Content Marketing , when compared to other marketing strategies, is a relatively new concept and has become increasingly popular in Brazil. In this complete guide from RedaWeb you will see what content marketing is, why invest in it, numbers, tools and how to implement an efficient content marketing strategy in practice, to generate more leads and increase your revenue.
Designing a content marketing strategy is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. We live in an increasingly digital world, this is a fact and must always be remembered when drawing up your planning. In this universe, people access information and content in the most varied ways, in their time and according to their needs. On the other hand, new brands and new products appear every day, all competing to build a good image and get into the minds of potential customers.
This scenario can be frightening at first, we know that, but the reality is simple: your company needs to be prepared to compete for its space in this universe. And digital marketing and content marketing emerge as two powerful tools to guarantee your space in the minds and preferences of consumers. In recent years, a lot has been said about content marketing, its benefits, models and the path to success. However, as in any area, there are also many doubts, isn't it?
To help you better understand this concept and, most importantly, how to apply it in your company and thus generate more revenue for your business, we have prepared a complete post on the subject. We explain in detail what Content Marketing is, what are the reasons for you to invest in it in your company, the benefits for your brand, how it can impact your sales and your billing, in addition to numbers that reinforce this importance and a solution to help you at that time.
Are you ready? Keep up with us and have a good reading!
Let's start with a very simple concept:
Content Marketing aims to increase its network of consumers and potential customers through the creation and distribution, in the most varied ways, of quality content, really valuable and relevant to its target audience.
You must be thinking: but what is all this for? And the answer is very simple! Because that way you attract the attention and interest of these people, making them get involved with your brand and see value in your business, building a positive image of your company and, consequently, generating more sales.
Is it clearer? Continuing, Content Marketing can be based on three advantages:
- 1. Authority and visibility: Everyone wants to be found by their customers on the internet, don't they? Today, the web is the main source of information for many people. By producing relevant content that meets the needs and objectives of your audience, you facilitate this process, gain authority on that subject, becoming an important reference source, and gain visibility in the market. Everything your company wants and needs, correct?
- 2. Relationship: Through Content Marketing, you get closer to your customers and potential customers, allowing you to build a relationship based on trust and interaction. By offering relevant and really useful content, you allow them to make more assertive decisions, in addition to always being there for whatever they need along the journey. This is one of the secrets of successful companies these days, think about it!
- 3. Advantage over competitors: This is the dream of every entrepreneur, isn't it? In an increasingly competitive market, when you bring content that is really designed to solve the doubts and pain of your possible customers, you earn their trust and a great competitive advantage. After all, when you need a new product or service, that person will probably look for your company first, as they already have a positive image built in their head and know that you are there to help them. With a strong and established brand in the minds of your potential customers, everything is easier.
Are you here and still in doubt if it is worth investing in this tool in your business? We brought eight reasons for you to include Content Marketing in your strategy right now. Prepared? Come on!
Now that you know what Content Marketing is and the reasons for investing in this tool, we will show you how to build your strategy to achieve success and generate more sales for your company.
And the numbers in marketing? Speaking a little more about marketing, according to a survey conducted by iContact, customers who were impacted via email marketing tend to spend 83% more on their purchases.
In other words, Content Marketing is no longer a trend, but a necessity for companies of all sizes that want to establish themselves in the market, beat their competitors, build a solid brand and maintain a relationship of trust with their customers. We are sure that this is what you want for your brand, this is what your company needs to go further.
Now that you have understood what Content Marketing is and the benefits for your company, how about starting to design your strategies and put it all into practice? We will help you to take the first steps on this journey and develop a plan focused on results, so that they soon start to appear. Prepared?
The persona concept : First, you need to define your persona. You must be asking yourself: why? The answer is very simple, Content Marketing is centered on the customer (or possible customer) of your brand. That way, you should get to know this person in depth, their habits, behaviors, needs, doubts and what they really look for information and content to help them in their day to day. This is where the persona comes in!
From this description of your persona, you can decide the type of content you need to produce to achieve your goals, the topics that will be addressed and where they should be made available to reach your target audience. How about starting right now to draw your persona? The persona concept goes far beyond Content Marketing, it can help your company to better understand your consumer and this contributes to the development of products and services that really have a positive impact on your daily life.
To design your Content Marketing strategy, after getting to know your persona in depth, the time has come to find out the most effective ways to be able to communicate with her and thus impact her. There are many resources and tools at your disposal, everything will depend on your plan.
Returning to the tools, we list some options below:
- 1. Blogs - An excellent way to bring relevant content to your persona on the most different subjects. The blog's strong point is that all the materials published there can be replicated in other places, such as on social networks, which facilitates its penetrating power. (Of course, you can count on RedaWeb, which specializes in producing content for blogs)
- 2. Landing Page - Special page dedicated to better present your product / service. Widely used to capture some type of contact (email or phone number of your future lead)
- 3. E-book - Do you want to deepen your approach on a specific topic? E-books are great allies to deal with a subject in more depth. They also serve as a 'bait' to capture the email of the future lead and thus initiate a communication with him. For this, you can make your e-book available only to visitors who fill out a form containing name, e-mail and phone, for example.
