Why I decided to write this epic guide (Introduction)
“Content is king” is a phrase Bill Gates coined some 27 years ago and its import still rings true today.
Content catapulted Brian Clark (Copy Blogger), Darren Rowse (Pro Blogger) and Jon Morrow (Smart Blogger) to global fame.
Linda Ikeji became a global internet sensation thanks to her blog, which she started in 2006, in Lagos.
The likes of Ariana Huffington and Rand Fishkin are in a special class of their own. Thanks to their business models, which are a combination of SaaS and blogging, they rake in millions monthly.
Alex Hormozi is a globally known business mogul and philanthropist thanks to his prodigious content. Alex started with his Gym Launch Secrets in 2019, which hardly sold a thousand copies. Yet his $100 M OFFERS and $100 M LEADS have sold hundreds of thousands of copies apiece.
As a learner committed to helping newbies, I decided to write this article to equip aspiring content writers with the skills they need to unlock value for their clients through evergreen contents.
Readers will learn and master the techniques and the avalanche of strategies that convert site visitors into leads, and leads to customers, sales and profit no matter the industry.
I don’t assume readers to have prior knowledge of content writing and marketing. However, foundational knowledge on how online business and social media works will be an invaluable advantage.
Here are the objectives of this guide
Whether a freelancer, content creator in a corporate setting or a course creator, this article will enable you:
- Learn how to create evergreen contents that attract top clients.
- Master how to position and promote your contents to remain top of mind.
- Execute strategies that make your contents discoverable online.
- Understand the techniques and strategies that convert site visitors into leads, and leads to customers, sales and profit.
Your Key Takeaways
Irrespective of your unique needs the key takeaways include the ability to:
- Mine the huge opportunities in content writing and marketing.
- Execute signature-systems for creating high-quality contents that businesses need.
- Evolve fail-proof techniques for identifying and bagging top clients.
The contents of this guide
- Overview and definition of content marketing
- Why content marketing?
- Stages, forms, types and formats of content.
- Setting content marketing goals.
- Content strategy.
- Content marketing strategy.
- Organizing content.
- Tips for various types of contents.
- Tangential contents.
- Guide for landing your first client.
- Content marketing examples.
Chapter 1
Overview And Definition
Overview
Content marketing refers to creating of online content – such as articles, videos, and social media posts – that is designed to generate new website traffic, leads, and customers for businesses.
According to drum dot com, the content marketing industry was expected to grow to $412.88billion in 2021, more than double the 2016 value of $196billion. Technavio (2022) projected the industry to grow to $416.23billion by 2027.
- Research by Demand Metric reveals that content marketing generates 3X more leads than traditional marketing, while costing 62% less.
- According to Smart Blogger, “CM is an incredibly valuable service that helps generate real revenue for businesses. It’s one of the most effective and efficient ways for companies to generate new leads and customers.”
- According to research from Hubspot, 55% of marketers say that blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. Accordingly, the demand for content writers is exploding.
- Deep knowledge of content marketing positions serious content writers to master evergreen content creation strategies that create impact, drive leads, sales and profit for their clients no matter the industry.
Definition
- Marketing is the act of telling a story to people who want to hear it. And making that story so vivid and true that the people who hear it want to tell other people. (Seth Godin)
- Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. (Wikipedia)
- Content marketing shares informative content that is relevant, interesting, and useful to your target audience. (Copyblogger)
- Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content to reach your target audience. It can boost factors like brand awareness, sales, reach, interactions, and loyalty. (Hubspot)
- Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. (Content Marketing Institute)
As you may have observed, the common word here is audience. However, any successful content marketing campaign today can hardly ignore the online part.
Digital Marketing Versus Content Marketing
Content marketing is a subset of digital marketing. According to Digital Marketer, digital marketing is all embracing and includes content marketing. Here is the breakdown of the components digital marketing:
- Digital strategy
- Content marketing
- Paid Traffic
- Email Marketing
- Social Media
- Search Marketing
- Data & Analytics
- Testing & Optimization
A digital marketer must be what David C. Baker calls a T-Shaped expert with depth and breadth and with expertise in the following areas:
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Data & Analytics
- Paid Media (Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads, Linkedin Ads, Etc.)
