Collaborative Content Marketing And Its Benefits for Your Business

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Here is a nice Forbes blog post on the concept of collaborative content marketing.

Whenever multiple people or multiple teams are working on a campaign or a project, collaboration is required.

These days collaboration is easier due to the availability of various online tools. From working on a Google Docs document to managing communication among thousands of employees using a tool like Slack or Microsoft Teams, collaboration among teams placed all over the world is a norm these days.

Any big content marketing team needs to collaborate. So, yes, collaborative content marketing would mean a big team working on your content marketing.

Does a small business require collaborative content marketing? It depends. If a single person is working on your content marketing (someone from your office, or yourself), there is little scope for collaboration. But if there are multiple team members then some sort of collaboration is bound to happen. Here at Credible Content we often use Asana to collaborate with different writers from different parts of the world.

The above blog post talks about why collaboration is better and what sort of content can be created and published using a team of content writers, graphic designers, SEO experts and marketers.

There are three benefits, according to the author, of collaborative content marketing, viz.,

  1. Sharing of resources: When a bigger team works on your content marketing, resources can be shared. Expertise can be exchanged. Individual team members can contribute individual skills. Someone might be good at research. Someone might be good at creating infographics. Someone might be a good writer. They can all come together and create a formidable brand presence for you.
  2. Availability of different perspectives: When a single person works on your content marketing there is a danger of a skewed perspective based on the knowledge, wisdom and biases of the person carrying out your content marketing. In collaborative content marketing on the other hand, different perspectives can give you a varied representation and your content becomes more authoritative.
  3. Broadening of your audience: This is assuming your individual content marketing team members have their own followers and contacts on social networking websites. Suppose one of your team members has a strong presence on LinkedIn and another has a strong presence on Twitter. When they help you with your content marketing, they can use their respective social networking profiles to give you an edge. It depends.

What kind of content can be created by collaborative content marketing team members?

Basically, the usual content formats. I wouldn’t like to rewrite the entire post so if you are really interested in knowing more about collaborative content marketing, go to the original Forbes blog post.

Importance of content writing throughout the sales funnel

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Content writing is not just about improving SEO – although without content writing there can be no SEO, but that’s another matter.

Throughout your sales funnel, high-quality content plays an important role. Even small oversights can send your prospects away to your competitor.

Read Content matters at every layer of your marketing funnel.

Typically, a sales funnel looks like this:

importance-of-content-writing-throughout-the-sales-funnel

As you can see in the image, normally there are four stages in your sales funnel:

  1. Awareness and education
  2. Interest
  3. Decision
  4. Sale

Actually, there should also be an after-sale section in the sales funnel but normally it is not included (it should be).

The need to make your customers and clients aware and educate them about the benefits of your product or service underpins the essence of content marketing.

These days I’m working with a client who is planning to launch his service. He believes that most of his clients are unaware of the benefits of the services he is planning to offer. Hence, in the beginning, he wants to focus on the “awareness and education” part of the sales funnel through his content. For that he is hiring my content writing services.

Content writing for awareness and education

awareness-and-education-with-content-writing

In this phase of the sales funnel, you may be targeting, typically, two types of customers (or clients):

  1. Those who are totally unaware that they need your product.
  2. Those who know what they need but don’t know how to find a solution and where to find it.

The first type of customers under this stage of your sales funnel, those who are unaware that they need your product, need to be educated. They have no idea what they are missing.

Suppose, there is a company that is going through work-management chaos, but it has never crossed their minds that a tool like Slack or Asana can help them streamline their operations. They might not even be aware of the concept of some “project management” tool.

Since they don’t know that such a tool exists, they may not even look for it. Although, day by day it’s becoming very difficult to manage their projects.

You need to make these people aware. You need to educate them through targeted content writing.

Again using the project-management-problem scenario, one of the managers may search for “how to solve project management problems”, or “cannot manage projects properly”, or “project management tips”, and such.

If you are selling a project management software, wouldn’t it be nice if people searching for such solutions come to your website?

A good example is Open Forum by American Express. The blog provides hard-core business advice. People don’t even have to be American Express customers. They may not even know what sort of services American Express provides. But they have business-related problems and solutions to these problems exist on Open Forum. When they visit Open Forum, when they visit it regularly, they begin to realize that many of the business problems that they face can be solved by using some of the American Express financial solutions.

You can apply the same content writing technique to make people aware of your product or service and educate them about its benefits.

During this phase, it is also important that you capture email addresses of your prospective customers so that you can send them regular updates. It is only due to the strength of your content writing that people subscribe to your mailing list.

