Content Marketing 101: Reach Your Audience in Many Ways

From massive corporations to small startups, the most important thing any company can bring to its audience is value.

In the digital age we live in, our audience of potential and current customers turns to the internet to find answers to their problems and concerns. How can you be sure that your business is there waiting for them with the answer? It is possible with the right content marketing strategy. 

Depending on your organization's industry, the size of its marketing team, and the resources available, various types of content marketing materials can be created. Some of these are:

• Blog posts
• E-books
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Whitepapers
• Slide decks
• Case studies

There are many options and avenues a company can take to make content marketing work for it. Whether you’re building a plan from the ground up or utilizing content creation software to get started, there’s a lot to understand about content marketing. 

Why is content marketing important?

There’s a lot that goes into developing and curating content marketing, so why make an effort in the first place?

Going about content marketing the right way can be fundamental and beneficial to your organization. It’s all about building brand equity, meaning your company’s brand becomes more valuable over time as you cultivate high-quality and valuable pieces of content. The more you answer your audience's questions, the more your business becomes a leader within its industry.

Having content that goes along with your product and also answers a potential buyer’s questions will put them in the sales funnel without a hard sell. Your content marketing efforts provide them with high-quality content they didn’t know they wanted.

How content marketing works

Regardless of the type of content marketing materials your business is cultivating, you’ll want to make sure that you deliver the right content at each stage of the sales cycle. If you’re unsure what type of content marketing applies where and how it can help you sell, you’re not alone.

Here’s how companies make the most of content marketing through the sales pipeline.

Awareness stage

The first stage of the sales process is the awareness stage. Here, the content your organization creates should focus on the top concerns and questions that your audience or potential customers may have.

Content marketing is used to write about pain points, challenges, and questions that give you the best chance of earning their trust. At this stage, it’s all about being an educational outlet.

During this stage, you should stick to articles, videos, e-books, or newsletters.

For example, a real estate company may choose to create an e-book titled “5 Must-Know Things Before Buying a House,” or a travel blog may publish an article “10 Need-to-Try Restaurants in Paris”.

Whatever the case may be, it’s all about catering to what your customers want to know and building brand awareness. 

Consideration stage

Next, your customers move to the consideration stage, where your content should be a helpful mix of information and marketing for your brand. You may want to educate the prospect about your product or service and how it can address their needs.

At this stage, the best types of content marketing are how-to articles, how-to videos, case studies, and checklists.

For example, a home improvement company may produce a blog titled “The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Contractor” that outlines how their company goes above and beyond for their customers doing home renovations. Additionally, a catering company might produce a video on their website, “How to Accommodate Guests with Food Allergies at Your Wedding,” which showcases menu items specific to those with various food intolerances. 

In both examples, content marketing addresses a potential problem or concern while showcasing how your company is the answer or can assist customers throughout a particular situation.

Closing stage

Content marketing plays a crucial role in the final closing stage when a prospect or potential customer is close to buying from your organization. Tools used here should focus on the sale while driving home the point of why your business and its products or services are the best choices for the customer. 

Content here needs to showcase your company’s unique knowledge and expertise in a particular space while highlighting how the customers will benefit when choosing you.

For the closing stage, steer towards content marketing in the form of case studies, product videos, buyer’s guides, or user-generated content through customer stories.

An example of content marketing in the closing stage is an orthodontist's office that creates a video with customer testimonials about their own before and after experiences. Or, maybe a SaaS organization that writes and publishes case studies elaborating on ways their services have helped clients.

Whatever the situation, content marketing is the final push toward closing a sale.

What can content marketing do for your business?

With a better understanding of what content marketing is and why it’s important, you also need to know how it can add another layer of value to your business.

A boost in leads and sales

Producing great content can move customers through the sales pipeline and increase the number of qualified leads for your sales team. The better the leads that come to your sales department, the better chance your sales team has of knowing exactly how to help a prospect and turn them into a customer.

Increase organic traffic

Organic traffic is how people find the content your business is creating through Google, YouTube, or a podcast library. Organic traffic is generated through the customers actively searching for information related to your business or its services. When they take to the internet to find a solution to their problem or answer their question, content marketing can get them to your business.

More loyal and engaged customers

Brand loyalty and more engaged customers are possible with content marketing. It’s all about sharing valuable content that sets your brand apart from your competitors. Once your content establishes your voice as a thought leader within the industry, you’ll have an easier time nurturing long-lasting relationships with customers.

From there, anytime they have a question, they’ll come to your brand's content for the answer. This builds trust and makes your brand the go-to place for the solutions they need -- all thanks to the content your brand has created.

A boost in brand awareness

Another important way that content marketing adds value to any organization is by boosting brand awareness. Your potential customers are searching for answers online, and the content your team creates can provide the solution they’ve been waiting for. Whether it’s a blog post or a video, when your business has this content out there, it’ll attract customers who may have never known your brand or its services.