- Search Marketing
- Social Media
- Ecommerce Marketing
Chapter 2
Why Content Marketing?
As per Wikipedia, “The point is that your customers want a remarkable experience, and your content marketing efforts can give that to them. But you have to understand the way that people buy and then create content for each stage.”
Copyblogger points out that, “The core way content provides value to you as a business is through organic traffic. This is where people discover you on some kind of search platforms like Google and YouTube or a podcast directory, and go to visit your content.”
Copyblogger further asserts that, “On those platforms, you have to go to your audience. But with organic traffic, your audience comes to you. Organic traffic is aware of the problem and they want to solve the problem. All three of those are critical ingredients for online sales, making content, and marketing uniquely suited to growing your business.”
In a research on content marketing trend in 2016 (North America) by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs, “Creating More Engaging Content” emerged the top priority for B2C content creators at 73%.
In the same survey, “Producing Engaging Content” emerged as the top challenge for B2B content marketers at 60%.
Also, in the same surey, “Growing SEO / organic presence” was the top priority at 66% when respondents were asked to name their company’s top priorities regarding inbound marketing projects.
Rightnow Customer Experience Report found that 89% of consumers stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service.
In a survey by Forbes, 86% of respondents said they would pay more for a better customer experience, but only 1% of customers felt that vendors consistently meet their expectations.
Bain & Co. reported that a customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related versus price or product related, while Defacto Research found that 55% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience.
Content marketing therefore has the goals to achieve the following for an organizations and individuals:
- Attract attention and generate leads
- Expand their customer base
- Generate or increase online sales
- Increase brand awareness or credibility
- Engage an online community of users
- Educate your leads and prospects about the products and services you offer
- Boost conversions
- Build relationships between your customers and business that result in increased loyalty
- Show your audience how your products and services solve their challenges
- Create a sense of community around your brand
Chapter 3
Stages, Forms, Types and Formats of Content
Stages of Content Marketing
Content marketing experts identify three basic stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Forms of Content
There are four forms:
- Written word
- Audio
- Video
- Images
Types of Content
- Blogging
- Copywriting
- Newsletters
- Product reviews
- Podcasting
- Vlogging
- Video Sales Letter (VSL)
- Paid Ad
- SEO
Content Formats
Neil Patel lists the following content formats
| How tos | Helpful Application / Tools |
| Content Curation | Opinion Post |
| Case Studies | White Papers |
| Charts / Graphs | Vlog |
| Ebooks | Videos |
| Email Newsletters / Autoresponders | Templates |
| Cartoons / Illustrations | Surveys |
| Book Summaries | Slideshares |
| Tool Reviews | Resources |
| Giveaways | Quotes |
| FAQs | Quizzes |
| Q & A Session | Polls |
| Webinar | Podcasts |
| Guides | Pinboards |
| Dictionary | Photo Collage |
| “Day In the Life of” Post | Original Research |
| Infographics | Press Releases |
| Interview | Photos |
| Lists | Predictions |
| Mind Maps | User Generated Content |
| Meme | Company News |
| Online Game | Timelines |
Chapter 4
Setting Content Marketing Goals
According to Hubspot, setting content marketing goals should start with smart goals and their related KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as shown below:
| Smart Goal | Related KPI | |
| Brand Awareness | Site traffic, social media followers, subscription sign-ups, mentions (by customers and partners) | |
| Revenue | Daily sales, site traffic | |
| Conversions | Conversion rate, shopping cart abandonment rate, associated shipping rate trends, competitive price trends | |
| Brand Loyalty | Returning customers, promoters, product reviews, referrals | |
| Customer engagement | Likes, shares, follows, mentions, backlinks | |
| Rapport and trust | Returning customers, promoters, followers, mentions | |
| Strategic partners | New partnerships, mentions, backlinks |
Set a budget
Many organizations underestimate the cost of producing content. Constructing a budget helps you think through the cost implication of your content initiatives. Think about the type of content you’re creating and which channels you’re marketing that content on. Neil Patel, the founder of Ubersuggest recommends asking the following questions to determine your budget:
- Do you need to purchase any software or technology to create the content (such as graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop, a subscription to Canva, a camera to take high-quality photos and videos)?