Content writing during the “interest”phase of the sales funnel

the-customer-is-interested

In the interest phase of the sales funnel people are interested in a solution. They need to be convinced. They have different options in front of them. Through consistent and quality content writing you must convey to them there is a great solution to your problem that exists and it exists with you.

This is the phase when they know that (referring to the above project management problem) there are various project management software solutions available for their particular problem.

You need to keep in touch but not in the conventional sense.

Provide them valuable content on an ongoing basis. Keep their interest alive by providing them quality content on a consistent basis. Without being pushy, constantly, subtly, keep communicating to them how your solution can solve their problem.

He or she may explore other options available in the market. All the more reason you stand out by continuously publishing quality content on your own website as well as using other platforms. You should be visible and your content writing should be relatable to your business.

The decision-making stage of your sales funnel

the-customer-is-ready-to-buy

At this stage, your customer is ready to buy from you. This is a crucial stage. Often the customer develops cold feet (because he or she finally must shell out money). At this stage, you should reassure him or her that he or she is making the right choice.

Your existing content plays a very important role. Your content writing needs to hook your customer who is about to buy from you so that he or she is not distracted or, there is no confusing information on your website to change his or her decision.

You must have noticed that above I have continuously used the expression “phase”, but suddenly I started using “stage”.

I did that purposely.

A phase can last for a long time, in many instances, even years. A stage, on the other hand, is short and hence, more crucial.

The importance of content writing when the sale has happened

content writing for existing customers

Your job is not done as soon as the sale has taken place. Through high-value content writing you can always keep in touch with your existing customers. The chance of selling to an existing customer is 60-70% while the chance of selling to a new customer is 5-20% (source).

Many companies claim that 40% of their business comes from existing clients so, feeding high quality content to existing customers – customers who have already purchased from you – is as important as, and in many cases, even more important than, writing content for completely new customers.

How can your content writing help you keep in touch with your existing customers?

  1. Provide answers to all their after-sale questions so that they don’t have to depend on your support team.
  2. Create a comprehensive FAQs section and regularly update it.
  3. Send email updates solely to your existing customers with new offers or complimentary offers or related offers (based on their past purchase decisions). Cross selling, for example, and up-selling.
  4. Create an online community through your blog and bulletin board where your existing customers can interact with their fellow customers and interact with you and fellow customers.

The importance of content writing throughout your sales funnel needs to be well defined and recognized. Optimizing and publishing high-quality content throughout your sales funnel can help you create a tightly packed, high-performance sales-funnel that turns casual visitors into hot leads and hot leads into paying customers and paying customers into repeat customers, on an ongoing basis.

Looking for a content writer for SEO? 20 qualities to look for

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looking-for-a-content-writer-for-SEO-20-qualities-to-look-for

Are you looking for a content writer to improve your website SEO? Hiring the right content writer for your business website and blog is very crucial.

Need web content writer for SEO?

Although it is very easy to find a content writer for SEO on the Internet, in case you end up with a bad choice, you won’t just be wasting money, you will be wasting your precious time and you will also end up with lots of poor-quality content.

Before I discuss other aspects of choosing the right content writer for not just SEO but also for your overall website conversion rate, let me quickly list 20 qualities to look for before deciding.

20 qualities to look for when you are about to hire a content writer for SEO

  1. He or she should be a prolific writer.
  2. Must have excellent command over the language he or she is writing in.
  3. Your content writer should have very strong research skills.
  4. Having a strong social media presence is a definite plus.
  5. He or she should be a fast learner.
  6. Your content writer should know the intricacies of SEO.
  7. Your content writer should also understand your need for better conversion rate.
  8. He or she should understand and acknowledge the importance of quality content.
  9. Your content writer for SEO must have great proofreading skills.
  10. He or she should be aware of the concept of following writing style guides.
  11. Your content writer must be able to strike a balance between keyword optimization and high-quality content.
  12. Having his or her website is a great plus.
  13. Having his or her own blog that is regularly updated is a very big plus.
  14. He or she should have a great response time.
  15. Your content writer must be a great communicator.
  16. He or she should be able to understand your business needs.
  17. He or she should be able to write on vertically-focused topics.
  18. Your content writer must have a conversational yet impeccable writing style.
  19. He or she should have a very strong bias against plagiarism.
  20. Your content writer should be reachable through multiple modes – email, phone and instant messaging.

These qualities of an SEO content writer will ensure a steady supply of great-quality content for your website or blog for a long time.