- 4. Webinar - Widely used to demonstrate products or services, it is a form of communication in which one person makes a broadcast and several others attend, a web conference. Those who watch have contact with those who are broadcasting via chat and can ask questions in real time.
- 5. Podcast - Way to transmit files over the internet. You can, for example, record an audio by going deeper into a specific topic that you master and make available every week on your page. Visitors can download or listen online. It is a great tool to make the relationship more personal.
- 6. Customer cases - Why not show success stories and people who got there thanks to your company's help? This is a great way to positively draw attention to your brand.
- 7. Social networks - Social networks are present in the daily lives of most people. Your company and your brand need to be there and, most importantly, actively. Interacting, initiating conversations and bringing quality content to your followers. Remember to design a strategy for each social network.
- 8. SEO: Search engine optimization - These are techniques and strategies that aim to improve the positioning of your website / blog on Google and other search engines.
- 9. Infographic - Learning about something new or deepening your knowledge about a subject that you have already mastered visually is much better, isn't it? Infographics are pieces (drawings or images) that disseminate content with a strong visual appeal, to facilitate the visitor's understanding.
- 10. E-mail marketing - This is easy and everyone knows it, right? They are e-mails sent to leads or customers (who allowed to receive) to disclose something. It can be a warning, a promotion or a simple contact for the purpose of conversion with the lead / customer.
- 11. Newsletter - E-mails sent with a determined frequency (once a week, for example) and that can deal with subjects that the visitor previously informed that he wishes to receive.
And in all of these tools, what really matters? THE CONTENT! The more qualified and in-depth he is, the better. You need, in addition to captivate your customer or lead, to actually help him in his day to day. That way, he will consume more of his materials, visit his blog, participate in his webinars, download his e-books, follow his social networks ... Thus starting his journey with his brand and company, until he feels safe for purchase.
Benchmarking
Do you know what benchmarking means? Do you already apply this tool in your company? Benchmarking is a very common practice in the business world, which consists of a series of processes to compare and analyze the practices and processes adopted by other companies, whether they are competitors or not. The idea here is not to copy what others are doing, but to learn new techniques and improve what is possible in your company.
How about surveying companies that stand out in Content Marketing for always follow? From there you can get great examples and ideas for your business.
This concept is not foreign to you, right? The sales funnel is a representation of the stages your potential customer goes through to the completion of the purchase. Divided into three parts: top (learning and discovery), middle (recognition of the problem and considering the solution) and bottom (purchase decision); the sales funnel plays a decisive role in defining a company's marketing strategies. Content marketing is no different. Each stage of the funnel requires different content in order for the customer to move from one to the other, until reaching the bottom.
The solution for content marketing!
Now you know that to stop investing and bet on content marketing is to become invisible to your target market. And who will take advantage of this situation, for sure, will be your competitors, who will stand out and conquer your space. Therefore, getting to know your persona, designing a well-structured strategy and starting to put it into practice, always measuring the results, are the first steps to follow a path towards success.
The content you produce is critical to your success in this endeavor. He needs to be assertive, quality and really help his leads and customers with their pains and needs. In addition, all the materials produced in your content marketing plan must be easy to use and read, dynamic and interesting.
For this, the best alternative is to have the professional help of a content marketing agency, 100% prepared to understand your persona and produce this content for you. RedaWeb has been in this market for years and has more than 4 thousand clients served, and more than 50 thousand texts produced. With a team that exceeds 100 journalists and copywriters, our digital content agency is ready to help your brand achieve the best results, with personalized work and monitoring, according to your needs.
Content Marketing generates more leads and more sales
The truth is that Content Marketing is here to stay. If your company has not yet stopped to reflect and design its strategies, you are wasting time. Today, people want more than to consume products, they want to engage with brands that are there to help them when necessary, they want to speak and be heard, they want responsible, truthful companies that convey confidence in their relationships.
Content marketing just adds these values to your brand. The more people access your content, the greater the number of leads generated and, if they are well nourished, the greater the number of sales and the greater your revenue. Quality content is more than the presentation of your company, it is crucial for the success of any enterprise.
Several companies, from small to multinationals, are already adapting to the strategies offered by content marketing, and nothing better than starting to plan a base of relevant, exclusive and original content for your company as well. In this way, you will gain new customers much cheaper than traditional means of marketing.
Each and every profession requires some skills from the professional, correct? And when we talk about digital marketing - content marketing is certainly no different - for your campaigns to deliver the results you want, you need to work with content marketing the right way.
- Know the digital world perfectly;
- Greater ability to adapt;
- Creative thinking;
- Analytical thinking;
- Mastery of digital marketing concepts.
And what are the tools that will help you to reach that level? The answer is: specific courses and marketing books.
Are you thinking about learning or going deeper into the world of content marketing and don't know where to start? To start to have more in-depth notions about digital marketing, especially content marketing, you need to be on top of the big news.
