Stephanie Donelson

Need an introduction to content marketing basics or just want a refresher on best practices? You’re in the right place! Let’s start with the basics of covering what content marketing is.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing in its simplest definition is the process of creating relevant, valuable content for your audience at various stages of the buyer’s journey.

It’s a multi-channel strategy spanning search, social, email, paid, site citations, influencer outreach, etc.

Content marketing goes well beyond just blogging, posting to Facebook, and sending email newsletters. It’s a respectable digital marketing tactic that requires forethought and planning.

Why should you invest in content marketing?

Content marketing is very important for your brand to do well online. Instead of just writing blogs or social media posts to be active, you’re methodically sharing your brand’s story and sales campaigns in a way that’s natural and educational.

There are three main benefits of content marketing:

1. Brand awareness
2. Builds trust
3. Reach a larger audience at a lower cost

Remember, content marketing is a multi-channel approach and each of those channels works together to tell a cohesive story.

There are 7 elements that define content marketing

1. Engages customers on their own terms
2. Based on interactions with customers or a defined audience
3. Tells your brand’s story or the story your customers should have with your brand
4. Fits your channels
5. Content has a clear purpose, like lead generation or a thought leadership piece
6. Has metrics to measure results (site traffic, follower growth, new leads, etc.)
7. Content pieces are mostly evergreen

Content marketing isn’t traditional sales pitches, content marketing is a more comprehensive, educational, and engaging form of marketing. Content marketing touches every stage of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to loyalty.

Content marketing must have goals, like:

• Brand awareness
• Lead generation
• Lead nurturing
• Customer acquisition
• Thought leadership
• Engagement
• Customer retention/loyalty

Your content marketing goals and content assets will change for your different customers as they go through the sales funnel. You’ll need to map your content to the sales funnel and set specific goals of each asset.

Here’s how a content map could look for a typical sales funnel:

TOFU (top-of-funnel) content: Customers are aware of your brand but not ready to buy

• Educational and thought leadership pieces
• Ebooks and guides
• Informational infographics
• Slide decks

MOFU (middle) content: Customers have displayed buying behavior and are engaged

• Third-party reports
• ROI investment calculators
• Buying guides

BOFU (bottom) content: Very close to becoming a customer, very specific to product or service

• Competitive analysis
• Pricing sheets
• Customer case studies

Some goals and content assets will overlap. For example, a goal of engagement should happen across the funnel and across all assets as well as thought leadership to both attract and retain customers. Setting goals can help make sure that your content is focused and targeted for the right customer at their point in the sales funnel.

A note on thought leadership vs. selling

Thought leadership has always been around, but it’s been growing a pivotal part of content marketing strategies over the last few years. Thought leadership pieces share best practices and push the industry forward through change and sharing educational insight. Thought leadership focuses on being helpful, not salesy.

That’s not to say you can’t have sales pieces or campaigns within your content, but your content shouldn’t be solely focused on your products or services. Help people use your services better, share industry insights, highlight news or better ways of doing things. These content pieces help build trust in your brand and show that you’re invested in the industry instead of just invested in turning a profit from your product.

The 411 rule by Joe Pulizzi

An easy way to balance your content marketing plan with thought leadership and sales is to follow the 411 rule by Joe Pulizzi. It states that for every four educational pieces (thought leadership blogs, ebooks, guides, educational webinars), you can include one soft promotional piece (sales webinar, event), and then one hard promotion like a one-pager or sales sheet.

This keeps your content balance in the educational, which will always draw in potential customers to your brand.

Thought leadership

• Educates
• Lets customers find you
• Shares industry news, best practices, or new ideas

Sales content

• Sells
• Pushes products or services
• Product information

Ready to take your content marketing to the next level? Check out my post on thinking like a publisher!