- Do you need to hire any content marketers or designers (such as artists, writers, editors, designers)?
- Do you need to pay for ad space?
- Do you need access to specific tools or resources to enhance or measure your specific type of content?
Accordingly, make note of how your responses impact your budget — whether that’s an increase or decrease in what you may have already estimated.
Tools
New companies, tools, apps and software enter the market now and then and what is a preferred tool today may be overtaken by another tomorrow. Here are some tools to help you with your content marketing strategy analytics and results:
- HubSpot Marketing Analytics Software
- HubSpot Social Media Management Software
- Notion
- Shared Count
- Sprout Social
- Google Analytics
- Many more
Chapter 5
Content Strategy
Your content strategy will involve the following:
1. Determine who your customer is
2. Figure out what information they need
3. Choose how to say it
Now you need to step into their shoes and walk through their customer journey.
What steps do they need to take to do business with you? What do they need to know before buying from you, and in what order?
This is your content roadmap — your first pieces of content. Create content that addresses each step of the customer journey.
Update Your Current Content
For example, if you’re building a finance blog, your core content pillars might be:
- Personal finance tips and tricks
- Interviews and stories about people who found financial freedom
- Industry news and what it means for you
- Finance basics
If you’ve already been publishing, update your current content. With these pillars in place, you’ll want to make sure you’re hitting 3 key content types, which Goulet calls the 3 E‘s: Engagement. Evergreen. Events.
10 Strategies to Create Great New Content
1. Define your content marketing goal
2. Research and understand your audience
3. Setup your blog (if you don’t have one already)
4. Update your current content (if you’ve already been publishing)
5. Start building an email list and know how you’re going to use it
6. Brainstorm ideas and do keyword research
7. Decide which format of content you want to produce
8. Outline which tactics you’re going to experiment with
9. Use social media to promote your content
10. Use paid ads to get extra eyes on your content
Creating Your Audience Personas
Creating an audience persona enables you to create targeted content that resonates with the intended object. Audience persona is also referred to as avatar or the “Dot”. To create a properly targeted content, Digital Marketer recommends focusing on the following questions?
- How does your content not only fit in, but get found and recognized by this person?
- Are they searching for it on Google or do they use community sites like Quora or Reddit to source answers and ideas?
- Are they heavy Facebook users or do they spend most of the time on apps like WhatsApp?
- Maybe they don’t spend much time online at all, and prefer attending in-person events, industry conferences, or group discussions.
When creating a customer avatar, Jeff Haden recommends you should be as descriptive and granular as possible, capturing as much personal details of the avatar as possible. Quoting Andrea Goulet, Haden asserts it should include:
Personal Details:
- Age: 32
- Gender: Male
- Marital Status: Married
- NO/Age of children: 2 [Age 8 and 10]
- Location: Lagos
- Quote: I surround myself with people smarter than me.”
- Occupation: Digital Marketing
- Job title: CEO/Founder
- Annual Income: N5,500,000
- Level of Education: University Graduate
- Other: Spends time on LinkedIn looking for talent
Goals and values
Goals
Wants to….
-increase agency business
-increase the capabilities of his team
-scale his business
Values
Has committed to…..
-professional development for he and his employees
-providing values for his clients
Using ‘’white hat’’ marketing principles
Challenges and pain points
Challenges:
… is challenged with………
-scaling his agency business
-finding training and retaining top marketing talent
-keep his marketing stills sharp while being CEO.
