There is a lot of talk these days about content marketing, and for a good reason. Content marketing is an effective way to attract new customers and build relationships with them over time. But this marketing approach is not only about promoting your business or selling your products and services. Instead, it focuses on educating your audience to earn their trust.
Using content marketing as part of your digital marketing efforts is the perfect way to build rapport and establish your expertise.
Here’s how you can leverage this type of marketing in your business.
But first, what is content marketing?
At its core, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing content for the purpose of promoting a brand or product.
You can also use content marketing to educate your audience, provide valuable information, and position your company or yourself as a thought leader in your industry. When done correctly, content marketing can be an extremely effective way to reach new customers and build brand loyalty. It can be a very powerful tool for businesses of all types, but service providers especially benefit from it since they don’t have a physical product to show.
There are many benefits of content marketing, including:
- Builds trust and credibility: By providing valuable information to your audience, you are establishing trust and credibility. This is especially important if you are selling products or services.
- Increases your potential to convert: Regularly publishing content and using some form of lead capture is a powerful way to generate leads for your business who already trust what you have to say and come to view you as a resource.
- Positions your company as a thought leader: You can use content marketing to establish your company or yourself as an expert in your industry by providing valuable and informative content that educates your audience.
- Helps you rank in search engines: Search engines love fresh, relevant content. By regularly publishing blog posts, articles, infographics, and other types of content, you can improve your search engine ranking.
- Increases brand awareness: By regularly publishing valuable content, you reach a wider audience in the spaces where they operate instead of waiting for them to come to you.
- It’s budget-friendly: Once you have long-form content, especially evergreen topics, you can easily repurpose it to serve multiple channels and circulate it for a long period of time with small (if any) updates or changes.
5 steps to using content marketing for thought leadership
Clearly define your audience
The first step for any marketing strategy is defining whom you’re targeting. From there, you can map out the next steps, like what you’re going to talk about and the formats you’ll use to reach your dream customers.
Share your knowledge and insights
The core of content marketing is providing a unique perspective on the topic you’re covering, even if it is something everyone is talking about.
By sharing your knowledge and insights through blog posts, articles, whitepapers, and webinars, you can differentiate yourself from competitors and show potential customers that you are an expert, which can help to build relationships with customers and create a more personal connection with your brand.
Create high-quality, niche-relevant content
You can distribute valuable content to attract attention, drive traffic, and make sales. However, irrelevant or poorly written content will not only fail to achieve these goals but can also damage your reputation.
To be successful, focus your efforts on the topics your audience is looking for as they relate to your offer. You don’t have to give it all for free, which is a big concern for many people considering content marketing. But you do have to draw a parallel between what you’re talking about and what you sell. Otherwise, you’ll attract people who aren’t interested in the services you offer.
Promote your content through social media platforms and other digital marketing channels
You probably already know that it’s essential to promote your content through multiple channels. But with so many options available, it can be difficult to know where to start. One effective way to reach your target audience is to include social media in your content marketing strategy.
By sharing your content on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, you can reach a wider audience. You can also syndicate your content on popular sites like Medium and Forbes so that you can get your work in front of new readers and grow your following.
Set goals and success metrics
As for any marketing strategy, you’ll want to define objectives for your content marketing. Depending on the channel, the metrics may vary, but ultimately, each piece of your content marketing should lead to an overarching goal.
Some metrics you can measure include:
- Are people engaging with your content? Track likes, shares, and comments.
- Are you generating leads? Utilize Google Analytics to track how many people visit your website after viewing your content.
- Are you growing your email list? Keep note of how many new subscribers you get after each content piece is published.
- Are people mentioning you online? Use a tool like Google Alerts to track when your brand or website is mentioned online.
Similarly, you can track open rates, website traffic, and conversions and make informed decisions based on the content that performs best.
The Bottom Line
Content marketing is a powerful tool to add to your marketing repertoire if your goal is to reach new audiences and build rapport.
By implementing these tips into your content marketing strategy, you can produce content that will help you establish thought leadership in your industry. Not only will this position you as an authority on the topics that matter most to your target audience, but it will also help you attract new customers and convert them into loyal fans.
At Beyond Solutions, we implement tailored marketing strategies that are proven to elevate your brand’s awareness and connect with your audience like never before. So what are you waiting for? Get started on your content marketing journey today!
