What exactly is content marketing?

Before we get into why you definitely can’t ignore content marketing, let’s give a little context to make sure we’re all on the same page. 

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that involves creating and sharing material online to stimulate interest in a product or service. 

Of course, the underlying principle of content marketing is to drive sales. But that doesn’t mean you need to hammer the “buy now” message. Content marketing is most successful when you take a subtle approach to building your brand over the long term. 

It’s not necessarily about selling products but building an environment around your brand that encourages trust in you and attracts the right type of people to your brand. 

You want to attract the right people who are actively interested in your offering and encourage them to trust you. The way to stand out in a competitive market is to be truthful and sympathetic to your customers’ feelings. 

Take a minute.

Think back to when you were imagining your new business or agency. Did you know about a product people really wanted and needed? Maybe it didn’t exist yet? Or perhaps you had a better approach?

You are not alone in thinking that. There will be many others out there who are looking for what you are offering to fill a gap in their experience. 

Content marketing is a way of finding the people who are truly interested in your product. When you’ve found these people, you can be more intentional in your marketing approach and speak to the pain points of the people who need what you offer. 

And how do you do this?

You understand their journey and respond to it empathetically.

Where do I start with content marketing?

By understanding your customer’s journey first, you establish the groundwork for everything you create and share with your audience. This understanding allows you to craft a content narrative that speaks to your customers’ struggles and desires. 

You can deliver this content across different channels by first understanding where your customers engage with content online—what platforms, communities, blogs, etc. Then you consider what stage of the journey they are at when they reach you on each of these platforms. 

A great way of breaking this down is to think about the five stages of awareness:

Stage 1: Unaware

These are people who don’t need anything and essentially don’t know you exist. 

At this stage, you establish the top-funnel content that identifies where your customers are and makes them aware of the pain points you can relieve. You will bring them toward your brand down the line when your marketing gains traction—that’s what social media algorithms are for, right?

Stage 2: Pain Aware or Problem Aware

These people are aware of their pain, but haven’t found solutions. 

Think of this as the first stage in knowing whether a prospect is qualified, meaning they are potentially interested in your product and are worth spending your time on. You want to empathize with the source of their problem and guide them through how you can help with the best solution. 

Stage 3: Solution Aware

This group has a problem, and they are aware of solutions, but not yours.

This third stage is your opportunity to make yourself stand out from the crowd. Think of it as putting your arm around someone’s shoulder and having a little heart-to-heart moment. This is when you will also know if the customer is right for you.

Stage 4: Product Aware

These people know that you offer a solution to their problem but haven’t chosen your brand or product yet. 

You are one of the many options your customers will consider. This is a good time to knuckle down on the principles behind what your service or product offers. Be creative in your methods. 

Stage 5: Most Aware

These are your loyal pack. These people are aware of your brand, they trust in you, and have most likely already purchased your product (or at least want to). 

With this group, you can have fun. Be honest and truthful to your brand and give them some love back through competitions and content you know they will love. 

This group is full of your promoters! You should reach out to them with requests for social proof, like testimonials or case studies. Don’t forget, you can also deliver content that will get them back into your marketing sales cycle as repeat customers. 

How to apply the stages of awareness

The best way is to divide up the stages. Stages four and five are really about your product. Stages one, two, and three are about the people who need it. 

For example, if someone has signed up to your mailing list, they will probably be transitioning from problem aware to solution aware and are fishing for information or looking for discounts. If you have a web development agency, you will have a lot of clients at stage two. 

The five stages differentiate your content types and ensure that you always communicate to your entire audience, arguably the most challenging part to master. 

5 reasons to start now

Now that we have framed a few things, it’s time to get on to the crux of why you are here. Here are the five reasons for you to start a content marketing strategy now:

Increase sales

Increasing sales is, of course, the end goal.

But remember that you don’t want to make your customers feel like all you are doing is driving them towards their credit card. 

While your primary goal will always be increasing sales, building a loyal customer base is the best method by which you can achieve it. For these reasons, you need to ensure your content speaks to the audience more emotionally. 

Once your customers emotionally engage with your brand, they trust and believe in you more. This trust can permeate into their friends and family, providing fantastic opportunities for referrals and recurring revenue and building strong social proof. 

Save on costs

Creating content can be expensive, but the content created for a content marketing initiative enjoys a much longer shelf life. Building trust now, ensures you stay in the customer’s mind down the road.

Think of it this way. When you take out an ad, you pay A LOT of money to put your brand in front of people’s eyes. Ok, that’s good! But, as soon as you stop paying, that visibility is gone.

Content marketing produces content that lasts for years, and the more you produce, the stronger your initiative becomes. 

Attract the right customers who will be loyal

We’ve already mentioned this many times in this blog, for a good reason. 

Think about all of those lines of people that you see outside of an Apple store when they launch a new iPhone. Do you think these people occasionally flirt with an Android device? Nope! 

They are loyal (perhaps overly so), and brand loyalty is one of the most challenging commodities to earn. 

You can earn loyalty by creating content that genuinely speaks to your customers, making them feel heard and valued. That is how you first build trust and then loyalty.

Maximize your SEO

Search engines, particularly Google, consider the frequency and quality of the content you are producing in determining your SEO ranking. 

That doesn’t mean you go out and hash together content by splicing bits from other similar brands and packaging it as your own. The algorithms, bots, and spiders are now smart enough to detect originality and they prioritize content that has been fact-checked. 

Like we mentioned before, you want to be seen as a fiduciary by your customers. With this comes a level of responsibility to provide authentic and original content. 

You want your content to be perceived as genuine and not something scraped together from other people’s sites.

Position yourself as a trustworthy and current brand

Yes, we’re talking about trust, again!

People love to research before committing to a purchase. If you were searching for a pizza oven, for example, and you wanted to weigh up the different options, where would you go? 

Most likely, you will head straight to their social media channels to do some research, see what they offer, and, most importantly, see what other people are saying about the product. 

Simply put, when you don’t create the content for people to engage with, you will be two steps behind your competition. You can bet that if one brand hasn’t published content in months, or only reposts content from a handful of people using their product, it will set off alarm bells with their audience!

You want to increase customer awareness of your product and remind people you are there. This instills a level of belief that the business they will be purchasing from is trustworthy.

Create customers for life

The idea behind content marketing is to build trust in you, and position your business as a trusted source and advisor.

And while we shouldn’t lean too heavily on the hard sell in our content marketing, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t still nudge your customers along. CTA’s are still essential to moving customers through different stages, such as signing up for a webinar. Remember, you’re not focused on selling, but on the desired action you want them to take. 

Establishing a solid content marketing strategy perfectly complements your other marketing initiatives. 
At GoWP, we have a highly talented team of copywriting experts ready to help expand your content marketing and generate recurring revenue for your business. Schedule a discovery call with us today to see how we can help.