Content marketing is a surefire way to drive traffic to your website and increase conversions. To do it correctly, you must offer great value to your audience, and in return, they will give you more traffic, backlinks, social shares, and more sales. Content marketing is web articles, ebooks, videos, podcasts, and anything else you can realistically consume. Let's talk about content marketing and how to do it correctly.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a terrific tactic that anyone can use to grow their business. Using this tactic correctly can dramatically build your tribe of loyal followers to your brand. You increase your business because you need to have leads generated constantly.

When you do not have any business leads, you can not capitalize on them to make money. With content marketing, you attract new prospects to your business. You use content to nurture your leads at appropriate points in their buyer's journey to get them to buy your product. The more sales you get from your sales funnel, the more opportunities you have to grow your company. 

We use content marketing to attract new prospects to your business and convert them into loyal brand customers. 

What does a content marketer do?

A content marketer consistently creates and distributes valuable content to cause their target audience to make a profitable action. The bolded keywords are what separates content marketing from advertising or traditional marketing. Content marketing focuses on providing as much value as possible. Most businesses utilize this technique to help potential customers complete the buying cycle. Here's what the buying cycle looks like:

• Need recognition: A potential buyer recognizes that they have a need to be solved but aren't aware of a solution.

• Research: Here, the customer is aware of a solution and will research more about the answer. For example, they might search Google for the health benefits of pumpkin and how they can prepare it to get the best results.

• Alternative evaluation: The customer compares different pumpkin sellers to ensure they get the best quality.

• Purchase: The customer finally makes a purchase decision and completes the transaction.

While traditional marketing and advertising focus on the last two steps, content marketing puts a lot of weight on the first two to raise awareness about a problem and educate consumers about the solution.

Remember to execute content marketing correctly to see the best results. Many people, especially beginners, put in the unnecessary effort by focusing on implementing old techniques, which is why they end up with little or no return on investment.

I know you must have heard "expert advice" about why you should keep your website updated with fresh 500-word blog posts. The experts further claim that publishing new content at least once a week can yield the best results. Unfortunately, they forget to mention that "value" is the secret to content marketing success.

So, as a blogger or vlogger, I know you already have content or are planning to create some. Let's discuss a few content marketing techniques or examples that you can adopt to start thinking like a pro content marketer.

Infographics

In blogging and vlogging, just anyone can create content. However, how you present your content can make you stand out from the rest of the noise out there. One way to achieve this is by utilizing infographics to level up your craft. Infographics are vertical graphics with graphs, stats, and valuable information.

The best thing about infographics is that they not only complement your content but also communicate longer messages in a shorter and more meaningful manner and, at the same time, enhance your brand. 

Videos

Some "expert advice" no longer works because content marketing seems to be evolving with technology. A few years only a few people were using video marketing to drive traffic to their websites or social media pages, but today the exact opposite is happening. I'm not saying you should stop posting new short articles at least once a week, but you can reinforce your content creation efforts with other marketing techniques such as video marketing.

Although both videos and infographics help you compress longer messages to short, meaningful content, the former is a key strategy to engage with new prospects on an educational and entertainment level. A simple action like dropping a website link below your YouTube video can send thousands of visitors to your site; if they feel like it's worth it.

Apart from videos, you may also use other online media such as podcasts and ebooks to reach more prospects and increase conversions.

Write in-depth SEO content.

Did you know you can quickly grow your blog into one of the world's best by doing the exact opposite of "expert" recommendations? Instead of churning out tons of short articles every week, only publish long, in-depth articles that give your readers nothing but excellent value.

Also, only release content not because your content calendar says so but because it's top-notch quality. Even if you post a single article every month, you will keep getting profits even with a few prospects. So, get a proven-track record topic, see what your competitors are doing, and continue creating content that addresses your audience's problems.

How do we know if our content marketing is working?

You can tell if your content marketing for your organization is working by setting up clear goals and objectives. Once you have set up your goals for the content marketing campaign, then you need to have a way to measure these goals. This measurement activity is where the role of web analytics plays an integral part in helping you understand if your content is reaching its objectives. 

The Bottom line

Content marketing revolves around creating USEFUL content that can solve your audience's problems. The reward is usually more sales, social media shares, and increased traffic to your site. Of course, you need to be patient and consistent in this journey to reap big sooner or later.