Selling Ice Cream on A Beach In the Summer Is Easy.

What is content marketing?

A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in products or services.

• Content can be used across a variety of media options:  video, email, blog, social media, and more – there’s a LOT that can play into content marketing.

• Content can be used across a variety of media options:  video, email, blog, social media, and more – there’s a LOT that can play into content marketing.

• Content can be used across a variety of media options:  video, email, blog, social media, and more – there’s a LOT that can play into content marketing.

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 32% of marketers think their content creation workflow is fair or poor. Research from Zazzle Media supports this. It reveals that 60% of people find it hard to produce content consistently.

“Selling ice cream on the beach in the summer is easy. Raising people’s expectations, engaging in their hopes and dreams, helping them see further—that’s the difficult work we signed up for.”

SETH GODIN (THIS IS MARKETING)

Does content marketing actually work? Short answer:  YES!

• Stats:  The CMI’s digital content marketing stats show that 72% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement. In addition, 72% say it has increased the number of leads.

Why content marketing actually works:

1. Greater return on a smaller investment–one of the most cost efficient ways to market your small business.
2. Gives a platform for people to express opinions and thoughts–a low risk way for people to engage with you and get to know you.
3. Expose your business to new prospects and a larger audience–as people watch you and observe your content, they engage with it and in turn send it out to other people who may also follow you.
4. Improve trust with customers through lead nurturing–people are able to go back to your previous content and are interested in to see what you are posting on social media or listen to your weekly stories, or get involved in your podcast.
5. Solidify your brand identity as a key resource–content marketing of your business establishes you as a resource of your product that people want or need.
6. Boosts site traffic–good marketing will boost the traffic to your website as you put fresh and relevant content out regularly.

Common Myths About Content Marketing

1. It will Give you Instant Results – are you sensing a theme here?
2. You Have to crank out content every single day in order for it to work.
3. Your content needs to be long form (like a blog).
4. “One size fits all” strategy. 

What are the best strategies for content marketing?

• Figure out your Goal.  
  • Are you trying to just increase brand awareness and reach?  Are you trying to create engagement?  Are you trying to push people to your website?  What is the very specific goal you have with that specific piece of content? 
• Know who you’re talking to.
• Figure out what channels you’d like to use as well as how you’ll distribute your content. 
• Establish how you’ll measure success.
• Research your content.
• Build your content calendar.
• Measure your results.

Realize there is no “one size fits all” content marketing strategy. – You have to figure out what works for you.  It requires experimentation, an extreme amount of patience, consistency and research. 

MAPLEWILD MARKETING

Tools to Improve Your Content Marketing:

• Management for content:  Use a scheduler app like Later, Hootsuite, or Planoly.
• Task Management:  If you need to be held accountable and on task for your projects and content, invest in the Trello app. 
• Canva (graphics):  Two options available depending on how much you will use it; the free and the pro.  
• National Days/Themes:  Build off of these for your content calendar. 
• Grammarly (if you struggle with spelling):  Your content is people’s first impression of you.
•  Using Image, Video, Carousel, Interactive Content:  People want to be able to interact with you and engage with you.  Use of interactive content is important for 2021.  If you have not listened to Episode 2 of my podcast, The Seven Digital Marketing Trends for 2021, I would encourage you to do so as this is a really important way to capture people’s attention as you market. 

What’s something I can do to repurpose my content?

1. Create content with the intent to repurpose it. 
   • What Do You Mean by Repurposing?
     • Repurposing content simply means taking one asset and reusing it somewhere else. That sounds simple enough in theory, but it can get tricky in execution. To really make it work, it helps to produce content with repurposing in mind, so you can easily slice and dice it into different formats.
2. How to effectively repurpose content?
   • Use forums like Quora/Reddit
   • Publish it on LinkedIn
   • Take a quote or a graphic and use it in a post
   • Take an image and Pin it to Pinterest
   • Turn it into an Instagram story
   • Use it to turn into a webinar/live 
   • Use the main points for a infographic
   • Use the main points for a blog post
   • Make it a downloadable PDF 
   • Turn it into an email or email series

In fact, I wrote a blog post you may want to read outlining how to do this with a blog post! It’s called “9 Easy Ways to Repurpose Your Blog Posts” and literally takes you step-by-step through the process.

Here’s My Best Content Tip:

Quit trying to market. How’s that coming from someone in marketing? Focus on your story. Focus on your UNIQUE strategy and plan. This comes from you practicing and experimenting with your own content. There is no “one size fits all” strategy. 

Maplewild Marketing

Your content will thank you for it. Just remember to reuse, reduce and recycle your content where and when you can. Create it with an intention. Create it with passion. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel or to use what might work for someone else’s business. Focus on what you do. What your story is. What makes you different. Special. Unique.

If your content is effective, you won’t HAVE to advertise all the time because it will speak VOLUMES about who you are and what you do… I know this to be true: If your content is providing value – you will never feel “salesy” and your business will thrive.