Is your business surviving completely on outbound leads? Are you struggling to find high-quality and consistent inbound leads for your business? If you’re spending money on advertising but not seeing results, you’re not alone.
If you answer yes to any of these questions, you need to create a strong brand image and engage and educate your target audience.
Do you want to know how to engage your target audience and generate a consistent stream of high-quality leads? Well, then, content marketing is your answer.
Questions like what is content marketing exactly? What are the types of it? What are its benefits? And more will be explored in the blog below. In other words, stick around to learn all the ins and outs of content marketing.
The ABCs of Content Marketing: A Glossary of Terms
Whether you’re a seasoned expert or just getting started, this glossary of terms will help you navigate the world of online marketing. If you have any additional definitions, please leave them in the comments.
Analytics
If you want to know which content is effective and which isn’t, you need to use analytics. The best situation would be to use a closed-loop analytics solution so you can track what happens to all the website traffic. Imagine how great it will be to tell your boss that your blog post not only generated a site visit, but also generated a lead and a paying customer!
Blogging
Blogging is a key part of content marketing that can help drive traffic to your website, generate leads, and establish you as an expert in your field. Your blog should be built on topics and keywords that your audience deems important and that help to solve the challenges your readers face. Promotional posts should be done sparingly so that they are not too overbearing.
Buyer Persona
If you want to be successful in content marketing, you need to understand your audience. Buyer personas can help you with that. They’re a little snapshot
Creating content that speaks to the specific needs of your target audience allows you to connect with them on a deeper level.
This blog post is very detailed on the subject of building your buyer persona. The following text includes guidance on building personas, including a template.
Calls-to-Action
The calls-to-action in your content marketing are very important because they help convert the traffic on your website into actual contacts in your database. Your content should include some sort of CTA, such as sharing on social media, subscribing to your blog, or checking out another page on your site.
Conversion Rate
Even though traffic is good, every business needs new customers in order to stay afloat. Conversion rates tell you how good you are at converting visitors into leads, or leads into customers. There are two typical conversion rates that content marketers measure, but you can be creative and measure other rates if you want.
Dynamic Content
Content that is dynamic changes based on information that is known about the person viewing it.
You could use Smart CTAs so that first-time visitors see a personalized CTA, and those already in your database see a different CTA.
To make your marketing more personalized, read this post about how to use dynamic content. Dynamic content is content that can be changed based on factors like the user’s location, device, or interests.
Editorial Calendar
A editorial calendar is a plan that helps you decide what kind of content to create, what topics to cover, who to target, and how often to publish.
An editorial calendar helps you become more organized and spot any content gaps you may have. Determining whether you are staying on track with the topics you are covering is important in order to make sure you are doing the right things for your personas.
Inbound Link
A website links to your content from its site. The number of people who stay on your website after clicking on it is one of the criteria that Google’s algorithm takes into account when determining whether your content is high-quality.
Keywords
A keyword — or keyword phrase — is the term that a search engine user inputs when looking for information. Content marketers should focus on keywords because the topics that people are searching for are usually good ideas for content. Choose your keywords carefully to improve your website’s content. Here are some tips on getting started with keywords.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are the epicenter of your lead generation. Content marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on creating and distributing content that is relevant to a target audience with the aim of converting them into customers.
Promotion
You should spend as much time planning how you will promote your content as you do developing it. This means you should use a variety of methods to get people to see your content, such as email, social media, your blog, and even paid advertising.
Quality
If you use the Google search engine to look up “ebook,” you will see over 170 million results in 20 seconds. But how many of those will you look at, never mind exchange your personal information for?
As content becomes more popular, there is an even greater need to make sure it is high quality and full of value. You should not create content just for the sake of having content. Instead, take your time to ensure that everything you publish is of high quality. This will ensure that your readers return often and share your content with others.
Social Optimization
You can make your content more shareable by adding social sharing icons, email-to-a-friend buttons, and lazy tweets. You should make it easy for your readers to share your content, because if you don’t make it easy, they’re unlikely to do it themselves.
Templates
It seems like a pretty obvious thing, but developing content is not easy. Content development can be a difficult process, but luckily there are a lot of tools and templates out there to help. Our content blueprint is a great way to access all of these resources.
Visual Content
If content marketers want to catch the attention of their prospects, then visual content is critical. If you want your content to be more engaging, invest in features like infographics, videos, and data visualizations.
YouTube
If you’re looking for a place to host your videos, YouTube is a great option because it already has a huge audience. Video marketing is effective for driving traffic to your main website, creating brand awareness, and building a social media presence.