10 tips on how to write SEO content for your website.

What is the greatest challenge businesses face, when looking for a content writer for SEO?

greatest-challenge-when-looking-for-an-SEO-content-writer

Accountability is the greatest challenge businesses all over the world face when looking for a content writer for SEO, or rather, a content writer for any other business writing need.

The problem is, very few business-decision-makers, especially those people who are controlling content marketing departments in various companies, are aware of quality content. When they are looking for a content writer, their primary concern is improving search engine rankings through the so-called “optimized content”.

So, when they see that a content writer can cleverly use keywords and key phrases within the content, they think that they should hire this particular writer.

This is not a clever decision.

Read Why hire Credible Content writing services.

If you are serious about content marketing and also about organically improving your search engine rankings, you should look for a writer who is more interested in writing quality content than simply improving your search engine rankings.

Without quality content search engine rankings don’t matter. No matter how great your SEO is, unless your content converts, the writing doesn’t matter.

Consequently, they go with ANY writer. When they go with ANY writer, more often than not, they end up with an unreliable SEO writer, and again, consequently, they end up blaming the entire expertise for their own decision.

I have personally seen that writers who don’t understand content writing are not reliable. They are providing their services simply because it’s easier to provide writing services on the Internet. For them, it is not a business. Their stakes are not high. Many are doing content writing when they are between jobs or when they have got nothing better to do.

It is always better to go with a content writer or content writing service that’s a business.

So, the biggest challenges that businesses face while trying to hire a content writer for SEO are:

  1. Not having a clear idea of what quality content is.
  2. Hiring wrong content writer due to the lack of a clear idea of what quality content is.

How can a trained SEO content writer improve your search engine rankings as well as conversion rate?

trained-SEO-content-writerAn SEO content writer should be aware of the following concepts while creating content for you:

  • How to do keyword research.
  • How to optimize your content for appropriate keywords and search terms.
  • How to organize your content for search engine optimization.
  • Possibly, how to help you promote your content.

Agreed, capabilities mentioned above require greater expertise than a normal content writer can provide you, but if you can get all these expertise from a single source, it will be good for your business as well as your SEO.

Why keyword research is important before content writing?

Thorough keyword research gives you a direction and keeps you focused. It also gives you a clear idea of for whom you will be writing your content.

Suppose you are selling study tables. Will people be just searching for “study tables”? No, they may search for terms like

study table for kids
buy study table online
small study table
study table home delivery
study table with chair
wooden study table
bedside study table
folding study table
study table with cartoon characters
animal shaped study table

… and so on.

If you want people using these search terms to come to your website (assuming you are selling study tables) then you will be optimizing web pages and blog posts using these search terms.

But then, getting people using these search terms to your web pages and blog posts will only benefit you if many among them buy study tables from you.

This is where high-quality content matters.

Whatever people are searching for, if they are not happy with your content, they will go back and look for another website.

Anyway, once you have a list of keywords, you know what content you need to generate. You know what questions you need to answer. You know what things to tell people.

This is why it’s very important to have as comprehensive as possible a list of keywords before you start preparing (or your content writer) SEO content.

A trained content writer understands your need to optimize your content for your keywords as well as have relevant, engaging content that turns visitors into customers and clients.

Normally, when people are looking for a content writer for SEO, somehow, they end up neglecting the conversion part. Remember that the conversion rate of your content is as important as its ability to draw targeted traffic from search engines.

The Truth about SEO Content Writing that Google Does Not Want You to Know

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SEO-content-writing-secret-Google-does-not-want-you-to-know

If you have a business with an online presence, one popular mantra you must have come across is that, if you want to be seen by Google on its first page then you must pump your SEO content writing muscles. Your every content writing effort should be in the direction of improving your search engine optimization, preferably, improve it in such a manner that your links appear among the top 10 listings of the first page. How true is this? Is SEO all about being on Google’s first page? These, and more questions, are what this blog post seeks to answer.

So, what’s the truth about SEO content writing that Google does not want you to know?

Pumping your website’s SEO content writing muscles is not guaranteed to bring you traffic. Not just that, being on Google’s first page by itself does not guarantee quality traffic.

Here’s a brief analogy: when you do a Google search, do you click on all the results on the first page? You probably never even bother about the second page. Someone said, the best place to hide a dead body is in Google’s second page. More than 70% Google search users, and that includes me, simply ignore the paid ads. In a nutshell, being on Google’s first page is not synonymous to more customers, which was the reason you bothered with SEO content writing in the first place.

