Yesterday I told you a story from the early days of content marketing – which can be read here.
Today I will set the scene, so if you are already very familiar with what content marketing is and it’s purpose you might want to wait for tomorrow’s blog where I will put some meat on the bones. For everyone else, read on…
If you want to keep in contact with clients and prospects on a regular basis but hate selling, content marketing might just be for you.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is great for service provider/ knowledge based businesses, but can be used for all types of business.
Essentially content market is the creation of content in order to draw attention, gain credibility/ positive opinion and win sales.
Who is my content for?
The first thing to consider is, as with all forms of marketing, target audience.
- Who are you creating content for?
- What kind of content would they like?
- What do they need to know from you?
- What kind of content would be useful to them?
It’s good to remind yourself every time you begin to write content about your target audience and to imagine who you are writing for.
If you’re not sure about what your target market would be interested in consider;
1. Customer conversations – what do your current customers seem to be interested in or want to know?
2. Research – look at what other similar businesses to yours do in terms of content creation. Look at what topics/ types of content seem to get a good response. What new trends are there in your industry? What is everyone else talking about? What might be next?
3. Ask. You can also directly ask your target market what they are interested in through your social media channels and also by conversations with customers and clients, with people you meet at events etc.
4. Step in to their shoes. use your imagination. If you were them, what would interest you? What would grab your attention? By the way, if you are a retailer wondering how on earth you can create interesting content when all you want to do is sell IT software/ handmade cushions/ artisan coffee click here for a fantastic piece of retail content
In my next blog post we will look at the kinds of content that you can create so stay tuned for that!