Crafting Your Digital Marketing Message

How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy

 By Jim Hingst

Jim Hingst is a contributing writer for Sign Builder Illustrated magazine.

 

One of the core initiatives of today’s marketing plan is content marketing. If you are unfamiliar with the term, content marketing is a form of digital advertising. Instead of being an “in your face” hard sell advertising or chest-pounding promotion, the goal of content marketing is to first build a relationship with your audience by providing value in the form of useful information that addresses their unmet needs.

 

The belief is that prospects are not sold; they buy.  Your objective should be to help them make more informed purchasing decisions. By providing valuable, interesting and relevant information to your target audience you build a following that recognizes you as a unique and trusted authority. That way, when the prospect is ready to buy, you have the pole position as the preferred supplier. 

 

By providing your prospects with more industry news that they can use, they will spend more time on your site. By regularly posting new content or updating existing webpages or blog posts, you also improve your search rankings. What’s more, if you repost some of your content on a social media platform with a link to your website, you can help increase your site traffic.

 

When you provide your target audiences with relevant and reliable information, you build your reputation as an industry authority as well as strengthen your relationships with your customer base. Content, which addresses questions that your customers frequently ask, also serves a customer service role.

 

Compared to other forms of advertising, content marketing is less costly.  Make no mistake about it, content marketing is not free. Even if you provide all the information yourself, it will cost you in considerable time, because you will need to consistently post new content to produce and sustain your desired results. 

 

In the long run, your investment in content marketing will pay a higher return because it generates more leads than other forms of advertising. In B2B marketing, that response could be a phone call or email asking for more information. Or it could be a request for a salesperson to call.

 

As with any marketing expenditure, the objective of your content marketing strategy is to turn your investment into cash, converting your site visitors into customers. To do that, the content or information that you provide must be relevant to your target audience; it must provide value; it must be unique enough to attract attention; and finally, it must provide a compelling call to action to generate a response.

 

If you publish quality content on a consistent basis that demonstrates your understanding of your prospects’ needs, visitors are more likely to look to you as a dependable graphics provider.

 

Why Some Companies Fail at Content Marketing

 

Content marketing experts estimate between 80% to 90% of businesses engage in some form of content marketing. This could include a company blog, YouTube videos or podcasts. The sad fact is that these same experts believe that only 10% to 20% of those companies are achieving the return on their investment in time and money that they desire.

 

 

The reasons that so many businesses are not reaping a satisfactory return include:

 

 

(1)  They have not established clear goals;

 

(2)  They do not measure either their activities or their responses; and

 

(3)  They have not taken the time to develop a formal, written content marketing strategy.

 

 

 

Your Audience

 

Define your audience. In public relations terms, who are your publics? In other words, what markets or groups of people do you interact with? As a graphics professional, you very likely will communicate with a number of different audiences. These could be retailers, B2B businesses, c-stores, trucking companies.

 

When selling larger organizations, many different people influence the buying decision. In a complex sale, such as building graphics, you should consider the variety of influencers in the decision-making process. The type of content that interests one type of buyer, such as an advertising manager or sales and marketing executive, will likely differ from a purchasing agent or a store manager, who will be involved in the implementation of a program.

 

In creating content for your target market, you should consider the unmet market needs as well as the challenges that many of your prospects encounter in their industry. Based on your investigation of your target markets, you should develop a profile of your prototypical prospect.

 

The content of your message should be tailored to the interests and basic needs of the different audiences. Content that appeals to the food industry will likely not appeal to manufacturers. The types of signage or graphics will be different for each market that you serve.

 

Involve your employees, especially field salespeople, in selecting the content that addresses the frequently asked questions that concern your target prospects and existing customers. This input should help you select not only the written content that appeals to your audiences, but also type of videos and imagery that will be most effective.

 

By involving your employees in your content marketing initiatives, you can energize their enthusiasm in your business, which can help build the spirit of team unity. If you want your people to become excited about your program, you need to let them know what you are trying to achieve and the specific marketing endeavors that are in the works. Being in the graphics business, your employees likely have the creative skills and real-world experience, which they can contribute to the content that you provide.

