Content Marketing Blog mint

Content Marketing Blog

Content Creation Does Not Complete Content Marketing

All too frequently in the world of digital marketing, we hear so much about content marketing and yet the actual article, presentation, white paper, blog post or Tweet is actually about content creation. Or worse, we hear only about content creation and little to assist with the marketing and distribution of this great content to an appreciative audience.

There is a chasm between creation and reaching your audience, bridged by marketing, to achieve wide-scale distribution of that fabulous content you created. It is simply not realistic to expect that you can write it and hordes will flock to your masterpiece to ooh and ah at your insights!

The skills required to write, film, sketch, photograph, present or design excellent content are far removed from those required to market it. This does not mean, however, that it is impossible for a content creator to also be an ingenious marketer. It is just that there is a different skill set involved, and while you may be a whizz-bang copywriter, artist, film-maker or presenter, you may find marketing tedious or uninspiring or just downright hard work.

However, in order to capitalize on the inspiration which led you to create your content, there is also (most times!) a compelling need to share it. This may be simply for applause and plaudits, but in the business world, there needs to be ROI from the content you are paying to create.

Distributing content need not be difficult. In fact, a recent survey of B2B companies revealed that 60% of those with a documented content marketing strategy rate themselves highly effective with their content marketing.

Steps to Extend Content Creation into the Content Marketing Arena

Step 1: Document your content marketing strategy. Don´t just talk about it, write it down!

Knowing who is likely to be interested in your content helps you to market directly to a willing audience. In the above mentioned survey, 94% of B2B companies are using LinkedIn to distribute content. Are you? Clearly, if you are in the B2B space, spending time marketing on Pinterest, Facebook and even Twitter may prove less likely to be worthwhile than a network, forum or event where business people congregate.

A recent online chat on Twitter #getreal invited SlideShare to participate and the results to the Q&A were extremely interesting. SlideShare and similar sites provide a content distribution option that is frequently overlooked, sometimes even by the most avid marketers. And yet, there is a clear audience within the site and with the partner sites, such as LinkedIn, who are actively seeking specific content. Perhaps your content too!

And if these guys are doing it, well, why can’t you?

Step 2: Think beyond the search engines and purely social networks for your content distribution.

Further evidence, if required, came in a discussion about how long tail terms are driving traffic to content such as presentations.

Much is made of the need to be constantly creating new content, but often, really great content on niche topics can be thin on the ground. Well-produced, high quality content can have a long shelf-life. Sometimes, it is not so important to get it out the door as fast as possible; it is more important to produce something of long-lasting value for your brand.

Step 3: Quality, quality, quality.

Always put quality with content first. Even that extra proofread or another pair of eyes to find typos, silly errors or a missed opportunity for a resource can make a difference in your ROI. Your SEO efforts should be good too; even in a Tweet as it can help reach more people.

And finally...

Step 4: Never, ever miss an opportunity to share your content.

In an ethical, non-invasive, no spam, carey-sharey way, of course. If someone is talking about a subject you covered recently in a blog post, ask if they have seen it and would care to make a comment?

Take criticism well if it happens to come your way, as this can be positive too. Learn from it, and you never know...that one share could lead to a wide distribution network you had no idea even existed.

Want to use content marketing to achieve real results for your business? Talk to us at MintCopy. Call us at 888-646-8003 or send us an email.

Share


Recent Posts

Sheetal Pinto - 3/30/2023 06:00

How to Avoid Making these Mistakes in Your Content

When you invest time and money in creating content for your website and other digital assets, you want to ensure you get a good ROI. Whether you hire a content agency, write content in-house, or hire a freelance copywriter, it’s important to monitor how published content is performing. Content that isn’t ranking well on Google might be ridden with mistakes that turn customers away and deter positive engagement. Here are three common content mistakes made by copywriters that could be keeping your content from reaching its full potential.

