Content Marketing – And How It Can Help Grow Your Business

Mark Colgan

Feel free to follow me @markpcolgan

Intro

• 5 years experience of Digital Marketing• 9 to 5 - B2B SaaS/Technology companies• Digital Marketing Consultancy – B2C and

Startups• 4 Years in Recruitment/Sales

@markpcolgan

Thanks Mum!

Let’s Begin

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1

Purpose

Why Is Content Marketing Important?

2 How You Can Create Content?

3 What Do You Do After You Have Created Content

What is Content Marketing

Content Marketing is about creating content at all stages of the sales funnel with the goal of advancing people to the next stage

in the funnel(Ian Cleary)

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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)

Why?

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The current landscape

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Digital Campaigns

CONTENT

PR

Website/Blog

Social Media

Customer Success

Lead Nurturing

Lead Generation

SEMSEO

Email Marketing

Why is it so important?

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SEO TableSearch Ranking Factors Infographic

Additional Resources

1. The best way to add value to your customers lives

2. Quickest way to resonate with your audience (if you properly understand them)

3. Very important for SEO as Google looks for quality content

4. Key to driving inbound traffic and leads

5. You can’t market without it

The Basics

People Buy From Those They:• Like• Trust• Know

Build an emotional connection between the audience and the content

BY

Providing content that is useful and interesting that increases interactions and engagement over time.

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How?

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Buyer Personas

What is a buyer persona:

A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer (can be more than one). And is developed based on their demographics, behaviours and your understanding of their motivations and challenges.

Only once you understand who your buyers are you can start to

engage with them about the right topic, in the right place at

the right time.

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Hubspot’s Guide To Buyer Personas

Additional Resources

The Buyer’s JourneyBy the time a buyer contacts a company they’ve done their research; they’ve identified that they have a problem, they’ve identified the solution and they’re ready to take action.

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T

M

B

AWARENESSResearch, prioritise criteria

CONSIDERATIONFurther research, comparison & justification

DECISIONSelection and purchase

AWARENESS“I think I have a need...

Yes, I do have a need”

CONSIDERATION“What are my options?

Who offers the best solution?”

DECISION“This company offers the best solution…

I’m going to go with them”

Content & Buyers Journey

Content is most effective when it matches the buyer’s journey

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T

M

B

AwarenessSlightly generic content, beginners guide, things to

consider etc. - blog posts, website copy, social media

CONSIDERATIONMore specific content, X vs Y, pros and cons of X etc.

- case studies, whitepapers, comparative articles, webinars

DECISIONContent to eliminate buyers remorse, evidence based, express value etc

- demos, in depth video walkthrough, case studies, referrals, tutorials

The Buyer’s Journey Example

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AWARENESSThinking of buying a car – maybe a VW…

CONSIDERATIONWhat model shall I buy?

DECISIONWhere do I buy it from?

RETENTIONAre you happy with what you bought?

ADDITIONAL SALESHere are our new models

Content Partnerships

Core and Peripheral content• Core – content about the challenges your

product helps overcome• Peripheral – content that is related to

your customers needs, motivations and desires*

Partner with other companies / individuals in your industry who share a mutual audience

Reach out the them to co produce valuable content which allows you to create content quicker

Leverage their marketing resources@markpcolgan

Core Peripheral

Both need to provide value

Coming up with ideas

• Speak to your business and ask them what the hot topics in your industry are

• Listen on social channels to see what your network is talking about

• Think about your prospects challenges and help them overcome them

• Interview customers and ask them (could send out a survey)

• Ask prospects when they sign up for emails• Research to determine the hot topics and

trends• Ask your audience to contribute – tell their

story• Think about how you can make your

audience’s lives better@markpcolgan

Marketo’s Lean Content MarketingBacklink.io’s Skyscraper Technique

Additional Resources

The Content Pyramid*

Primary / Secondary Research & Thought Leadership: Books, eBooks & Whitepapers

Long-form Blog Posts & Presentations

Infographics & SlideShares

Short-form Blog Posts & Contributed Content

Social Media Posts & CuratedContent

High Effort & Rare

Low

Effort & Often

*Curata

What do you do now?

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Share with your audience

• Via Social Media, and share again• Via email• Via events / webinars• Via journalists / bloggers• Via your employees• Enable sharing on your content / blog

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RivalIQ - how is your growth compared to competitors?Narrow.io – growing your Twitter followers by relevant keywords/influencersGrytics – analysing Facebook groups

Take advantage of analytics (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google)

Growing Your Audience

PR / Influencer Outreach

Reaching out to Journalists and Bloggers help spread the message about your product / service.

1. Plan and refine your pitch/angle2. Use tools to help find Journalists3. Reach out and build relationships with

Journalists and PR companies.4. Build your PR database5. Nurture these relationships

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JournorequestsHAROFollowerWonkBuzzSumo

Tools

Paid Advertising

Combining earned, owned, and paid media will help you attract, nurture, and close more leads,

1. Social Media Advertising (targeted)• LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook ($1 a day), Instagram

2. Retargeting• Re target those people who have already visited your site

3. Google Adwords - around relevant and popular events• Can be a cost effective way to reach your relevant audience

Make sure they link to landing pages! @markpcolgan

Earned Owned Paid

Content Distribution

Spend 90% of the time creating the content, but often spend 10% of time promoting it

• Reschedule the content on the same network

• Reach out to influencers / Tweet to specific people

• Engage with communities (Inbound.org Quora)

• Ask employees to share

Use a checklist to ensure you always promote your content

Understand what works best – and reshare

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ContentMarketer.ioHootsuiteCoScheduleBuffer

Tools

Automation is your friend

Buzz-word – but not as complicated as it sounds

Focus on internal and external processes that are repetitive and take steps to automate them

• Cross promoting social media posts• Adding form submissions to Slack• Saving Twitter mentions to Google

Sheets• Sharing content internally• Saving common answers to popular

questions in your drafts @markpcolgan

ZapierIFTTT

Tools

Bringing it all together

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Create Content

Social Media

Multiple Blog Posts

Email / Newslett

er

Landing Page

Automated Email

(internal)

Review Quality

Sales Team Contact

Add to nurturing

Nurture Email 1

Nurture Email 2

Nurture Email 3

Automated Thank You

Email (prospect)

Journalist/

Influencers

Paid Social Ads

Retargeting

Yes

No

Summary

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1 Create Valuable Content

2 Share and amplify the content in the right places

3 Make sure you have systems and processes in capture leads (or interest)

Download the slides:www.yellowo.co.uk/Content

Any questions?

@markpcolgan