 

In addition to querying your employees, look at the type of content that your competitors provide on their websites and blogs.

 

Measuring Content Marketing ROI

 

After you define the objectives of your program, determine what metrics will you use to measure whether you are achieving your goals. In gauging your success, measurement should be ongoing versus an end of the year review.

 

You probably have heard the maxim that what gets measured, gets done. Without measuring the metrics of content marketing, you will never know if the content that you are producing is working. To do that, you first need to decide on the deliverables that you should measure.

 

Neither prospects nor current customers care about the features, benefits and marketing chest pounding. They only care about themselves and their pain points.  If you want your message to connect with your audience, you need to understand the problems of your target markets and then construct your content, which provides solutions.

 

When I started in marketing, the number of channels was limited, especially in B2B marketing. If your prospects were looking for information, you at least knew the popular communication channels. With the advent of the internet and social media the number of channels exploded. With so many media platforms available, it is easy for your message to get lost in all of the clutter in the channel.

 

 

The Written Strategy

 

Many companies are involved in some form of content marketing, such as posting articles on their websites or blogging. But very few of these companies have created a written strategy that they have incorporated in their marketing plans.

Without a formal written plan with goals, an editorial calendar and a method to track results, many content plans flounder. Consistent publishing content is important because more than two-thirds of business buyers search for and learn about prospective vendors through online articles. What’s more, over half of these buyers make their purchasing based on this information. 

 

In writing your Content Marketing Strategy the best advice is to keep it simple. Write your strategy by providing answers to some basic questions:

 

1.     What are your target markets?

 

2.     What are the problems, needs and interests of your audiences in these markets? To answer this question, you may need to interview some of your best customers. You could conduct your interview under the guise that you are writing a case study on a successful graphics program. That way you can kill the proverbial two birds with one stone.  You can learn more about the unmet needs of the market and you gather the information for your case study.

 

3.     What media platforms will you be most effective in reaching your audience?

 

4.     What types of content will be most effective in delivering your message? In addition to developing case studies, you could produce a video or develop a compelling story for a newsletter. You can also deliver the same story on several social media platforms. I am sure that your current customer base has asked many different types of questions. You can create content using a FAQ format.

 

5. When should I post new content? To ensure that you stay on track with your program, you should develop an editorial calendar to schedule your blog posts, trade publication articles and webinars, as well as the social sharing of your content on the various social media platforms.

 

What distinguishes content marketing is its focus on producing quantifiable results for your business. Measurable results include the number of followers to various social media platforms or how many subscribers that you harvest for your email list. The best results are, of course, are the leads that develop into sales.

 

To develop a content marketing strategy that you can turn into cash, you must first goal is to build an audience. One solution is to model another company in your field that is already successful in content marketing and then model their behavior.

 

Another approach is to capitalize on your expertise in the graphics market. As a graphics professional, you probably excel in some facet of our industry. Perhaps you are the expert in your part of the country in retail graphics or electrical signage or vehicle wraps. You should build your content around that particular niche. This is how you differentiate your content from your competitors for whatever media platform your chose. After you decide upon your target market and identify their unmet needs, you must address your content to satisfy your audience’s primary interest: What’s In It For Me?

 

To answer that question, try to walk a mile in your prospect’s shoes and try to truly understand your prospect’s problems and their buying cycle before proposing generalized solutions. If your audience is the retail market and you are the expert in window and wall graphics, they frankly could not care less about how you manufacture and install graphics or what type of printer you use. Instead, their pain point may be lost sales to internet sellers. They care about attracting attention that entices shoppers to walk through their front door.  They care about creating a pleasurable shopping experience for shoppers to browse. Most of all, they care about stimulating impulse buys.

 

The key to building an audience is to deliver content that is unique and different. Take Douglas MacArthur’s advice and “Go where they ain’t”. Don’t write about what all of your competitors are writing about. “Dare to be different,” as Oprah Winfrey said. Don’t follow others down the beaten path. Instead blaze your own trail. If your message is not unique and different, it will be lost in the noise of the crowd.

 

 

Which Platform Should You Use?