Pain Point:
… pain point are………
-fear of losing business and competitors
-fear of his … talking behind the digital market scene
Objections and roles in purchase process
Objections to the sale:
-does the training fit an existing service or a new service he can offer to his clients
-how long he and his team member will be ‘’out of pocket’’ doing the training
Role in the Purchase Process
… is the decision maker.
He buys digital marketing training to keep himself and his team sharp.
He’s not worried about the price point if he knows … will give him and his team an edge in the marketing places.
Sources of Information
BOOK: Good to Great /Think and Grow Rich
Magazines: Wired/Fast Company
Blogs/website: AdAge/Dig Dry/Social Fresh
Conferences: Content marking world /SXSW
Gurus: JAY Brett/ Jae Polozzi/Christopher Penn
Other: Spent time on LinkedIn looking for talent
Use Long-Tail Keywords
High cost and competition versus Low cost and risk
Low probability versus High probability
1 Word phrases (shoes)
2 – 3 Word Phrases (men shoes)
More Descriptive Phrases (red Nike men’s running shoes)
Chapter 6
Content Marketing Strategy
Since the aim of creating content is to create customer, the better we know our customers, the more effective our content marketing strategy will end up being.
Content marketing strategy involves three overlapping processes:
- Creating content
- Promoting content
- Converting leads to customers
The process begins with attracting visitors, gathering contact information, interacting with target audience and submitting a proposal:
Attract visitors
- Blog posts
- Web Content
- Articles
Gather contact Information
- E-Newsletters
- E-Books
- Webinars
More Interaction
- Phone
- Consultations
- Assessments
- Request a Proposal
Content Marketing Strategy
A content marketing strategy is a plan for building an audience by publishing, maintaining, and spreading frequent and consistent content that educates, entertains, or inspires to turn strangers into fans and fans into customers.
According to Neil Patel, “In a world with social media, endless internet space, self-publishing companies, and free graphic design tools, the strategies you can use to attract paying customers are as varied as the fish in the sea.”
Therefore, your strategy should outline your key business and customer needs, and how your content efforts will address them.
Stages of Content Marketing
There are three basic stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Content Marketing Strategy
According to Hubspot, a content marketing strategy involves a minimum of the following:
- Social Media Content Marketing Strategy
- Infographic Content Marketing Strategy
- Blog Content Marketing Strategy
- Podcast Content Marketing Strategy
- Video Content Marketing Strategy
- Paid Ad Content Marketing Strategy
- Set SMART goals
- Determine your KPIs
- Choose your content channels
- Decide on the type of content
- Set a budget
- Create and distribute the content
- Analyze and measure results
Developing Your Content Marketing Strategy
Content Marketing Institute gives the following key takeaways to focus on while crafting a content marketing strategy:
- A content marketing strategy is different than a content strategy.
- There are no universal templates for developing a strategy.
- Your strategy should outline your key business and customer needs, and how your content efforts will address them.
- Document your content marketing strategy – a verbal strategy is not enough.
- Your content goals and mission are critical to success. Internalize them, or post them in your workshop.
- Refer to your strategy often, and give it a periodic tune-up.
Where to Use Content Marketing
- Online
- Offline
- Hybrids.
Content Marketing Metrics
A customer passes through the following three stages in the journey from a stranger or visitor to a customer: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision, otherwise also referred to as Attract, Capture, and Convert. Below are the metrics to consider at each stage:
Attract
- Readers
- Top performing sources
- Page views
- Engagement Rate
- Time on Site
- Articles Viewed
Capture
- Newsletter sign ups
- Returning visitors
- Form Submission
- Downloads
Convert
- Monthly Qualified Leads Generated
- Deals /Influenced
- Opportunity Pipeline
- Size of deal
- Average order value
- Order frequency
- Sales
Chapter 7
Content Tactics
As highlighted in the previous chapter, according to Neil Patel, there are three basic stages in the customer journey and each stage requires a different kind of content marketing.