Elements of content marketing 

Many components of a content marketing strategy need to work together in harmony to make the impact you’re looking for. 

The core elements of content marketing that you should focus on are:

• SEO: Search engine optimization is how you curate content so that it ranks higher in the search engine results pages, like Google and Bing. Implementing specific SEO best practices can ensure that search engines notice specific keywords within your content, causing your articles or videos to appear first for future customers. 
• Social media marketing: When looking to reach your audience, turning to social media is a no-brainer. Each social media platform can attract a different demographic of your audience and be best suited to another type of content. Whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, or Snapchat, there are many opportunities to share your content, switch up its messaging, and get it seen.
• PPC: Paid ads come in handy when reaching a broader audience online -- for a price. Paid ads can be utilized within social media, banners, sponsored content, and landing pages. 
• Copywriting: Blogging is a tactic within inbound content marketing that allows the writer to get creative with the written word. A blog can be promotional, answer customer questions, and incorporate product information.
• Video: From boosting conversions to improving ROI, incorporating video into your content marketing strategy is a great way to ensure customers learn more about what your organization has to offer. This kind of content can also be easily shared on social media and landing pages.

How to implement a content marketing strategy

Creating the right content marketing strategy for your organization can lead to long-term success. While it may take some time to get the initiative off the ground or to see the results you’re looking for, it’s the kind of foundation your organization can build on for the future.

Here’s how to get started.

Identify a target audience

Before you venture out thinking about what content marketing materials to create, you’ll first want to narrow in on who your target audience is and where they are in the buyer’s journey.

You should have a comprehensive analysis of who they are, the questions or concerns they have, the problems they’re looking to solve, and their preferences toward your product. Once you have demographics data, you can even create specific profiles for each type of individual you’re looking to target. This can be done using an audience segmentation strategy. 

Determine the right type of content marketing

Once you know your target audience and where they may fall within the sales cycle, you can choose the appropriate content marketing format. You may also want to keep in mind that specific audience personas may find value in varying content types. 

For instance, one type of persona may need a checklist of an e-book, while a different kind may need a how-to blog or a video.

Decide who will create the copy

Next, you need a content marketer to roll up their sleeves and get started. Whether you have an internal team of content marketers or work with an outside source, remember that your audience will judge these materials based on quality.

Regardless of who develops the content, it’s essential that it’s edited and proofread and gets as many eyes on it as possible to ensure nothing is missed.  Remember, if your team is creating original, high-quality content, you’d want to invest time and money to do it right the first time.

Make a distribution plan

Once the materials are finalized, you need a plan to get your efforts in front of the right people. If it’s a how-to article, will it be published in the company newsletter or blog? If it’s a video, it might be uploaded to the company's YouTube channel or social media profile. This plan is called content mapping, and it’s all about how you deliver the right type of content to the right audience or persona. 

Whatever the case may be, you’ll want to know what kind of search engines your audience is turning to for the answers to their questions. Make sure your piece of content is waiting for them when you use content distribution software to get your content across all channels.

Build a schedule

It’s easy to make a one-off blog, video, or e-book and call it a day. If you want your content marketing to work as a long-term strategy for your organization, focus on using marketing calendar software to plan what type of content to make and when.

Once you have established your audience and the format they like most, make sure they always have fresh and valuable content straight from your brand. Create a short-term plan, between 3-6 months, and determine a realistic number of content elements your team can create from start to finish -- based on budget and resources. 

You should also want to factor in how long it takes to create different materials. For instance, video content can take longer than landing pages or a how-to article, which needs to be built into the schedule.  

Follow best practices

Content creation comes with its own unique set of best practices to follow for the best possible customer experience. Avoid unnecessary jargon or slang that can make your audience feel like your brand isn’t a reliable source.

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Top 5 content creation software

Businesses turn to content creation software when they need to create content that fits into their marketing initiatives. Whether it’s written content, images, quizzes, or videos, software within this category helps marketers plan, track, and manage content at every stage of content development, all in real time.

Users of content creation software can also utilize features that come with content planning tools, like buyer persona profiles, content calendars, content topic research, and more. 

To be included within the content creation software category, a product must:

• Give users the tools needed to develop written or visual content for all of their marketing purposes
• Provide the functionality to create and manage various types of content, like product sheets, reports, videos, case studies, and more

*Below are the five leading content creation software from G2's Summer 2021 Grid® Report. Some reviews may be edited for clarity.

1. Semrush

Semrush is the go-to tool for content marketers when they want access to over 50 products. Semrush provides access to search, content, social media, and market research while seamlessly integrating with Google and other management platforms. 