Sheetal Pinto - 3/16/2023 00:00

Content Marketing Best Practices that Garner Attention

Remember the movie, “Field of Dreams”? It made popular the phrase, “If you build it, he will come”. Shoeless Joe and other baseball legends may have magically appeared on a cornfield-turned-baseball diamond. However, when it comes to content marketing, your audience will need more than a field of dreams to attract their attention. If you’re trying to get more traffic to your website, don’t wait for your local SEO efforts to direct your audience. Give them a hand with these proven content strategies.

Sheetal Pinto - 3/2/2023 06:00

How to Use a Pillar Page to Improve your Content Quality

Consider the dictionary meaning of ‘pillar’ – “a firm, upright support for a superstructure”, also defined as “a fundamental precept”. Your content marketing campaign is your ‘superstructure’ that requires a ‘firm, upright support’. That’s the key function of content pillar pages. Without these essential supports, your ‘content superstructure’ will neither stand strong, nor will it attract the right attention.

Sheetal Pinto - 2/23/2023 06:00

Two Proven Ways to Organize Products with Similar Keywords

In business, cannibalization typically refers to a loss of sales. A company introduces a new product that displaces sales of an older, usually more outdated, product. Instead of having an increase in sales, the market growth remains stable. What does this mean in the world of SEO and content marketing? Keyword cannibalization occurs when two products have similar keywords or phrases and confuses the search engines about which page is right for which query. Instead of competing with other businesses for search traffic, you’re competing with your own web pages. Here’s why keyword cannibalization is bad for business and how you can overcome it.

Sheetal Pinto - 2/9/2023 06:00

How to Optimize your Content for a Global Audience

The global market is much smaller than it once was.  Statista reports over 5 billion internet users globally, or about 63.1% of the population. Reaching out to a broader market can help your business grow, but it’s not as simple as updating your website in a new language and simply hoping your audience finds you through search.

Sheetal Pinto - 1/26/2023 06:00

How to Build a Functional Content Marketing Funnel

Most people don’t wake up and think, “oh, today is the day I buy my new mattress,” unless they’ve researched different brands and checked pricing at different stores. Modern customers often take their time with major (and even minor) purchases. Using that information about today’s shoppers can help you design a content marketing map, or funnel, that guides the customer to your product.

Sheetal Pinto - 1/12/2023 15:49

Draw Insights from Your Competitors' Success 

According to Ahrefs, organic search drives over 53.3% of global traffic. Creating an SEO strategy is key to increasing your reach through search. As you’re setting new SEO goals for 2023, it may be useful to analyze what is working for your competitors. Also look at what they’re missing, to build that effectively into your own SEO strategy.

Sheetal Pinto - 12/15/2022 15:14

5 Proven Ways to Improve your Website Ranking

The rules of SEO can often feel elusive, as if SEO is a great big experiment in which the parameters keep changing. Search engines keep updating the algorithm. User behavior is evolving and adapting to circumstances, all the time. You don’t have any control over how pages rank, or do you? Google will never share how it determines SEO ranking. Customers change how they search and shop. We may not fully understand the complexity of search engine algorithms, but we can test different elements of a webpage to see how customers and search engines respond to your content marketing strategies. It’s called split testing.

Sheetal Pinto - 11/24/2022 16:42

Good today and gone tomorrow! That is the way of trends in the world of SEO and content marketing. What may generate interest right now can fall out of favor due to the ever-changing search engine algorithms. What can you do to ensure that you’re up to date? One useful method is to utilize Google Trends to find useful metrics that help you stay relevant. To make your way to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), it’s important to use a variety of proven methods to create quality content. Read below to learn how Google Trends can help you gain insight on popular trends, seasonality, regional demands, and your competitors.

Sheetal Pinto - 11/10/2022 06:00

Revitalize, Refine, Repurpose

The Pareto principle is also known as the 80/20 rule. About 80% of your best results will come from 20% of your efforts. When you apply that to a creative endeavour like content marketing, you might be undervaluing some of your content creative efforts. It can be expensive to create content, from scheduling videographers, photographers, models, or even having quality copywriters write a blog post. Chances are that you have some valuable content that can be recycled or repurposed with a little elbow grease.