By Jenny Hopkins
jhopkins@journalnet.com
Content Marketing is a way of
communicating with your customers and potential customers without
selling. Instead of selling your products and services you are
providing valuable information and content in order to build brand
loyalty and awareness.
It's a tactic that is used by many
large brands, including BarkBox.com. BarkBox is a service in which
the subscriber receives a box monthly filled with dog toys and treats
for his or her canine companion. A percentage of the proceeds are
donated to canine rescue groups and animal shelters. BarkBox also
produces a newsletter that features news stories about dogs and the
animal rescue groups. The newsletter is not selling their product,
but provides a service by giving subscribers feel-good stories about
something that interests them – canines.
Content marketing also helps your
website get picked up by search engines like Google. Search engines
use “bots” to “crawl” the web and catalog elements such as
keywords in order to create their search rankings. If a website does
not get updated the “bots” have no reason to come back to the
site and it will drop in the search rankings. Sites that are updated
more frequently appear higher in search rankings, so creating fresh
content for your site plays a crucial part in getting your site
recognized by search engines.
Of course we don't all have time to
create a weekly or monthly newsletter, and hiring a content marketer
is not in the budget. But there some things you can do right now to
create fresh content, some of which you may already have.
- Shoot a quick video: Content marketing does not have to be text-based. It can be photo and video too. Try taking a quick video that features a new employee or a behind-the-scenes of your business. How-to videos are huge right now, so try creating a quick how-to video that relates to your business or service without directly selling it. You don't have to be a professional videographer to do this, every cell phone has a camera built in nowadays, and there are countless free video editing apps available on Google Play or the App Store. Just remember to not make the video too long, a minute or two is good, any longer than that and your viewers are likely to lose interest.
- Add some history about your business: You already know how, when and why your business got started, and of course you're proud of it, so why not tell the world! Write a mission statement, a little information about the inspiration behind your business's beginnings, or a time-line of events and milestones.
- Add photos: Take some quick behind the scenes photos of your staff or a step in the process of creating whatever product or service you offer. Did your business recently have an employee retreat or volunteer in the community? Take some photos to post on your website and social media. Show your human side.
- Use curated content: Create a round-up of links to articles that relate to your industry. Save your audience time by bringing the best articles and information regarding your service or product to them in one place. If your business is home décor, for example, create a list of articles about the latest home design and Do-It-Yourself trends. Make sure you link back to the original source.
- Encourage user-generated content: Wouldn't it be great if you could get people to interact with your business or service for free? Well, you can, but only if you ask for it. Try prompting your audience to share a photo of themselves enjoying your product or service or asking them to tweet about how your product or service has benefited them. Don't be vague, pick a specific theme. Going back to the home décor, for example, you could ask people to share a photo of their best fall decorating projects. Use a hashtag that corresponds with the theme to encourage others to participate. You'll get more response with some than others, but don't get discouraged, try different prompts until you find the ones that click. Try offering a prize for participants to increase participation. Pick a random participant to win or offer a discount to all.
Get more marketing tips and find out how ISJ Media can expand your digital reach at www.isjmedia.net
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