Effective Content Marketing For Bloggers And Startups

Content marketing is the buzzword these days. Everyone is building new products and services and everybody expects a lot of promotion and user frenzy as soon as they launch their product. But it is simply not possible. Everyone won’t feel as passionate about your product as you do.

But it can be done if you make people aware about your product through the power of content marketing. Getting the right content across can be a painfully daunting and uphill task. But it can be done with a proper strategy and of course good content writing skills.

So what exactly is content marketing?

Content marketing is the form of marketing that requires creating and sharing written media and the publishing of content for gaining customers/users.

The content used for content marketing can be in the form ofinfographics, articles, ebooks, interview series publications or case studies.

What is the purpose of Content Marketing & how can an Entrepreneur use it?

The prima facie purpose of Content marketing is to drive a targeted audience to do an action that is profitable for the business via the usage and distribution of relevant and compelling content. Content marketing is done via solving the problems of people through quality content.

An Entrepreneur can use such distribution of relevant valuable content to draw in, acquire and engage a predefined target audience for accomplishment of business goals.

According to the 2014 Business to Consumer content marketing budget survey(link here), 86% of marketers from United Kingdom are using Content marketing to generate more leads. A significant portion i.e. 31% of the marketing budgets of these brands are being used for content marketing.

Now let’s divide how content marketing can be done effectively in two parts:

Firstly the work is done by people who you have hired i.e. paid writers who write content for you.

Otherwise, you can yourself work on the content marketing bit, however keep in mind that  you will need to have excellent writing skills and presence of mind for that!

If you are a solopreneur you need to do a lot of work on your own, and that includes content marketing to promote your product which is an altogether different beast from

Let’s take a small example: You launched your own product which helps people to find their lost mobile phone. Now how will you find your target audience?

To do so you need to set up social channels, promote your product across as many platforms as possible. You would also need to get some word of mouth promotion and you might even need to spend some of that hard earned money of yours into Facebook ads or Google adwords.

But all of these methods are good but not sustainable in the long run, this is because users seek value. You can’t provide them value via platforms you don’t own.

To provide people with value you need to answer questions, you need to find which exact people are the ones who are most likely to lose their phones in a limited time range. Mostly they are the ones from the age group of 18-24. These people are the youngsters and most likely to lose their phones.

Now that you have defined your target audience you need to go on and find what is the content that these people will like and does that content actually match your product’s branding strategy.

Once the people are defined and broad ideas for the content have been found then the content marketer needs to follow these specific points in order to promote his/her product or blog:

1.) Define a goal

What do you expect to achieve from your content strategy? Are you just doing content marketing as a link building strategy or are you going to capitalize on the good content that you have submitted.

Always be clear that the content you put across on different channels creates a brand image for yourself and also for the product that you are promoting. So keep in mind the image you want to project into the user’s/reader’s mind and then write and promote content accordingly.

Did you know that over 1/4th of marketing budgets defined by Marketers these days are being devoted to content marketing.(Source)

2.) Create a consistent messaging

All of your content marketing efforts if geared for a specific product should have a clear messaging. Say, if I have a website named XYZ that I want to promote then all my content marketing strategies would be geared towards getting more readers for my site. The posts would be custom made to compel the user to read the website, because that would be my end goal.

3.) Retain and funnel the users through a call to action

Users who visit the different portals and websites where you have spread your content need to know who is behind that content. So, Make sure that you have a prominent link to your site or services or you call out the user to visit you or subscribe to you. If this is not implemented properly then your content marketing strategy would only be helpful to the recipient sites i.e. those who are hosting your content.

Did you know that about 90% of readers prefer customized content and about 78% prefer to have relationships with organizations that provide readers with such highly customized content. (Source)

4.) Provide value to the host sites

The sites which are recipients need to benefit from your contribution. If they are not receiving any benefit then word will soon spread out and people would be reluctant to deal with you.

By ensuring that you contribute quality content you get enhanced trust and visibility as people would now be more inclined to share your content.
Remember that line, “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
The same happens in blogging and content marketing too.

5.) Maintain Balance: Get your house in order first

Content marketing is good. Getting the word out is good too. But what isn’t good is that you neglect your own blog or website or product in favor of content marketing and outreach. As soon as you do so, all the leads that you generated through content marketing become useless.

Did you know that B2B companies who have their own blogs get 67% more monthly leads as compared to firms without blogs. (Source)

Getting your own house in order is essential for further promotion.

If it’s your blog that you are promoting via content marketing then you need to focus on building your own blog first. If it’s a product then you need to make the product presentable to the general public and not just a crude version of your great idea (we think every idea is great, unless it’s of a glow in dark vibrator, pun intended!:P)

So what do you think would be your future course of action in the field of content marketing? Are you ready to just dive straight into the battlefield or got some tricks up your own sleeve?
Whatever your thoughts share with us by commenting below, you can also tweet to us @trakin to keep the conversation alive and kicking!

[box type=”shadow” ]This post was written by Aditya Nath Jha who blogs at Inspire2rise.com and works as an SEO for MyRefers. He is a blogger, website speed optimizer and when he is not blogging he loves to play his guitar and create music![/box]