 

In developing a content marketing strategy, you need to decide on the primary platform for delivering your content. In the B2B space, popular platforms include blogs, YouTube videos, newsletters and podcasts.

 

You don’t need to be on every platform to deliver you content. In fact, if you take a shotgun approach, you will dilute your efforts and you probably won’t be effective. Instead, decide on one primary platform or vehicle upon which to build your audience base. Everything else you do on social media should promote and direct traffic to that primary vehicle.

 

In building an audience, you need to include a call to action in your content. In the days when direct mail was popular, marketers used prepaid reply cards as one type of response mechanism. Content marketing is just another form of direct marketing. While you can include a toll-free number or an email address, a better choice is a subscription button to capture a prospect’s email address along with their name, business, address and phone number.

 

What’s important is that you collect the email address of respondents in a spreadsheet, which you can control and use at your discretion. That way you freely use the list for future follow-up, such as a newsletter sent monthly to your subscriber base.

 

Content marketing does not take a lot of money, if you do it yourself. Instead it takes time, considerable work and patience. So, prepare yourself for the long haul. Start by collecting bits of information on your primary area of expertise.

 

If your primary business is vehicle graphics, build an album of pictures showcasing the programs that you developed. Then write a short description for each program. All you need are a few sentences that explain what the customer wanted to achieve. Then described how the design satisfied the customer’s business goals.

 

In writing these short case studies, the problem/solution is effective. For example, customer XYZ was slowly losing business to a new competitor. The business owner felt that his store needed a makeover, but he did not have a large budget. To overhaul the store’s appearance, the designer developed a colorful and cost-effective window/wall graphics program, which increased traffic and sales.

 

The key a successful story is to provide your readers with value. Describe a problem that your audience can relate to. Include details and information that your audience can apply to their business. Make sure that your story is factually accurate. Finally, remember that the story is not about you; it’s about your customers’ unmet needs and the solutions to their problems.

 

After you have spent time and money to develop a content marketing program, you need to measure your results. Have you realized a return on your investment? The first step in evaluating your return on investment is to total all of your costs to produce the content. These costs could include expenses, such as direct labor costs for an employee’s time, charges for stock images, tools and special software for production or outsourced expenses for video. In addition to production costs, you should calculate any advertising and promotional costs.

 

After determining your costs for content production and promotion, you need to measure your responses that you converted to sales. Your return on investment is:

 

 

(Revenue – Expenses)

Expenses                          = ROI

 

 

 

Ex.  $14,000 sales - $2000 expenses

         $2,000 expenses                          = 6 X 100%   =  600%

 

 

 

How do you build your subscription list?

 

1.     Offer to send a free e-book

 

Build your content around:

 

1.     The questions that your customers ask;

 

2.     The issues that they have had with previous suppliers;

 

3.     The objections that prospects voice before purchasing;

 

4.     Challenges that your prospects face

 

The value in creating your own subscription list is that these are sales leads that you can potentially convert into paying customers.  It is also a list that you own and control. What’s more, it is a list that you do not pay for every time you use it.

 

Your website is, or at least should be, the nucleus of your content marketing strategy. This is where you can convert interest in your business and your products into leads that result in sales. Working hand in glove with your website is your blog, which generates the information that your prospect needs in his or her decision-making process.

 

Secondary in importance to your website and blog are your social media platforms. These platforms grab the attention of your target audience and provide the links to drive traffic to your website and blog. In the B2B market space, the most effective and popular social media platforms are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

 

What will work for you depends on your audience, their pain points and the platforms that they use. This is why you should survey your customers and why you should measure your results. To gauge your results, you should use two or three metrics.

 

At least, 1/3 of companies count the numbers of pageviews, shares, followers and likes as their barometer for success. At the end of the day, these vanity metrics mean very little, unless you can show how they help achieve a specific business goal. More important measures of content marketing success are number of subscriptions, downloads of an e-book or industry study and requests for more information or to see a salesperson, leads converted to sales and, above all, revenue generated from those sales.

