WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing relevant online content for a clearly defined target audience.
To put it simply, content marketing is the use of content to market your business. This content can be videos, blogs, infographics, social media posts, podcasts, downloadable pdfs, pins, and more.
Content marketing allows a business to build brand awareness, educate audiences, generate revenue, and build a loyal audience by providing valuable content.
In content marketing, you create content that people are seeking for, as such, you don’t go out there forcing your product on people but people will come to your product as they search for solutions to their problems.
CONTENT MARKETING FOR BUSINESS GROWTH
Content marketing is one of the best ways to grow your business over a long term. Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less (Demand Metric).
Statista data suggests that content marketing revenue reached nearly 66 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, and according to the latest forecasts, the content market industry is set to double revenues by 2026.
We are going to look at how you can use various forms of content to grow your business. Whether you are selling a physical product, an online course, software, an app, or running a blog, you will find these ideas helpful for your business growth.
It is worth noting that content marketing is very slow to work, you will need to measure your results based on the long-term impact of your content. Many businesses fail to use content marketing because they want content to work quickly.
In order to get more value from your content for your business, you need to develop a plan of action on how to market your content. You need to start by clearly stating the problems you are trying to solve.
This can be providing data and statistics for your audience to help them make a decision or providing guides and tutorials to help your audience easily solve their problems, or any other way that you can provide undeniable value for your audience.
Once you have identified the problems, provide solutions by developing quality content in various forms. Remember to include offers at every stage of your content.
These offers should help you to move your audience from one platform to another. For example, you can write a social media post that help your audience to move from social media to your website, and from your website to your email list, and so on.
4 TYPES OF CONTENT TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS
There are many forms of content that you can create but they all generally fall within 4 broad categories; that is Video, Audio, Written (text), and Image content.
WRITTEN (TEXT)
Written content is one of the most popular forms of content. Written content can be in form of blogs, social media posts, e-books, newsletters, emails, or text messages.
You can use written content to build awareness about your business. This can be done through social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. You can also start a blog that is dedicated to producing content in line with your business objectives.
Blogging is the best form of written content, you can write blog posts and edit them as many times as you want after publishing them. This helps you to make changes, add new relevant information, add offers, and more.
If you write a blog post that ranks well in search engines, you will be able to get organic traffic to your blog that you can monetize in various ways. The more traffic you bring to your blog, the more exposure you will get for your business or product.
Starting a blog is easy and straightforward, I have covered this at length in the article How to start a profitable Blog.
Along with the blog, you can also start an email list. An email list is one of the best ways to reach out to your audience directly and offer them a product or service. Your audience opts in to your email list, meaning that they have allowed you to send them relevant emails.
You can start an email list with platforms like Constant Contacts. Try it for free.
VIDEO
Video content is one of the best types of content to promote your business. Not only will you be able to talk about your product or business, but you will also be able to show how your product solves your audience’s problems.
Youtube is the best platform for your video content. Youtube as the second biggest search engine gives you a chance to get in front of people who are already searching for what you are providing.
The more your videos help people to find solutions to their problems, the more your business will be known and you will be able to build a loyal audience. Once you have an audience that trusts your content and business, it becomes easy to sell a product that you are offering as a startup.
You can also use Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, or Tiktok to build brand awareness through short-form videos.
Getting started with Youtube is simple and straightforward, all you need is an email address (Gmail), a computer or smartphone, a camera (you can use your smartphone camera), and a video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Wondershare.
You can also use Anireel to easily create animated explainer videos.
AUDIO
Podcasts are the best forms of audio content for marketing your business. Podcast listeners are growing year by year. It has been reported by (eMarketer) that monthly podcast listeners grew by 6.1% to 125 million listeners in 2022.
According to Statista, Podcast ad spending is expected to hit $1.74 billion this year. Podcasts are one of the best ways to build brand awareness, educate your audience, and generate income. You can start your own podcasts on platforms like Spotify, Buzzsprout, Podbean, Spreaker, Transistor, etc.
All you need is a microphone, a computer, and software like Wondershare or Adobe premiere pro to edit your audio files.
IMAGE
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Images are a great way to promote your business. If you are able to design beautiful images and share them on different platforms, you will be amazed at how people will quickly know about your business.
Pinterest and Instagram are the best platforms to post your image content. To make it easy to manage your image content on Instagram and Pinterest, you can use Tailwind to automate and schedule your posting.
Tailwind allows you to schedule your pins and Instagram posts, once your content is scheduled, the Tailwind system will choose the best time to post your content for better user interaction, it will be able to pick best the time that your followers are most active.
To get started with creating beautiful image content, you can use any design software that you are familiar with or you can use Canva. Canva has Instagram and Pinterest templates that you can easily edit to your liking, it is easy to use and all you need is an active Internet connection.
BENEFITS OF CONTENT MARKETING
There many benefits of content marketing, here are some of them:
IT IS CHEAPER
Content Marketing is cheaper than other marketing channels, as stated by Demand Metric, Content Marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.
Demand Metric also reported that content marketing generates approximately 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing per dollar spent.
BRAND AWARENESS
Content marketing helps more people to know about your business. Impact Plus reported that small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog.
The more you provide solutions to your audience through valuable content, the more people will know about your startup, and the more likely they are to buy from you.
A great example of using content to build brand awareness is the Zoom-Zoom Magazine by Mazda. The magazine has insights and stories on Mazda auto world, employee highlights, and many other insights about the automotive industry.
BUILDS TRUST
Content marketing is one of the best ways to build trust and a loyal following. Content marketing establishes expertise and authority in your niche for your business. You will be able to build great customer relations by providing great, valuable content.
GENERATE REVENUE
Content can also be a great stream of income. Your content can generate revenue through sponsorships, affiliate marketing, display ads, and more.
For example, it has been reported by Fortune that YouTube paid $30 billion to content creators in 3 years.
Digital Nomad Wannabe reported that 14.5% of bloggers are making $5,000 a month or more. There are many other content creators who make millions of dollars every year by creating different forms of content.
CONCLUSION
If you want to grow your startup or sell a physical product, an online course, software, or an app, content marketing is one of the best marketing strategies to use without spending a lot of money.
Over a long term, you will be able to grow your brand, build a loyal following, and generate revenue through content marketing.