What users like:

“SEMrush provides what is arguably the most comprehensive platform available for SEOs to manage their website. SEMrush includes all key features to support every aspect of website optimization. This includes providing support and direction to manage all on-page/traditional SEO elements (keyword research, on-page/off-page optimization, etc.) along with a robust toolkit to monitor and manage technical SEO dependencies.”

- Semrush Review, Jeff T. 

What users dislike:

“Semrush has a learning curve associated with it. Sometimes it also doesn't show the exact position in the tracking, so the results may be slightly skewed.”

- Semrush Review, Clinton D. 

2. Contently

Brands looking to tell a compelling and inviting story love to use Contently. This content marketing platform gives top brands all of the tools they need to create content that engages with their audience and drives the results they’re looking for. 

What users like:

“Contently is a high-end, feature-packed platform. I love the network of writers and talent and the workflows that keep our content moving. The integrated analytics that alert us when we're straying from our brand tone or missing out on keyword opportunities are a huge help to our team. And our Contently content strategist and managing editor are like an extension of our team.”

- Contently Review, Ryan G. 

What users dislike:

“There is some limited functionality in terms of customizing the experience for your specific needs. For instance, there's no way to default that all links should open in a new tab (you have to manually select for each link you add) and there doesn't seem to be a way to set an order for your custom tags or list of integrations when pushing to a CMS.”

- Contently Review, Brian C. 

3. Powtoon

For companies interested in creating engaging videos as a part of their content creation strategy, look no further than Powtoon. No matter what level of expertise one has with design or technical abilities, Powtoon makes video creation as easy as it can be.

What users like:

“Powtoon is an incredibly powerful tool that can allow creative construction of video content with either animations or live footage. A free version is available, and although that means content will have a watermark, it rarely limits the capabilities of the platform using animations or live footage. A free version is available, and although that means content will have a watermark, it rarely limits the capacity of the design platform.”

- Powtoon Review, Jodi J. 

What users dislike:

“It gets slow as you add so many slides or videos, once that you add three or four videos you will find that Powtoon gets slow, I also dislike that in the past years I get exactly the same cartoons that we had used for several years, and the elements such as video letters are the same with no change I think they must work to improve it so as a video creator your videos created three years ago may be different from the ones you are creating now.”

- Powtoon Review, Eduardo M.  

4. Uberflip

Uberflip provides access to search, content, social media, and market research and integrates well with Google and other management platforms. 

What users like:

“While the product is unmatched, my favorite thing about Uberflip is the customer service and support. I’ve worked with many Uberflip employees at all levels, and I never cease to be impressed. Everyone is so kind, willing to help, and goes above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction. Someone is always available to assist me and answer any question I have in a VERY timely manner.

Additionally, throughout my three years of working with Uberflip, I’ve also learned that nothing is impossible with their team and product. If I have a vision, they bring it to life and are just as excited about it as I am. The company really does have a “we’re all in this together” mentality and truly cares about every customer’s success.”

- Uberflip Review, Caitlin S. 

What users dislike:

“Uberflip is only as good as the effort you invest in it. If you don't have enough content, this isn't going to deliver much value. If you don't have content folks (or supporting marketing members) that understand the ins and outs of digital marketing, a lot of Uberflip's power is going to go to waste. It's a tool that is fairly easy to use, but I would say that it really shines when you have the talent internally to power it.”

- Uberflip Review, Hailey M.

5. Bynder

Bynder has helped over a million marketing professionals create content assets and get them in front of the right people. Its user experience enables content and campaigns to be marketed fast while also accelerating the creative content lifecycle.  

What users like:

“The user experience is built in a way guiding both light users and heavy users in how to use it. It is easy to scale up and down, both in terms of users and also the different modules. For us as a growing group of companies, we feel confident that Bynder can do not only what DAMs are supposed to do well but also grow and adapt with us. Great, efficient, guided, and flexible onboarding and implementation. Fair pricing structure too.”

- Bynder Review, Axel M.

What users dislike:

“My only complaint overall is the ’glitches and ‘bugs’ we see in the system. We're using the platform globally, but even within one region on the same OS and using the same browser, we'll have performance variations between users. It's difficult to document or replicate bugs when we're dealing with inconsistencies and unexplained errors.”

- Bynder Review, Lisa M.

More than just the written word

At the end of the day, the best content marketing strategy always puts the needs of prospects and customers front and center. When it does, you’ll soon find that it’s one of the strongest forms of brand awareness your team can harness. To hook potential customers, consider incorporating content marketing into your marketing campaign. Create an experience, serve insightful articles, get behind a cause, and make your content human. 

When you treat your audience with dignity and make interacting with your brand fun, you’re sure to love the results.

Content is king, no matter the size of your company. Learn how to make content marketing work for a small business.