I was speaking with Sam, a busy business coach, who said to me, “I tried content marketing to promote my business and it didn’t work. It was a big waste of time and money.”
My reaction was to investigate why it didn’t work for Sam. “Really? How long did you try it?”
Sam said, “I gave it three entire months!”
“Hmmm. And what specifically, were you doing in your content marketing, Sam?”
“Well, I had 3 blog posts written by a person I found on the web. That cost me $25 per post. I posted these on my site one per month. And I don’t think anyone even read them. There wasn’t even one comment left.” Sam explained.
I sat down with Sam to show him what he could do to make content marketing work for his business.
What is content marketing?
The first thing to learn is exactly what content marketing is. When I asked Sam what he thought it was, his reply was, “blogging”. That’s not incorrect but blogging is more accurately a tool used in content marketing. As a definition, you may get different answers to this question from different sources. For my definition, I went to the Content Marketing Institute, one of the industries thought leaders.
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
The tools of content marketing may be more familiar they include; blogs, social media, articles, videos, and infographics. Since Sam was already familiar with blogging we decided to start there.
The first thing I explained was that blogging is much more than writing a 500-word essay and publishing it on your website. I like to picture the process as a “Blogging Cycle.” This is a simplified cycle for entrepreneurs who are new to blogging.
Produce Content
Sam told me, “That’s the easy part. Since I’m not good at writing I bought my blog articles online for $25 a piece.”
Any article you can buy for $25 is not going to be “high quality.” To be effective, at a minimum your blog posts must be:
- Researched
- Written in-depth
- Integrated with your blog concept and your branding
- Have a high-quality image that communicates your concept
- Well-written with attention to grammar and spelling.
There was a day when posting low quality content might work, but that time has passed. To elicit the response you need to achieve your goals, all content you publish must be high quality.
If you outsource your content production, choose a reputable, experienced professional. Of course, if you are a great writer pen your own blog posts. However, even then you need to have another pair of eyes proof your content before posting it.
Publish Content
So this is a no brainer, right? No one can consume your content without you publishing it. WordPress is the most popular way to publish your blog.
The most recent stats are showing that since March 2016, WordPress is actually powering 26.4% of the Web, and it’s on the rise. It is still by far the most used CMS (content marketing system), with 59.4% market share.
Your blog may be the first impression prospective clients get of your business. This is why you should be sure to make that impression a good one. A well formatted blog post should:
- Be easily scannable. Only 16% of people read web sites word for word. Source
- Use subheaders. This not only makes the post scannable, but entices the search engines to index your site more often.
- Be sure it is easily read on a mobile phone. Today’s consumers are more likely to read your blog posts on mobile than on other devices.
- Use bold text to draw attention while readers are scanning.
- Use quality images that relate to your topic. These can include infographics, graphs, stock images and text call outs.
- Make your paragraphs short. Long blocks of text don’t draw the eye and look, well, boring.
Now that you have high quality content that is formatted to get and keep the interest of potential readers, you job is not done. Now it’s time to promote the results of your hard work.
Promote Content
This is where Sam didn’t follow through. It doesn’t matter if he posted a blog post every day meeting the guidelines we already discussed, no one will read it until he announces its’ existence.
The honest truth is you need to spend more time promoting your content than you do creating or publishing it.
Most entrepreneurs start with social media because that’s what they are familiar with. However, Sam was confused which social media platform he should use or if he should post on all of them.
There are thousands of social media platforms and more are being created each day. I would be almost impossible to post on all of them and you don’t need to. The most important factor is what platform your target audience uses. Don’t make them come looking for you. You need to take it them. This post gives you in-depth information about posting on social media.
But you are not done promoting your blog when you share on social media. Take time to research any sites where your target audience are likely to see your blog. Some of these include:
- Leave comments on other blogs. You need to read the article and post a thoughtful response.
- Post on forums specific to your niche. Be helpful and let your demonstrated expertise and credibility entice members to want more and read your blog.
- Add Video. It is the hottest trend and you need to use it on your blog.
- Add Slide Shows. It’s quite easy to create a slide show using PowerPoint and post to a site such as SlideShare.
- Post on Content Curation sites.
- Add to a Social Bookmarking site.
Sam now understood why posting a few low quality posts on his site didn’t get a any response. He was ready and excited to try blogging to promote his business again. But I had one final tidbit to share with him.
Be Consistent.
This is so important with any promotion you do in your business, it can’t be stressed enough. In my work with entrepreneurs, I preach it so much that I need it on a neon sign. And yet it is frequently one of the biggest mistakes business people make in their content marketing. A study from the Content Marketing Institute found that
Just 21% of content marketers in North America are “extremely” committed to content marketing. The other 79%? They’re just wasting their time (and everyone else’s, too).
When you publish consistently, you are training your audience to look for your content. With content that is consistently high quality, they will see you as a thought leader and the expert to turn to when they need your skills.
I challenged Sam to create a content marketing calendar and stick with it for 6 months. At that time, we will get together again to evaluate how these changes are working and how they have effected his ROI.
Are you ready to start blogging or improve your current efforts. I can help. Whether you want a review and consultation of your blogging efforts or you want to outsource all or part of your blogging. Contact me now.
