Easy Content Marketing Strategies

Are you still relying on traditional marketing efforts to attract customers and generate leads? Perhaps you are cold calling, sending out mass mailings to unsuspecting consumers, spending countless dollars on advertising or delivering flyers door to door…how is that working out for you? If you are still turning to traditional marketing, it’s time you think about content marketing.

Content marketing involves sharing valuable content, in a non intrusive way, to consumers for the purpose of developing relationships and earning the trust of your prospects. Content marketing products often involve enewsletters, white papers, webinars, podcasts, websites, social network sites and blogs! While most businesses, big and small, have caught on to the content marketing concept, some still may not know where to begin.

Below are five steps to developing a content marketing campaign so you can turn prospects into paying customers!

Get to know your potential customers. Research the very people you are trying to attract. What are their likes and dislikes? What exactly are they looking for in a product or service? You can’t effectively target the right clientele if you don’t know who they are. Every successful business knows their audience. Kraft, for example, targets the busy consumer; hence their tagline “deliciously simple. everyday.” They know their clients are busy and need an easy way to put meals on the table for their families. They have it right. As a small business owner, your target is much smaller, you therefore have it much easier. Take advantage of that and target effectively!

Determine how you can help your target audience. Now that you have figured out what they need, want and don’t want, it’s time to figure out how your specific product or service and help solve their problems and bring them what they are looking for.

Give them faith. People can’t trust you if they don’t know who you are or what you’re all about. Therefore, it is important to provide content that is relevant to prospect needs and wants.  Prove to be that person they can come to for advice and information.

Be present online. Develop a presence online and make it easy for prospects to find you. You may have a website but this isn’t enough. You need to provide relevant content that will keep your target audience interested. Maintain a blog, be active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Make it easy for your prospects to buy. Once you have established yourself online and developed relationships with your target audience, you need to make it easy for them to purchase the product or service you are trying to sell. Take an honest look at your website. Are your products or services easily identifiable? Is your contact information present on all pages? Depending on your product or service, you may wish to think about providing a check out system. Think about using 1shoppingcart for merchant accounts.

Published in Marketing