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Content Modeling
Quoting scoop.eu, Neil Patel shared that 3-D Content Modeling involves:
- Mapping content to pain point
- Mapping appropriate content
- Mapping to buy cycle
In slightly more detail:
- Map the content to the pain point.
- Then use the right type of content for that problem.
- Finally, map the content to the buying cycle of the people who have that problem.
Outline Which Tactics You’re Going to Experiment With
This content marketing, according to Ryan Robinson, focuses on utilizing their core competencies, but here is how you can find those same kinds of opportunities within your own business:
- Observe your competitors: What are they doing, where are they publishing, and how are they using email? Understand what your customers are already seeing.
- Search relevant topics on Google: Look at the top 10 results and see what’s there. How long is the content? What images are being used? What’s consistent or stands out?
- Ask yourself: What are you and your team really good at? What are the patterns that your competition are falling into that you can disrupt? Are there people in your audience that you aren’t serving? What have you created that you’re the most
Prioritize 10X Opportunities.
- Another tactic that is crucial to content marketing is to always prioritize the highest impact content: 10X vs. 10% test.
Use this 3-step process:
- Brainstorm your ideas
- Pick and rank the most promising 10X opportunities
- Prioritize and implement the best ideas.
Another tactic that’s crucial to content marketing is to always prioritize the highest impact content. Garrett Moon calls this the 10X vs. 10% test. Which opportunities could potentially provide 10 times the growth to your audience size, traffic, or subscribers, versus just 10%?
Awareness stage content
How to write a Blog Post
- Step 1: Understand your audience
- Step 2: start with a topic and working title
- Step 3: Write an intro (and make it captivating)
- Step 4: Organize your content
- Step 5: Write!
- Step 6: Edit/proofread your post, and fix your formatting
B2B Content Marketing Tactics
Research by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs in 2016 indicated the top tactics used were:
Social Media Content – other than blogs – 93%
Case Studies – 82%
Blogs – 81%
eNewsletters – 81%
In-person Events – 81%
Articles on Your Website – 79%
Videos – 79%
Illustrations/Photos – 76%
White Papers – 71%
Infographics – 67%
Webinars/Webcasts – 66%
Online Presentations – 65%
Average Number Used – 13%
Chapter 8
Organizing For Content
How Companies Organize for Content Marketing
Altimeter Group has identified the following enterprise models for governing the orchestration of content within organizations to ensure that content is created in harmony:
- Content Department/Division
- Cross-functional content chief
- Executive steering committee
- Content lead
- Editorial board or content council
- Content center of Excellence
The Content Marketing Cycle
Simplifie summarized a typical content marketing cycle as follows:
- Research & Insight
- Research
- Surveys
- analysis and other forms of insight gathering
- Goal Setting
- Identification and prioritization of desired outcomes
- Content Strategy
- The process of planning content to achieve desired outcomes
- Content Creation
- The act of creating content identified in the content strategy
- Content Curation
- Sourcing and publishing content originating from other sources
- Distribution
- Publishing and marketing your content
- Engagement
- Actions that your audience takes with your content
Content Marketing Sales Funnel
A funnel is primed to generate Awareness, create Liking, and build Trust, as a visitor moves from the top to the bottom to engage as a customer.
Website Visitors at the Top of the Funnel (Awareness/Know)
No Risk Offer (no registration required) contents:
- Blog Articles
- YouTube Videos
- Podcasts
- Interviews
- Audio Files
Low Risk Offer (register with email) (Awareness /Know)
- E-Books
- Templates
- Reports
- Whitepapers
- Guides
- Resources
Middle of the Funnel
- Social Media
- About Us
- Testimonials
- FAQs
- Guarantees
- Demos
- Trials
- Webinars
- Newsletters
- Endorsements
Bottom of the Funnel
- Contact Us
- Enquire
- Buy Now
According to CMI (Content Marketing Institute):
Know (Awareness) (75% are looking for INFORMATION)
Like (Consideration) (23% are COMPARING)
Trust (Decision) (2%) is ready to take ACTION to become customers)
Traditionally content marketing is top of funnel strategy
Content Marketing Metrics
To ensure you’re investing in the top-level things that matter, Neil Patel, the founder of Ubersuggest, recommends paying attention to high-level metrics such as:
- Number of readers
- Number of page views
- Top performing pages
- Engagement rate
- Time on site
- Articles viewed.
