Twitter and LinkedIn.

You can create small email marketing campaigns by taking content from your existing posts and web pages.

If you have published videos, you can create small clippings that can be viewed on their own and then publish them on social networking websites.

Benefits of content repurposing include

  • Saving time and money because you already have the content you need.
  • Getting diversified audience for the same piece of content.
  • Making your content available to people who prefer to receive it in another format.
  • Getting more exposure to less successful content.
  • Reaching your audience.
  • Expanding your reach to a diversified audience.
  • Improving your discoverability by making it easier for people to find your content.

Having a short-term content marketing goal

Content marketing pays big time, but it takes time.

It is not something that will suddenly improve your search engine rankings in 2-3 months or build you a loyal audience in a few months.

People who benefit from content marketing have been using it for years.

It is a rewarding, but a slow process.

Even for small traces of success, give it around six months to one year.

One of the biggest reasons why content marketing fails is that people have very short-term goals for it.

Content marketing has to work against many odds before it can give you some results.

You need to create your own presence.

You need to develop channels so that you can promote your content.

You need to be regularly in front of people you want to influence.

Search engine rankings in themselves take a lot of time because search engine crawlers are crawling and indexing millions of pieces of content practically every hour.

You need to have faith – only if you have faith, you can spend an appropriate amount of time.

 

5 ways quality content affects your content marketing

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5 ways quality content affects your content marketing

5 ways quality content affects your content marketing

There is no denying the fact that quality content is the core building block of a well-established digital marketing strategy.

A compelling and well-structured content shares your brand story and ultimately helps in viewer conversion.

Besides imparting the necessary information, quality content is engaging that helps to grasp and retain the viewer’s attention.

It also triggers their inquisitiveness which makes them want to learn more about the topic.

Every digital marketer, as well as business experts, know the value of high-quality content.

Simply speaking, if you don’t put enough emphasis on generating quality content, no marketing strategies, no matter how good they are, will work.

What is high quality content?

Before divulging further into the ways quality content affects marketing, let us first understand what it exactly is.

Its common characteristics include informative, and helpful.

Quality content also helps to answer all the probable questions regarding the topic.

Moreover, it is unique and original and targets human readers and not search engines.

However, sometimes even the most talented writers commit errors that degrade the content quality.

For example, they make it complicated and therefore hard to understand.

Poor content is also unoriginal, irrelevant, monotonous and tries to manipulate the readers by sharing false information.

Thus, these need to be avoided at all costs.

5 ways quality content impacts marketing

Better conversions

The content you post on your page is one of the primary factors that influence conversions.

The information educates the reader about your brand and its services, a crucial step that determines their purchasing decision.

Besides this, the content also helps to establish a connection between the customer and the company.

This is especially important in the case of blogs as they have immense potential to attract traffic.

I recommend you use original graphics instead of stock photos in your content as the former is more effective due to its uniqueness.

Moreover, please make sure to guide readers on the next step they should take and always include a Call To Action (CTA) button.

Earn customer trust

As already stated above, one of the most common characteristics of quality content is its value and helpfulness.

If readers derive both of these things from your content, they are more likely to put their trust in your brand.

In recent times, buyers have become more cautious, and they do not like to read pretentious content that tries to oversell.

They want to make their own decisions.

Informational and quality content allows them to take their own time to make educated decisions and purchase your company’s services or products.

There is no point in trying to bamboozle or manipulate a modern customer.

They would want to stay loyal to a brand that is successful in delivering all the promises that had been mentioned in the content.

Stand out in the market

High-quality content enables you to stand out from the rest of your competitors in the industry.

Simply speaking, it puts you in a position of authority.

If your website content is credible and informational, there is a good chance of gaining a higher search engine rank, which in turn attracts a higher number of customers.

Quality content also showcases your expertise in the particular field and answers the readers’ inquiries.

Thus, you appear as an industry expert which increases your brand’s trustworthiness.