This course promoted by Hubspot has 20 classes, with 4h30 each, which are extremely focused on the four steps that the inbound marketing methodology has. With a free certificate, and widely recognized within the market, it is requested by most companies that operate within the universe of content marketing.
What you will learn in this course:
- The pillars of enchantment;
- Turning your sales process into inbound;
- Sending correct email to the right people;
- Anatomy of a landing page;
- Stimulation of clicks with attention;
- Amplifying content through social media;
- Fundamentals of blogging;
- Creation of content for specific purposes;
- Website optimization for search engines (SEO);
- Fundamentals of the inbound strategy.
Yes, you can find several content marketing courses in pdf, which you can download and study on the topic from the comfort of your home. There are also several pdfs with case studies and models of content marketing strategies that can be tailored specifically for your company.
We have separated three very interesting examples, two from LinkedIn and one from the Content Marketing Institute:
1. Content Marketing Tactical Plan
https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/marketing-solutions/global/en_US/campaigns/pdfs/linkedIn-marketing-tactical-plan-2015-v2-en-us. pdf
This content marketing pdf shows the opportunities and ways to reach your lead, using the tools available within LinkedIn itself.
2. The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to Content Marketing
https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/marketing-solutions/global/en_US/campaigns/pdfs/LNK_LMS_SophisticatedGuideToContentMarketing.pdf
This pdf content marketing e-book details the following items:
- Because my business needs a content marketing strategy;
- Essential tools to produce and manage content;
- Increasing the relevance and depth of your content;
- Mapping Contents during the purchase journey;
- and much more...
3. 100 Content Marketing Examples
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ultimate_eBook_mayrev.pdf
In this pdf, you can see 100 examples of content marketing strategies that worked and were a great success. Great cases that became famous all over the world are described and commented. You can even get inspired by the stories of brands like: IBM, Nike, Lego, BMW, Ford, Cisco and dozens of other big companies that have made incredible campaigns. It is worth checking.
Benefits of Content MarketingMost of the time, the benefits of content marketing end up not being so clear. One of the main myths is that companies think that ranking on research sites is the most important point when it comes to results and benefits.
As we said above, the more content your company publishes, and the more relevant the content is to your reader, the longer they will be browsing your site.
This is extremely important, as the longer the time a visitor spends on your site, the greater the chances that they will perform the action you need. For example, purchasing a service or product.
When your readers spend more time on your site, this automatically increases your conversion rate. Not to mention that, through consistent information in their content, readers start to have more confidence in their brand, enabling conversions.
This innovative American company faced a problem in its business: after spending a few months without selling a single unit, the businesswoman decided to give in to social networks. The company started to follow profiles on Twitter, which were the target audience of its product, and thus started to send messages offering its product.
Can you imagine a company that, with only $ 4,500, dared to invest in razors and compete with none other than Gillette? That was the idea of the founders of this company. However, they chose to provide personalized service to their customers, a differential that none of the large companies had attempted so far.
Nowadays customers think about enjoying as much as they can of a service or product. Starting from the premise that, as they have already spent money on this, it is necessary to take advantage of everything they can. Within content marketing, its utility does not end with sales - it is continuous -, retaining customers and bringing them into new purchases.
A lot of people understand that inbound marketing is one thing and content marketing is another. But there are still people who believe that both are the same. The reality is that content marketing is a strategy that is part of inbound marketing. When we talk about inbound marketing, it is necessary to understand that it is a broad planning, which uses digital marketing strategies. And content is one of the great points of a good inbound campaign.
Inbound Marketing is considered any marketing tactic that starts from the premise of winning people's interest instead of buying it through some campaign. The focus of inbound is to attract and conquer a specific target audience, generating qualified leads, resulting in conversion and sales. Content marketing, on the other hand, is one of the tactics for bringing leads to the inbound, with the production of engaging and extremely relevant content.
How to do Content Marketing in practiceNow that you understand that inbound marketing and content marketing go together, you need to learn how to do content marketing in practice. And the customer versus company relationship is completely different from a few years ago. In the past, the focus was not entirely on digital, making companies and employees physically present. That is, making visits and phone calls more actively.
You can start with a blog for example. Posting content from 500 to 1,000 words each, focusing on topics of interest to your target audience. In addition, it is worth creating a fanpage on facebook and a company page on LinkedIn. Each text you post on the blog, you can also post a call on these social networks. This call usually has an average of 30 words each, and it needs to have a persuasive tone, making the reader interested in accessing the blog to learn more information about that topic.
Content Marketing ObjectivesSo far you have understood the definition of content marketing. Now is the time to understand what the real goals of this type of marketing are. Does your company know what you can really achieve when using this methodology? Check out the reasons for you to invest in this strategy:
- Increase the sales;
- Customer loyalty;
- Increased visibility of products and brands;
- Brand management;
- Build good relationships with partners and consumers;
- Employee engagement;
- Educate the market.