Chapter 9
Tips For Various Types Of Contents
We have already noted that the three basic stages in the customer journey are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Each stage requires a different kind of content marketing.
Tips For writing Email Content
- Concise and direct
- Compelling
- Focused
- Visually engaging
- Eye-catching
Start Building an Email List
- MailChimp
- ConvertKit
- Campaign Monitor
- Aweber
- Drip
- Forento
- Ontrapot
- Kajabi
- Vonza
- Active Campaign
- Graphy
- Many others
List building
- A PDF checklist
- A mini-course
- A free video or lesson from a course
- A free sample
- A free call or consultation
- A free quote
Start building great relationships
1. Words drive engagement.
2. Words drive customer experience.
3. Words drive sales, growth, and profit.
Know How You’re Going to Use Emails
What is the goal of your emails?
There are 3 main types of emails you can send to your list, in a way that supports your content marketing goals:
- General campaigns and newsletters: These are sent to your full list.
- Communication that gets sent to targeted segments on your list.
- Automated messaging
Brainstorm Ideas and Do Keyword Research
- Brainstorm topics and terms
- Use a keyword research tool to gather results
- Expand and refine your list
- Build a spreadsheet and prioritize terms
- Outline content that hits the 3 key needs
NOTE:
- Use a keyword research tool to gather results: Now, it’s time to plug those terms into a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner, Moz, keywordtool.io or any other to see what comes up.
- Outline content that hits the 3 key needs: Take your top terms and outline content that will serve your goals, the user’s needs, and the keyword targeting. This is the trifecta of killer, SEO-friendly content.
Decide Which Format of Content You Want to Produce
- Blog posts
- Videos,
- Podcasts,
- Infographics
Each of these formats must all tell a story. Seth Godin says there are 4 qualities your content needs to have:
- Emotion: What emotion do we want people to feel?
- Change: How are you changing people with your product or content? Does that emotion change them in a way that helps your brand?
- Alert: Once you’re changed someone, how do you build the privilege of being able to tell them when you have something new?
- Share: How can you get people to tell each other?
NOTE:
Emotion: What emotion do we want people to feel?
Change: How are you changing people with your product or content? Does that emotion change them in a way that helps your brand?
Alert: Once you’re changed someone, how do you build the privilege of being able to tell them when you have something new?
Share: How can you get people to tell each other?
Email Checklist
Oracle gives the following recommendations when it comes to emails:
Subject line:
- Is it actionable?
- Does it elicit a sense of immediacy?
- Is it relevant to what’s inside?
- Is it as brief as it can be?
Salutation:
- Is it unique?
- Is it personalized?
- Does it use your brand voice?
Body copy:
- Is your order clear?
- Does it have a single, straightforward message?
- Is it concise, concrete, and specific?
- Is it relevant to the audience?
- Is it reflective of the subject line?
Design:
- Is it mobile-friendly?
- Does it stick to the brand?
- Is it simple and creative?
- Does it catch the eye with relevant GIFs or images?
Conclusion:
- Is there a clear Call to Action (CTA)?
- Does it summarize the topic?
- Is it personalized?
Live Video as Content Marketing
52% of marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
82% of users recall a video ad they have viewed online in the past month
Tips for video as Content Marketing
- Keep it short
- Have a plan
- Use hand signals to communicate to your users
- Use your tools
- Gather your resources
- Start with a compelling image
- Don’t worry about it being perfect
NOTE:
If you’ve watched cooking recipes or DIY How-to videos online, you know how simple an engaging video can be to create. Present what you’re going to make, the ingredients, process, and end result, all in 60 seconds or less.
