What Is Content Marketing – Take The Challenge!

No doubt you’ve heard the phrase “content is king.”

Why?

Because no matter what type of business you’re in the content marketing you provide to your consumers will be at the core of your marketing plan because it’s what builds credibility and loyalty.  It's what gets you in front of your clients!

It's pretty much a true fact that businesses aren't built on first-time visitors. Successful companies build their loyal customers from retention.  Individuals who think their company is good enough and customers will automatically come back for more, again and again, place themselves on a constant spending schedule.

What most fail to remember that it takes a lot to obtain a client.  If huge companies like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Target, etc went after first-time customers over and over again they would have gone under

by now, right?

Yet many people approach their business this way. Instead of focusing on repeat visitors, they focus on optimizing for search engines so they get more new customers.

At the end of the day, however, the famous and successful blogs like Huffington Post or Entrepreneur ultimately still get most of their traffic from repeat visitors.

Yes, search engines love them, but their businesses would be a fraction of what they are today if they didn't have great content.

Search Engines

 
For many years, Google and other search engines have worked towards making their search results pull up better and better results. They want people who search on their engines to find the best content possible in relationship to what they're looking for.

As search engines get smarter, marketers who focus primarily on marketing tactics rather than actual content will consistently lose ground to competitors who understand the importance of creating a consistent flow of quality content for their consumers.

Now content comes in many different shapes and sizes.  Some of us get caught up in the chaos of content, however, there are ways to keep it all under control and get out there in front of your audience.

This is why we are doing this challenge to change this mentality.

The mentality of marketing only with SEO works but it could work way better with great content.  They both go hand in hand.  We need to get more content out there.

There is always a need to create more content with a strategy and I am excited for us to do it together.

If you build your website around great content while having a decent understanding of basic SEO, your site will grow. If you put all your attention on SEO and don't pay much attention to your content, you'll always be trying to stay one step ahead of the search engines.  It's why we recommend a website analysis to determine your keywords and what overall content you should focus on.

Ok, Let's rewind for a moment.

Do you have a website? NO? Look at these four steps on how to build your website.  This video will ensure you have it set up correctly.  If you have a website when was the last time you had an analysis?  Let's take a look at how your website is functioning with a FREE analysis.

Now let’s go over the different forms of content that you can use to grow your business.

There are four main types of content: text, graphics, audio, and video.

 
Each of these has its own benefits and will appeal to different types of audiences.

Text-based

This is by far the most common type of content used on the internet. Just about every webpage you see is based on text content.

One of the biggest benefits of text-based content is that it's very search engine friendly. Search engines can't understand videos or audios as well, but they can understand the text, so if you're publishing text-based content you stand a good chance of ranking.

Graphic based

This is visual based content like social memes, banners, and infographics that are easily shared on sites like Pinterest, Instagram and paid advertising platforms like Google Adwords. These are essentially graphics that contain information that appeals to your target audience.

One of the biggest benefits of graphic-based content is that it's often more entertaining and informative than just plain text.

Audio-based

Audio content, especially in the form of podcasts and audiobooks is extremely popular. People can listen to audios anywhere they go. In the car, on the bus, while walking, at lunch, etc. It saves time and is extremely convenient. Audio content works well for many businesses, so don’t underestimate it.

Video-based

Video content is one of the most dynamic methods of distributing content on the internet. You can put funny content, informational content, interesting content, high tech content, personal content – just about anything you can think of.

It also has some of the strongest “share culture.” It's very easy to share video content with friends on Facebook for example.  A video has a much higher chance of going viral than say an audio podcast.

The only downside to video content is that it does take more effort to produce. You need to shoot the video, edit the video and finally render the video.  The whole process could take many hours, rather than just 30 minutes to write an article.   But not if you “Live Stream”.  Going live on platforms to day takes seconds and is the most populare type of content you can put out.  The social platforms love live videos.

Exercise

Which content format is right for you and your business?

It really depends on what kind of content you're creating and who your market is.

The best way to find out is to test and track your results. You can also try a combination of different types of content to see what your audience responds the best to.

Create a new piece of content using one of the above and share it back in the Facebook Group.

We have a lot to go over in the next few days if you want to learn how to content market in your business, be sure you look for your next lesson soon. Join the Challenge!

We will be talking about finding your voice as a content marketer.

Oh, and have your content schedule ready for us to talk more about that!

Remember to always Stand Out Be You