Introduction to Content Marketing

The goal of this blog post is to emphasize the importance of having a content marketing strategy for any company that sells products or services and to explain how a content marketing strategy can help a company tell its story, attract and retain customers, and become an essential component of the company's overall marketing plan. This post provides a comprehensive overview of the key elements of a content marketing strategy, including the importance of a collaborative team, a publishing calendar, and a consistent message across different mediums. It also provides an example of how a content marketing strategy can be executed across different buying cycle stages. Ultimately, the post aims to educate readers that content marketing is essential to any successful marketing plan and that they should consider implementing a content marketing strategy for their company.

​“Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience–with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” —Content Marketing Institute

Developing a Collaborative Team for Content Marketing​
A content marketing strategy contains all the parts of your company’s story, how to execute, when to publish, and who will tell your story. Your story needs to be on point, from site content to downloadable fact sheets to video messages and infographics. You need a collaborative team to make sure all the moving parts are in synch, and that the message doesn’t stray from one department to another, and you’ll need an evangelical whose voice is heard across the entire company. If your company comes complete with many departments—marketing, sales, business development, engineering, and customer service—chances are you will need a content marketing strategist who can coordinate the strategy, production, publication, and execution of your campaign. 

Executing Your Content Marketing Strategy: Fine-Tuning to the Buying Cycle
Content marketing strategies are executed across several mediums continuously and are fine-tuned to the buying cycle. This is where a publishing calendar comes in extremely handy. Your calendar will show which part of the story you are currently telling, when you are telling it, and where you are telling it. In this manner, you can use your calendar to put your video producers and writers on the same page with customer service, sales, and engineers.

Types of Content for Your Content Marketing Strategy​
By telling the same story through different mediums, and then altering it to fit the different phases of the buying cycle, you will create a positive customer experience. An example of a content marketing strategy might go like this:

1. To generate awareness and introduce your company, your social media team creates a LinkedIn page and other social media accounts, like Twitter. Blog posts, webinars, comprehensive guides such as eBooks, and videos are great ways to greet potential customers.
2. As the customer is considering your company, you can educate your potential customers by providing case studies, infographics, demo videos, product descriptions, and data sheets.
3. When it’s time to convert the potential customer to a paying customer, you can provide them with testimonials and reviews of happy customers.
4. After the potential customer becomes an actual customer, it’s time to keep them returning. Your content marketing strategy at this point consists of follow-up communications, reviews, and receiving feedback.

Conclusion
To develop a consistent message, it’s important to tell a story, a story rich in themes. Each theme should tell a different part of the story—the product’s features, the integrity of the company, the customer’s pain points, and so on. Your message should be told in text, video, animations, and webinars and spread across several mediums so that your customers are continuously exposed to a consistent message that informs them about you and why they want to buy your products or services.

That's just the beginning of content marketing! Please get in touch if you think this plan will work for you.