If you are a web marketer or have a business with an online presence, you have to hear the constant noise surrounding content marketing as a key part of your web marketing strategy. If you haven't heard about content marketing, either you aren't really focused on succeeding online, or your current web marketing firm is failing you.
Content marketing can help in nearly all channels of web marketing from SEO to email to social media. Because it's so effective, the volume of content creation has grown tremendously, especially for B2B businesses. Not all of that content is good content, so we're approaching a "noise" level that requires your content to truly provide value, be authentic to your brand and be share-able. You know great content when you see it, and so does your target audience.
The Right Content Is...
The right content is a map to the solution for your target audience's problems. It focuses on addressing their frustrations, anxieties, and fears. It provides more than a sales pitch. It provides them with a resource that can help them succeed. It provides understanding of how they can solve their problems. It leaves them with an actionable list of steps to take. One of those steps is likely to see how your offering can help them. It allows you to build the case for your products or services as a piece of the solution to their problem(s).
The right content also has your fingerprint on it. Many of the topics you share might be online already from other sources. What makes yours unique, more valuable and a more effective solution to your target market's problems? Regurgitating pre-existing content is not as useful for your content consumers as hearing your perspective and recommendations about the regurgitated content. Don't publish content that doesn't have your unique perspective in it. That's the value you add to your current clients, right?
Where To Start?
We've said over and over again that new clients tend to say, "Nobody wants to read what we have to say.", which both untrue and naive. If no one cared what they had to say, they wouldn't be in business. There wouldn't be a need for them in the marketplace. If you're starting from that mind frame or are simply stuck on what content to create, I recommend starting with a list of the problems that your client comes to you to solve. If it's easier, make a list of all of the solutions you provide, whether they are products, services or a combination of the 2. Then, look at each solution you provide and make a list of the problems they solve. This list alone will yield many topics that you could write about.
To expand on further topics that relate to the problems your solutions solve, look at the bigger picture for clients' problems. Your widget might make a machine run more efficiently as a primary need, but why does the client want the machine to run more efficiently in the first place? Do they want to save money on utilities? Do they want to produce more of their product per hour? Do they want to have less employee downtime from parts that go bad? There is always a higher level reason that your target audience buys your type of product or service.
Need Some Help Getting Started?
Sometimes all you need is a little nudge and initial support to get things rolling. If you think it would be beneficial to have someone coach this process for your organization, please let us know. We'd love to help you succeed online.