New business opportunities

Besides gaining more customers, quality content might also attract new investors and business partners.

There is no need to hard sell your business products and services when high-quality content already exists on your website.

If your blog post or some other content featuring yourself or your company succeeds in creating a favorable impression, several profitable investment or partnership opportunities might arise which will help in your business growth.

Save money

There is no denying the fact that marketing is a costly process.

Besides, the money charged by freelancers or in-office full-time writers, you might have to spend way more money on digital marketing strategies such as paid searches if the content is not up to mark.

If you compare marketing methods such as traditional marketing, display advertising and content marketing, there is no better process than content marketing if you wish to garner a greater audience on a limited budget.

How to write quality content?

Now that we have a brief idea of what quality content is and the role it plays in marketing, it is important to know how to write it.

Please remember that you are writing content for the audience and not for yourself or the search engines.

You must consider what your audience would like to read about and make sure to answer and solve all their probable questions and problems regarding the topic.

Research is extremely important.

You need to devote ample amounts of time to proper research.

This not only helps in making the content informational and accurate but also builds language proficiency.

Please make sure that your content is not just informational in a bland way.

People would not prefer reading the entire article if it’s not engaging and captivating enough.

The content structure is also included in this.

There need to be proper headings and subheadings and original images.

Readability also plays a significant role.

People would not like to spend their time deciphering or decoding hard words and complicated sentences.

Moreover, quality content is credible and trustworthy.

As already mentioned before, modern buyers do not prefer hard sales that do not live up to their expectations.

Wrapping up

Thus, we can conclude that high-quality content is a principal factor that determines the success of a digital marketing campaign to a large extent.

It establishes a level of trustworthiness with your target audience and provides them with interesting and valuable information that cannot be found elsewhere.

Track the traffic and leads generated by specific content such as a blog post to ensure if it is doing well.

Lastly, please remember that in the long run, content quality overtakes quantity.

3 tips for hiring a good content writing company for your business

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These are not good visuals. Once they have been arrested what does it mean to be done like that

These are not good visuals. Once they have been arrested what does it mean to be done like that

Two things can make or break your content marketing strategy: The quality of your content and the consistency with which you publish it. You have got a good content writing company working for you if it can deliver both.

The problem is not finding the right content writing company. There are plenty. If you search on the Internet “content writing company” Google proudly displays millions of results and also tells you that it found the results in less than a second. Millions of results don’t matter. You will probably go through the top 4-5 results and send them a query.

In a couple of hours or in a couple of days you receive their responses. You set up a Google Meet with them to find out how they can deliver you the content that you need. Things begin to move.

They give you a “competitive” rate. They promise better search engine rankings. They commit to a consistent content supply. They also assure you that they are going to provide you high quality content. A dream come true.

Do such content writing companies exist? Yes, they do. You need to find them. Here are three important tips to find a good content writing company for your business.

Make sure they have a professional website

A professional website is a commitment. It ups your stakes. A professional website is costly. You often need to hire a web designer, or you need to spend time giving professional touches to the website yourself. The website shouldn’t look like a general WordPress template.

The website must have all the components of a business website such as (aside from the homepage) services page, about us page, contact us page, and even a blog section (more about it later). Every page on the website must solve the purpose. I know there are some pages that are essential for search engine optimization but still, every main page of the website must make sense and should be written to communicate the core philosophy and deliverability of the website.

The content writing company must understand your need

This begins when you initiate communication. Do they understand your business? Do they know your requirement, sometimes even beyond your understanding?

I have worked with many content writers and there is a big difference between content writers who run their own business as a company and those who simply provide work as freelancers by listing their names on the various freelancing websites and social media platforms. People who run a business understand your business. You can read that between the lines.

For example, a content writer who doesn’t work in a company will simply focus on the topic without instilling a sense of personality. But a content writer who runs his own business understands how to run a business and he or she brings the same experience to you when writing your content.