There are now many tools available to help you create great videos without spending a lot of money. For screen recording, try Camtasia. There are a few different ways you can edit your videos for free. One option is to use iMovie for Mac, or you can try Windows Live Movie Maker.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves creating and sharing online materials (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that are valuable and relevant to a specific target audience. The goal of content marketing is to generate leads or customers through online interactions.
If you were to advertise your beauty brand, you would likely talk about the benefits of your products. Content marketing involves creating valuable content that can help your target audience better understand your products and how to use them. Take a look at Nykaa’s Instagram page and blog page for examples. You will see beauty bloggers sharing different makeup looks, tricks for doing makeup, and understanding how to pick a foundation shade based on your skin tone. They are creating content that is informative and engaging for their target audience, and that is what content marketing is all about.
Now that we know what content marketing is, let’s explore the different types of content that can be used for content marketing purposes.
Different Types of Content Marketing Ideas
Content marketing does not have to be expensive. For example, Coca-Cola’s share a coke campaign and GoPro’s user-generated content are both examples of content marketing. There are many ways to connect with your target audience on a budget.
The three main types of content used for content marketing are visual content, audio content, and written content. When we take a close look at each content type, we can see when and how to use it, as well as the benefits it offers.
Video Content
Video is a great way to connect with your audience and deliver your message in a way that is engaging and visually appealing. Social media video content is1200% more likely to be shared than text and photos. A majority of internet users prefer watching a video from their favorite brand. According to the text, viewers retain 95% more information from video content as opposed to text content.
Things to Keep in Mind While Creating Video Content for Social Media
- Keep your videos short – video length between 9 to 15 seconds tends to perform better on social media.
- Most viewers see a video in mute mode so make sure your creatives are optimized for only visuals.
- Create a good mix of explainer videos and entertainment and engaging videos.
The Humans of Bombay page has been posting picture stories for a long time, but they recently started posting videos and have seen an increase in likes. On the days when they posted both videos and pictures, the videos received 21,443 more likes than the pictures, and 200 more comments.
If you want to increase your brand engagement and improve your sales, include video content in your marketing mix. Sixty-four percent of consumers make a purchase after watching a branded social video.
Podcasts
Podcasts are becoming more popular as they are one of the most convenient forms of content to consume. Podcasts are a popular way to listen to content on topics people are interested in while completing tasks such as chores. Podcasts are a great way to show off your expertise and build your reputation as a thought leader.
Clubhouse is an audio and social media app that offers a chance to create a live podcast where you can interact with your audience.
Things to Keep in Mind While Creating Podcast
- The optimum average length of a new podcast would be around 5 minutes. It helps the audience understand what you are all about without taking up too much of their time.
- The optimum length of successful podcasts is between 15 to 30 mins.
- Talk about things you are truly passionate about, as people can spot generic content very easily.
- Invite industry leaders/influencers from your industry as guests to increase your brand value.
The Tim Ferris Show, a podcast hosted by Tim Ferris, has been very successful. It generated 300 million downloads and has won the award of #1 business podcast. In the podcast, he talks about different ways to make your business grow, including different tools and techniques.
Infographics
An infographic is a mix of visual and written storytelling that is designed to be easy to understand at a glance. According to reports, we process visuals 60,000 times faster. Infographics can make data more engaging and interesting, rather than boring. Not everyone can read a 2000-word-long blog post, so shorter posts are more digestible.
Things to Keep in Mind While Creating Infographics
- Keep it short and straight to the point.
- Add White Space, don’t make it look too busy.
- Make sure you have amazing data and a story to make your infographic stand out.
Kissmetrics was successful in generating a large amount of website traffic and backlinks by creating infographics. These infographics from Kissmetrics were liked 2512596 times and shared 41359 times on Twitter.
Case Studies
Case studies are a way for your potential customers to see how your business has helped others, directly from your customers. They help create social proof for your business by providing examples of how your product or service has helped other businesses like them. Publishing case studies on your website and social media demonstrates the effectiveness of your services. 70% of B2B marketers who use case studies in their campaigns say that they are effective.
Things to Keep in Mind While Creating Case Studies.
- Write about clients your ideal customers will relate to.
- Show your customer’s entire journey, much like the body transformation videos you might have witnessed on social media – before, during, and after stages of the customer journey.
- Include real numbers as much as possible; it helps readers quantify the benefits your services offer.
- Get as specific as you can while talking about strategies used for the client’s growth.
- Create different kinds of case study content – podcast, video, blog, etc. to appeal to all kinds of audiences.
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