A Simple Guide to Content Marketing

Have you heard about content marketing? It’s a marketing strategy that doesn’t cost you much but can help you promote your product or service.

A strategy that:

• Increases awareness of your business or brand
• Establishes credibility for your brand
• Generates leads
• Expands your customer or client base
• Increases online sales

You’ve probably heard of content marketing, but might not be sure how it can help you.

The concept behind it is simple.

It’s all about producing content that supports your marketing and promotion efforts in a way that’s not just about selling your product or service. Instead, the content provides value to the customer in other ways.

Content marketing can take various forms.

Take dog camps, for example. You’re planning to go out of town and need someone to care for your dog. Maybe for a day, maybe for a week. Or you live in an apartment and your dog could use a day or two in an environment where it could run around and release some energy.

But how do you find that dog camp? More importantly, how do you choose a dog camp from the ones that come up in search results?

This is where content marketing comes in. One owner of a dog camp creates content that is of interest to pet owners.

One piece of content could be all about the five best dog beds to buy. What does that have to do with a dog camp? It’s because dog owners are likely to search for information about dog beds. As the dog outgrows or destroys its bed, the owner will need to buy a new one. And during the search for dog beds, the dog camp’s article comes up in the search results.

If the article is well-written and provides useful information, the person reading it will have a favorable opinion of the author. In this case, the dog camp. And the person may never have heard of that dog camp before. But now they are aware of it.

And the next time they hear about the dog camp or drive by it, they’ll remember they have a good impression of it.

So that type of content is simply related to an interest your potential customer has. If, for example, you own a hair salon, you could write a piece on the best hair dryers or conditioners.

Another type of content that works well for locally based businesses would be something like the 10 Best Places to take your Dog in Miami.

Dog owners who are looking for places to visit that will accept dogs will do Google searches, seeking answers. And then the 10 Best Places article shows up in their search results.

And of course, one of them is the dog camp.

This is an example of content marketing that is actually wrapped around what the business does. It’s not specific to the service, but the content points people to it.

Other forms of content marketing showcase the features and benefits of a business’s products. These tend to be a little harder to make interesting and exciting for someone to want to read unless they happen to be searching for that particular product.

This is important to note, as many business owners who decide to give content marketing a try start by churning out lots of articles about their own products. They go into detail as to what they have to sell is the best there is.

While that’s helpful information to have on your website, it’s not going to bring in new people. Most of the people who read those articles are already aware of your product or business.

The content marketing strategy is to create content that casts a wider net. You want to attract people who are interested in things related to your business or the products or services you offer.

The articles that are written as part of your content marketing strategy are to lure people who have a general interest (such as dogs) to read your content. Once they know who you are, they may want to know more about the products and services you offer.

Suppose someone reads your article about the 10 Best Places to take your Dog in Miami. And they try one of the places suggested, and both they and their dog have a great time. You’re now established as a credible source of information.

So when they decide they want to try a dog camp, guess who will come to mind? Then that person will check out your other articles and information on your website because they want to make sure their beloved pet is well cared for.

So they’ll be looking to find out what playtime you do with the dogs, how comfortable are the rooms, what bedding is used, what you feed the dogs, what safety features are in place, and are their cameras so the owner can check any time from their phone what’s going on with their pet.

They’ll be assessing all the features and benefits to make a dog camp a great place to leave a pet, and they’ll be comparing yours with the competitions. But you’ll have an advantage. Because they’ve read the other article that established you as credible, they’ll believe the promises you make on your website. They might not be so quick to do this with a dog camp they know nothing about.

And that’s the power of content marketing. Instead of creating a product or service and then trying to market and sell it, content marketing can draw people in so they want to know what you have to offer.

By creating more content, you can develop a loyal following. By serving them with useful and helpful information, they will develop a positive impression of you and your brand. Then they’ll come back time and again to learn and to buy from you.

Without you spending a fortune on expensive advertising.

Who doesn’t want that for their business?

You might think that’s too good to be true.

But in today’s digital age, the old models aren’t working. It’s time for new approaches. Content marketing has been proven to be effective and economical. Adding content marketing to your marketing strategy will only help your business to grow.