The content writing company has a consistent fee structure

Content writing fee is an important issue both for the content provider and the client. There must be a reason for the content writing company to charge what it charges. The fee shouldn’t be random.

When I tell my clients how much I charge they know why I’m charging that much. After that I don’t negotiate because I know that to be able to deliver quality and consistency there is a certain amount of money that I must make. There are many content writing companies who will negotiate to insane lengths and then compromise with quality, originality and deliverability.

Finding whether you are paying the right fee or not can be a tricky question if you don’t understand how important content is for your business. As the famous saying goes, “if you offer peanuts, you get monkeys”.

Hence, look for a content writing company that has a consistent and logically defined fee structure.

As I have written in the beginning, content is a crucial part of your content marketing effort. It is the backbone. You consistently need high quality content. If you are constantly changing your content writing company, it hinders your content writing efforts. Don’t be in a hurry when looking for the right content writing company. Take your time finding one.

15 Content Marketing Stats Essential for Every Business

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15 content marketing statistics

15 content marketing statistics

Saying that developing a content marketing strategy can be hard is an understatement.

With so many angles to consider, you want to make sure the strategy you are pursuing is effective – both in terms of time and money.

Read on for 15 statistics that confirm exactly why content marketing should be at the top of your marketing arsenal.

1) 60% of marketers publish at least one piece of content every day

Unsurprisingly, prolific publishers have an easier time generating leads than those who are fickle with their content creation.

The key point here? Consistency. It doesn’t matter whether the content is an article, a podcast, a video, or an infographic – regular posting reaps rewards.

2) Compared to content marketing followers, year-on-year growth in unique site traffic is 7.8x higher for content marketing leaders

Innovative content that sets you apart from the pack will boost your website’s views, so take the time to create useful, interesting content that presents you as a leader, not a follower, for an increase in unique site traffic.

3) Content marketing generates about 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing while costing 62% less

More than double the leads and less than half the price. What’s not to like?

Switching from traditional marketing should slash your costs while generating more leads. This could be due to content marketing nurturing your leads and relationships with potential customers in a way native marketing cannot.

4) Compared to non-adopters, conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters

Work smart, not hard.

Why waste time on traditional marketing when content marketing conversion rates are significantly more effective?

5) The most effective B2B marketers spend 39% of the marketing budget on content marketing

Follow in the footsteps of those who do it best and designate a portion of your budget to content marketing.

It’s a winning strategy.

6) “Original written content” is the most important type of content for 58% of marketers

This is good news for those on a tight budget.

You can still deliver an effective marketing campaign by focusing on written content, which is usually cheaper while packing a bigger punch.

7) Content marketing is used by 93% of B2B marketers

Working with a company requires trust, and the overwhelming majority of B2B marketers know that content marketing is key for this.

8) A positive ROI is seen by 82% of marketers who blog

Blogging can help grow your business, and the statistic above shows that time spent blogging pays dividends.

9) The demand for infographics has increased 800% in recent years

That’s huge.

While professional infographics can be pricey, the data is clear: they’re hugely effective.

10) 68.1% of content reading is done on mobile devices

Smart phones have transformed how people use the internet.

With over half of people browsing the internet on a mobile device, it’s essential that your content is optimized for mobile viewing – or all your hard work won’t be seen.

11) Emails from brands appeal to 57% of 45 – 54-year-olds, but only 22% of millennials

The age-old marketing adage still applies: know your audience.

Content marketing is highly effective, but you have to combine it with reaching consumers via the right channels.

12) 71% of B2B consumers review a blog when making a purchase

When it comes to business consumers, blogs are the key.

For the best results, keep your blog updated with high-quality, engaging content.

13) Almost 1/3 of consumers check out a brand’s social media presence before their website

This echoes Point 11.

To get the most out of your marketing strategy, it is imperative that you publish your content in the right places.

Having a good social media presence is essential and can make or break your efforts.

14) Instagram is the fastest-growing platform for selling via video

Speaking of social media, Instagram is your go-to for content marketing via video.