Keep it short: Under 60 seconds at the most. If you can keep it under 30 seconds you’re killing it!
Have a plan: Think about your ingredients or props you need or how you’re going to show the steps.
Use hand signals to communicate to your users: The majority of videos are watched without sound, so think of other ways to communicate what the user needs to know.
Use your tools: Many use a hyper-lapse toolbox to store your videos, and a video stand, which you can create with something as simple as two stacks of books with a plank across. Place your camera on the edge of the plank and fire up your camera app. You can set a ‘stage’ for where you’re filming by taping it out on the table.
Gather your resources: Either bring them in one at a time or have them all laid out in your center stage.
Start with a compelling image: Either an impressive ‘finished product’ to arouse interest, or some unconventional ingredients.
Don’t worry about it being perfect: DIY videos go viral every day. If you can tell a compelling story in a short amount of time, it doesn’t matter if you shot it on your iPhone or a professional camera.
Podcasting As Content Marketing
To get started with audio
- Pick your topic or niche
- Gather your tools
- Find your guests
- Outline your own episodes
- Edit your podcast
- Upload and promote:
Audio editing is a form of art. Learn it.
Blog Post As Content Marketing
How To Build A Blog Post.
- Start with an outline:
- Add the meat
- One-up the competition
- Write a great headline
- Add an effective featured image
Start with an outline: Does your outline quickly answer What, Why, How and Where?
Add the meat: details, statistics, quotes, images, or case studies.
One-up the competition: Outperform the competition (10X vs 10%)
Write a great headline: There are great resources on writing headlines on Copyblogger and Quicksprout.
So, add an effective featured image: Check out sites like Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, for better-than-stock photos and then use a tool like Canva to add extra elements like text or icons.
Content Marketing On Social Media
- Shareability
- Consistency
- Engagement
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
1. Add email signup forms
2. Have a strong call to action
3. Improve your page speed
Chapter 10
Tangential Content
Here is how Casey Botticello’s Blogging Guide on Substack summarizes tangential content:
- Tangential content is content used in marketing to tap into a broad audience by supplying information on a wide range of topics related to your business but are not the soul of your business.
- A blog, article, or social media post composed of tangential content brings exciting topics that the customers care about without being about the brand. For example, a travel agency published a post highlighting the best restaurants to eat in Los Angeles.
According to Kerry Jones, writing on the MOZ dot com blog, under the title, “Tangential Content Earns More Links and Social Shares in Boring Industries [New Research]”, “Tangential campaigns earned 30% more media mentions and 77% more social shares on average than the brand-focused campaigns.”
Casey Botticello writing in his Blogging Guide on Substack under the title, “What is Tangential Content? Improving Your Content Marketing Strategy Through Tangential Content” stated, “Tangential content is content used in marketing to tap into a broad audience by supplying information on a wide range of topics related to your business but are not the soul of your business.”
Here are four reasons you should write tangential content according to Kerry Jones,
- Reach a wide audience and gain top-of-funnel awareness.
- Target a greater number of publishers during outreach to increase your link building and PR mention potential.
- Create more emotional content that resonates with your audience.
- Build a more diverse content library and not be limited to creating content around one topic.
According to Casey Botticello, advantages of Tangential Content include,
- Help the brand build its reputation
- Improve link building, reach more people
- Increase audience engagement
- Endless ideas
And, to identify tangential Topics, Casey recommends doing the following:
- Establish your target buyer personas
- Take advantage of data analytics tools
- Use mind mapping strategies
- Stay updated on what’s trending
- Test the strategy in social media
The way to never run dry of ideas is to write on tangential content that your target audience finds useful. Use tools like Facebook Insight to discover contents your audience is giving thumbs up to. And remember, it takes time for what you write to gain traction, so be patient and let the algorithms work their magic.
Complete the Google Form to get Chapter 11 (Guide to Landing Your First Client as a Content Writer) and Chapter 12 (Content Marketing Examples): https://forms.gle/N4QWg9aPtcj9U77dA
