General by Leon Hitchens on June 07, 2016
A marketing and advertising budget is a core part of each businesses budget. They have traditional advertising like buying ad space in a newspaper, on a billboard, or even on TV. There are also ways to advertise or market your product online with buying ads through Adsense, on Facebook or Twitter. There is also another more fresh way to market which is content marketing. Content marketing is the process in where you create content in the form of videos, articles, or another kind of video. The content relates to your business and helps your customers understand you’re an expert in your field.
For example, A Coffee shop could write about coffee beans, different types of coffee, or give them recommendations to try different things. These articles provide potential with information about coffee and will provide them with the understand you’re passionate about coffee. You could also create videos about the best coffee, how to make a cappuccino at home or how to ground your beans just right. While all of these aren’t going to bring customers directly in, it will create the mindset you guys know what you’re talking about and when the customer wants coffee they’ll think about you.
Content marketing is one of the best ways to market your business, and in the process gain more customers. You’re also providing content that’s informative and entertaining, which could help people understand something new.
Explaining content marketing isn’t enough, though, in this feature, we’ll talk about who does content marketing, how it works, and if you should try it.
A lot of companies on the internet do content marketing, but this doesn’t mean it’s working for them or providing any value. The best explain of content marketing is from Buffer, which is a social media management tool. They often write about how to promote content on Twitter, what is social ads, or even how to use Instagram for your business. Buffer writes about:
These are topics they’re knowledgeable in, and by writing about them, they’re not only sharing their knowledge but also showing they’re an authoritative figure in the social media industry. Buffer is known for the content they’re creating around social media, and when social media managers like about a social media management tool they think buffer first. There are other options like Hootsuite, KuKu, but they’re not on everyone’s mind because they’re not known as an expert right away.
Content marketing does work if done well, and with Buffer’s case, it’s become a core way they market and advertise on the internet. It’s been proven that customers are going to spend money with a brand they feel like they know and trust. Content marketing works best when you are advertising the content, and then customers will explore the site to understand what you do and how you do it.
Now content marketing doesn’t work for every business, and my example of the coffee shop may not be the best way to advertise for them. They could better use location-based advertising, but they could supplement it with content to give them a voice that Starbucks or another coffee shop next door does not have.
Content marketing is a new way of customer acquisition, and always isn’t a cheap or realistic option. Easy ways to start is ask your team to contribute to the company blog with useful tutorials, tips, or insight they wish they had. If you don’t want to start with your employees you could reach out to bloggers for relevant content that’ll be syndicated onto your site. This requires little effort, no extra staff or even extra time away from current projects.
If you’re a company using content marketing as a way to advertise we’d love to hear from you! We are working on building case studies and seeing how content marketing fixes a problem within the brand’s community. Email me at Leon [at] slk.media so we can get a conversation going!
Also, if you need branding, marketing, or content marketing consulting, we’re able to assist. Our team of Ninja’s have built brands with unique voices that are authentic and still helps acquire customers.