Keep an eye on TikTok too.

15) Content marketing costs 41% less than paid search

Do you need another reason to put more effort into content marketing?

This is it.

As demonstrated by the statistics above, content marketing is an essential strategy in your marketing repertoire.

Consistent, interesting content is a sure way to boost engagement, site traffic, and ultimately, sales – so bear these statistics in mind next time you tweak your marketing strategy.

10 different ways content marketing benefits your business

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10 different ways a business can benefit from content marketing

10 different ways a business can benefit from content marketing.

It is always good to revisit our blessings. We all know the benefits of content marketing and I have written multiple times on my blog how you can gain from content marketing.

I came across this blog post – Top 10 business benefits of content marketing – on Search Engine Journal, and thought of sharing it here.

Some years ago, I published this YouTube video on 6 advantages of content marketing.

 

Content is everywhere on the Internet. You visit a website and you read its web page or blog post, it is content.

You visit a social media or social networking website, and you go through your timeline, it is content.

You watch a YouTube video, it is content.

Through content, you build your platform. When you regularly publish blog posts on your blog, people visit your blog regularly. They pay attention to what you have published. It becomes your broadcasting platform.

The beauty of content marketing is that people are drawn to your website or blog on their own. You do not need to tell them to visit your website.

Why is content marketing so effective?

Because instead of promoting your product or service, you are providing useful information to people. You help them solve problems. You make them feel informed and intelligent.

It is like TV channels. Only, TV channels do not usually sell products (some do). They entertain you. They inform you. They show your content you love to watch. While you are watching that content, they show you advertisements. They make money off those advertisements. They have built platforms. They have built audiences. They make use of those audiences. The same thing applies to content marketing.

When you provide them useful information, on an ongoing basis, they begin to respect you. They want to keep track of what you are publishing. They will go to extra lengths to subscribe to your email updates or follow you on social media, or make sure they visit your website or blog regularly.

I provide content writing services. When people visit my blog, even if they are reading blog posts on the various aspects of content writing, even when I am not asking them to hire me as their content writer, they know that I write professional content.

It is because my website and my blog are branded in such a manner that you cannot help but notice that I provide professional content writing services.

But I am not forcing anyone. I get repeat visitors because of my content marketing efforts and over a period, they begin to remember that I provide professional content writing services and I share lots of information on the subject.

The Search Engine Journal author has mentioned the following benefits of content marketing in the above-linked blog post…

  1. Content marketing increases your organic search engine rankings because you publish authoritative content.
  2. Consequently, you get more organic traffic from search engines.
  3. Since your rankings improve, it becomes easier for influencers and blog publishers to find your content and link to it, therefore, sending more referral traffic your way.
  4. More social engagement is facilitated through content marketing as, when you publish useful and relevant content, people talk about it on their social media timelines, or at least, interact with you on your own social media timelines.
  5. You publish targeted content to make customer journey meaningful, engaging, and informative.
  6. You begin to enjoy higher conversion rate because you get more targeted traffic from search engines, social media platforms, as well as other referral websites.
  7. Content marketing inspires you to publish multiformat content. This does not just get your content found through multiple means, it also makes it easier for people to consume your content in their preferred formats.
  8. The content that you publish for your content marketing campaigns is usually evergreen content. If it is relevant today, it is also going to be relevant after a couple of years.
  9. Content marketing also prompts you to use original research data.
  10. There is long-term cost saving. Content marketing costs you much less compared to traditional marketing and advertising.

I always tell my clients that content marketing (also content writing) is not a one-off affair. It is an ongoing effort. Why is it an ongoing effort?

Huge quantities of content are constantly being added and then being crawled by search engines and being displayed by social media platforms. If you think that you can publish content for a few weeks and then go on with what you are doing without publishing new content, your content is soon taken over by people who are publishing content more aggressively, and with a stringent routine.

Hence, content marketing certainly has its benefits, but just like any other marketing effort, it requires persistence and strategy.