Content marketing is the buzzword of today’s online world. As a business owner if you’re looking to make huge sales and 10X your income it’s super important that you get content marketing experience under your belt.

Now I know what you’re thinking. What even is content marketing?

I get it. As overwhelming and scary as it sounds this skill is actually pretty easy to master if you learn the right tactics and tools.

In this easy-to-digest article I’ll discuss all the aspects of content marketing. Whether you are a newbie having no prior experience in this area or an expert who just wants to gain some new insights into content marketing this article will help you to strategize your content properly and scale your business.

Let’s get started!

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is:

……all about your audience! What they need, and what they value, and how you can educate them. The idea is to build trust with your audience and solve their problems in such a unique and engaging way that they keep coming back to you for more.

The three main goals of content marketing are to:

• Attract them
• Engage them
• Delight them

Through an awesome content marketing strategy that uniquely positions your brand in the market, you can build a great relationship with your audience no matter what the niche, sell them your products and services and keep them coming back for more.

If they trust you and become your raving fans, it becomes super easy to grow your brand and business, generate leads and make sales.

Content is not just blogs, though. It’s also…

• Social media posts
• Guest posts
• Emails
• Website pages
• Articles
• Videos
• Webinars
• ebooks
• Infographics

You name it!

Regardless of the platform, your content should attract your ideal customers and engage them.

There are tons of online business owners out there but not all of them leverage the power of content marketing. You can make yourself stand out from the competition and go above and beyond those okay marketers by designing an awesome content marketing strategy and shift your brand from okay to WOW.

The question is how do you do this?

1.      Storytelling – It All Starts With a Story

Maybe you’re thinking, what has storytelling got to do with branding? But believe it or not, the secret to awesome content marketing is an underlying story.

In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin, “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but the stories you tell”.

There’s no denying the fact that you and I love stories. More than stories, we love people whose stories we can relate to. Stories help people connect with your brand and the fastest way to build trust with your audience.

Here’s a content marketing hack you need to know: People don’t connect with brands. People connect with stories.

And to make your audience connect with you, you have to tell them compelling stories that stir emotions in them and makes them say, ‘This is the brand that totally understands my struggles and pain. This is my brand’.

If your brand’s story has value, clarity and is focused on your specific audience’s struggles and pain points, then you will quickly build a base of loyal fans.

2.      Build a Customer-Centric Framework

All great brands out there know this one truth: Marketing is no longer about being salesy, promotions or premium prices. It’s about the customers you serve, your specific audience.

Content might be king, but as a brand your customers are the kings of king. Every effort that you put into your content marketing strategy should be aimed at building a relationship with your audience.

How do you build this relationship? Using three steps:

1.      Awareness

Become aware of who your ideal customers are. Get obsessed about getting to know them. Then find ways you can serve them.

2       Consideration

Create a plan that is customer-centric.

3       Decision

Plan and organize content in such a way that it helps you build a buying cycle with your audience.

The important factor you need to know is there is no such thing like a pre-built content marketing framework. It varies from business to business and brand to brand. Just because it worked for others doesn’t mean it is going to work for you. Try to figure out how you can serve your audience best while staying authentic and sticking to your brand values.

Whatever the case the goal is to build a strategy for your audience, not for you.

3.      Wow Your Audience

The internet is full of so-called experts pretending to be someone else and selling low-quality cheap content. You don’t want to be such an expert.

Your goal with your brand should be to stay authentic, find a unique selling proposition and provide your ideal customers with tons of value that makes them go WOW.

Step 1: Pack Your Content Using Different Ways

Come up with ways you can pack this value-filled content. A blog? A video? An ebook? An audio training? Or maybe a combination of a lot of things. In fact, combo platters work best. You don’t want to bore your audience with the same stuff over and over again.

Step 2: Promote, Promote, Promote!

Awesome content is useless if there’s nobody out there using it. Your buyers are there in all corners of the world and your goal is to make sure that your content reaches them.

Awesome content + killer marketing → an audience of raving fans → conversions → more sales

How do you promote your content?

There are tons of ways you can do this. I’ll discuss the most popular ones here.

1.Social Media Marketing

Social media is the trend these days. No wonder with millions of people spread across social networks, it’s the fastest way to boost your content visibility.

What’s totally awesome is that you don’t have to look for your ideal customers one by one which is a very time-consuming task for any content creator. Social channels like Facebook, Youtube and Instagram allow you to create hyper specific targeted ads.

The next step is to write catchy headlines, spice it up with stunning visuals and use the right set of keywords.

Keep in mind though, social media marketing involves investment so if you’re on a tight budget and just starting out, you will want to consider this.

2.      Email Marketing

Email marketing is another great option to market your content. The cool thing about email marketing is that it gives you complete control over your audience. Once you build your list, you can keep selling to those people over and over again without having to rely on any social platform’s algorithm.

First, create an awesome lead magnet that makes people opt-in:

• Write a catchy heading.
• Keep sentences short.
• Make it scannable.
• Make it visually appealing

Second, build a relationship with this list.

Third, start selling!

A word of warning though. Don’t make your emails look like another scripted promotional email. Speak to your audience like a real human being. Connect with them!

Finally, some pro tips to take home with you today.

Pro tip 1: Repurpose Content

If you’re reading this, chances are you are a content creator or looking to be one. Content creation is tons of work. You have to do blog posts, emails, pds, ebooks, webinars, courses and what not.

The question is if all that you all day long is create, how are you going to find the time to promote your content without exhausting yourself?

The solution is you don’t have to. You don’t have to create new content from scratch every single day. You can use the repurposing technique.

It simply means that you package the same content in different ways. So if you have written a series of blog posts, you can convert them into an ebook.  Or if you’ve written an ebook, you can repurpose it into an email course.

This smart strategy saves you tons of time and also makes sure that your audience doesn’t get bored consuming the same content over and over again.

Pro tip 2: Go SEO Friendly

Wouldn’t it cool if your website keeps ranking o top of Google? You’ll get more traffic, more conversions and more sales!

How many times you have scrolled down on Google search results or even visited the next page. My guess is rarely.

Content that ranks on top is content that is read and converts.

As a business owner, you need to make SEO an integral part of your content marketing strategy. Pack your content with the right keywords so Google knows it’s something worth promoting.

After all, you’re spending tons of time creating all this valuable content. You have to make sure that your audience reads it when they visit Google with their specific struggles and pain.

The Bottom Line

To cut it short, you can do content marketing if you use the right strategy and tools.

Follow the tips I shared in this article and you will be the next content marketing expert and grow your brand and business in no time!