Does Content Marketing Really Work?

By Jon Allo  |   Submitted On February 19, 2021

You're blogging and creating content but you feel like nothing is working like you want it to. Your sales aren't increasing, your newsletter isn't getting new subscribers, and it just feels like you're wasting your time.

If that is the case with your content marketing, take heart that you can access where you are and start over anytime.

Determine Your Why

When you are creating any one piece of content, do you know what the purpose of it is? Each content choice must have a reason for being in order to be successful. Is the content there to inform your audience about a problem? Is the point of the content to get more subscribers? Perhaps the point is to sell a new product or service? If you don't know what the point is, it'll be hard to get anyone to take action.

Understand Your Audience

When you produce any content it's imperative that you know who you're creating it for. Try developing buyer personas and write the content to the "customer of one" instead of creating it for a nameless person that you don't know. This can help you develop very personalized content that gets results.

Know Your Niche

You may think that you know your area of expertise but the fact is, a niche might change a bit over time as technology improves. Keep up to date in your industry so that you're ready for changes and trends that may develop.

Follow Your Competition

The best way to differentiate your content marketing from your competition is to watch what they're doing. Join your competition's lists, and look at the content they're sending out. Can you determine if it's working well for them or not? Can you decide how to do it a little bit better?

Know the Buying Process

There is a set buying process that your audience will take part in, even if they don't realize it, and it's important to realize where people are in the buying process. Typically it works something like this:

Awareness

Information search

Evaluation

Decision

Purchase

Plus, after purchase your customer will evaluate again on whether or not to buy from you again.

Refine Your Strategy

If you have no strategy, or you feel as if what you're doing isn't working, take the time to work on refining your strategy to work better. Base this on the information you've gathered about your customers, the niche, your produce and/or services as well as the buying process.

Promote the Content You Create

Content can't just be created and that's the end. Use promotion strategies such as on and off page SEO, social media sharing, and other means to promote the content so that it is seen.

Create Compelling Content

No one wants to consume boring cookie cutter content. Ensure that the content matches the needs of your audience, speaks to them on their terms and provides value in and of itself to your audience.

Finally, content marketing is about the long haul. Results aren't going to happen overnight. Continue to produce high quality, relevant, consistent content that has a purpose and provides value and you will see the results you desire.

When you write and manage your content correctly, it will make your life easier and your business grow. To discover how the most successful online entrepreneurs plan, create and deliver great content, download my free checklist, The 5 Step Content Strategy, at https://jonallo.com/contentplan

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jon_Allo/1079948

Social media marketing

Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix;advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion. In the traditional marketing communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and medium of communications by the organization is in collaboration with an external agent, i.e. advertising agencies, marketing research firms, and public relations firms. However, the growth of social media has impacted the way organizations communicate. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access, opening doors for organizations to increase their brand awareness and facilitate conversations with the customer. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of services like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced. Report from company Sysomos shows that half of the users using Twitter are located outside US demonstrating the global significance of social media marketing. Organizations can receive direct feedback from their customers and targeted markets.

Introduction

Social media marketing is considered as a powerful strategy of low-cost promotion through social media channels. Social media sites allow the sharing of opinions and customer experiences on companies, products and services. Social media websites are usually not moderated or censored and customers can critically assess products, companies and services in a positive or negative way.

Online social media involves:

Sharing: Anything can be promoted to everyone (example: DIGG)

Networking: Anyone can connect with everyone from anywhere (example: Facebook)

Publishing: Everyone can publish anything for everyone (example: Twitter)

Platforms

Social media marketing which is known as SMO Social Media Optimization benefits organizations and individuals by providing an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight, and a method of managing their reputation online. Key factors that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with and the strength of the foundation on which it is built. A strong foundation serves as a stand or platform in which the organization can centralize its information and direct customers on its recent developments via other social media channels, such as article and press release publications.

The most popular platforms include:

Facebook

YouTube

LinkedIn

Twitter

MySpace

Reddit

Blogs

Flickr

Delicious

Benefits of online social Media

The audience is in control

It is a two-way communication

The message to be delivered can be adapted and designed so as to appeal to the target audience

The focus is on the audience and its experience rather than on the brand

It is a powerful way of influencing and getting the audience to be involved

The user can participates in the co-creation

Software tools

Several companies are now providing specialized tools and platform for social media marketing. Popular tools include:

Shoutlet - Social media marketing platform

Sysomos - Social media monitoring and analytics provider

Hubspot - Inbound social media marketing

(source:wikipedia)