I can hear you say what?! Where does that leave me? Stay calm and read on.

2 reasons why SEO content writing (not done properly) does not guarantee (quality) traffic

  1. You’re using too broad keywords. At least 1 million to 10 million people search for “flowers” every month. But why are they searching for flowers? Perhaps they’re looking for information on starting their own flower shop? Perhaps they want to learn how to grow flowers at home? You can never be sure! The point I’m trying to make is, such a broad keyword would likely not increase sales as you do not know the specific reason why those people are searching for flowers.
  2. You’re using too specific keyword. Yes, this is the other extreme end of the spectrum. A particular practice by those focusing on local customers or geographic ranking through their SEO content writing. It’s safer not to follow this strategy all the time. What if someone outside your locality wants an order to be delivered as a gift to someone living in your locality? Remember those times you were searching for something, but did not know exactly what you were looking for? This is also what happens to your prospective clients, so using too specific keywords could exclude lots of potential clients.

Today, it’s not about ‘get the traffic’, it’s about ‘get the targeted and relevant traffic.’- Adam Audette, Chief Knowledge Officer, RKG.

Positive SEO content writing steps to take

Is there a way out? Yes, where there is a will, there is a way, and this is especially true for SEO content writing.

  1. Spend ample time researching quality keywords. Please, resist the temptation to use your business name as a keyword. Let’s be frank, do you honestly think anyone is searching for your business name? Well, unless you are Samsung or Microsoft, it is highly unlikely. And even for Samsung and Microsoft people search for a particular electronic device or software application, not the company name.
  2. Be patient, good SEO content writing is like sowing. You first sow the seeds, regularly water them, protect plants against pests and diseases, and after lots of hard work and perseverance, you reap the harvest. Ever seen a farmer plant apples one day and harvest the next day?
  3. Model your keywords as a question. Usually, when we need information, what do we do? We “ask” Google. Why not adopt the questions model when researching keywords? Do you run a pet shop? One keyword could be: “What do I feed my cocker spaniel?” So, brainstorming on questions you think your customers might be asking, is what SEO content writing all about.
  4. They ask the questions, give them the answers. This is beyond keyword stuffing, either on your site pages or meta data. It’s simple, give your audience ANSWERS to their QUESTIONS through your SEO content writing. And give these answers CONSISTENTLY. Stop having sleepless nights trying to stay on top of your competitor’s rankings in Google, algorithms and what not. Focus your energy on how to keep your content relevant and easy to read for those who find you.

So, let’s recap. SEO content writing does not guarantee (quality) traffic. The truth about Google and SEO is to provide relevant, easy to read content for your audience…consistently.

Simply focusing on your SEO and keywords won’t help you much. You need relevant, high-quality content that engages your audience. These days, even Google’s algorithm takes into account people’s behavior when they are accessing your content. If the content is not useful, even when you have optimized your website, it begins to lose its rankings. If you hope to achieve meaningful SEO, you need quality content.

Good content marketing example: Lifestyle and FilterCopy video

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FilterCopy-LifeStyle-Mother's-Day-video

I was working in my room when my 12-year-old daughter and wife called me to the other room to show me a video of a pair of mother and daughter arguing with each other about clothes, fashion sense and other stuff.

This is the video

The FilterCopy video was published on the occasion of Mother’s Day. Its title is “Fashion Conversations with Mom”.

FilterCopy seems to be a nice website by the way, if it doesn’t end up pursuing some political and ideological agenda that I have seen many other such websites ending up following.

Although I wouldn’t watch this video on my own because I find such videos very sappy and more than sappy, clichéd (showing the parent always baffled and out-of-sync and showing the kid always cool and updated), the fact that my daughter and my wife really enjoyed it, made me think, it is a good content marketing example.

Throughout the video daughter and mother are quarrelling with each other and there is harmless bantering about the daughter’s fashion sense.

The plot of the video moves very fast and once you start watching it, although it doesn’t seem to be leading up to something, you tend to watch it.

The presentation is sleek and the friendly arguments don’t put you off.

Anyway, I’m not writing a review of the video. All I wanted to briefly say is, that it’s a good example of content marketing by an Indian apparels store called Lifestyle.

Instead of following the traditional advertising path, they have used interesting storytelling to deliver their marketing message.

Throughout the video the mother and daughter are arguing and eventually they end up in an apparels store where, in conclusion, they advise the viewer to go to the Lifestyle website and buy clothes. By the time this message is delivered, the viewer is already relaxed, in a happy mood and is receptive to such a message.