 

As a direct marketing tool, content marketing is only effective if it helps you to retain your customer base or increases your sales. Another way to evaluate the success of your program is to measure any variance in your customer attrition rate. You can also track any business growth in the number of new customers or an increase in sales revenue. Once you get these results, you can decide whether your strategy is working or not. If it’s not working you need to make some changes. You may need to alter your content to better suit your audience or you many need to change how you deliver your message.

 

Over the years the volume of content has exploded in every field. The challenge is to stand out in that universe of content competitors.

 

In developing content, what often improves readership, referrals and response rates includes:

 

● Visuals, such as pictures of your programs or charts showing industry statistics;

 

● Case studies, using a problem/solution format;

 

● How to articles;

 

● Short video clips;

 

● Lists;

 

● Keywords;

 

● Share buttons;

 

● Downloadable information, such as an e-book or research paper

 

● Subscription button; and

 

● Contact information.

 

 

Keywords. Including keywords in your copy will increase your Google search results. Some keywords are more effective than others. But overuse of the same keyword in an article creates a red flag for search engines resulting in a lower rating. It generally also results in awkward phrasing. In adding keywords to your copy, a better practice is to write in a conversational manner, and then later substitute them as an alternative word or phrase.

 

The key elements of your content marketing plan:

 

● Establish a specific, measurable goals that will have a positive effect on your business;

 

● Develop activities designed to accomplish that goal. These activities should support the objectives of your marketing plan;

 

● Develop content which aligns with the unmet needs and pain points of the target audience;

 

● Record those activities and results;

 

● Rate the results against the goal. Modify the strategy based on the results.

 

 

The Importance of Goal Setting

 

Lewis Carroll’s story of the Alice in Wonderland asking the Cheshire Cat for directions illustrates the importance of knowing your destination or goal before venturing on your journey. Here’s my slightly edited version:

 

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go?

Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Alice: I don’t much care where.

Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.

Alice: –so long as I get SOMEWHERE.

Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if you only walk long enough.

 

Many business people write and post content with no end in mind, hoping that their message will produce some favorable result. Eventually, if you write long enough you might be successful at something. Of course, a monkey arbitrarily pounding away at the keys of typewriter for an eternity could reproduce Shakespeare’s works.

 

A better recipe for success, according to Dr. Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People), is to begin with the end in mind.  Decide first what result you want to achieve.

 

The goals of your content strategy should complement your overall marketing and sales objectives. As a graphics provider, you may feel that your greatest opportunity for growth is environmental graphics. With this in mind, you may focus the content that you develop on specific audiences, such as retailers. In focusing on this market, your aims may include:

▪ Positioning you and your business as an industry authority or leader in environmental graphics;

▪ Increasing traffic to your website, blog and social media platforms or building your email subscription list; and

         ▪ Generating sales leads that result in increased revenues.

 

 

Content Marketing Versus Traditional Advertising

 

Creating great content that addresses the unmet needs of your target market is just part of any effective content marketing plan. How you deliver your message is equally important. In selecting the most effective media or distribution channel you need to fish where the fish are. In other words, you need to discover the sources and social media platforms that your customers and prospects use for information.

 

Marketers bombard their audiences with so many ads from on-line banner ads to traditional radio and TV spots that viewers tune out most advertising instead of tuning in to the messaging. As ad readership plummets, audiences have directed their attention to various forms of content from trade publications to blog posts, infographics, webinars, white papers and YouTube videos.

 

Because audiences are hungry for information relevant to their business, content marketing is more effective than chest-pounding advertising hype in shaping opinions and influencing buying decisions. When producing content for your website or blog, remember this rule of thumb: Tell, Don’t Sell. No one wants to be sold. What appeals to your audience is unbiased and comprehensive information, which they can use to solve problems, satisfy unmet needs and ultimately make buying decisions.

 

While the type of content that you provide your target market is critical in influencing opinions, equally important is the vehicle that you use to deliver this content. If you are running a small or intermediate size shop, you most likely do not have the time to be on every media channel. Providing content takes lots of time.

 

Content marketing is frequently associated with blogs. Other distribution channels include trade magazines, YouTube videos, Infographics, webinars and case studies.

 

Instead of writing unique content for many different channels, it makes more sense to repurpose the same content for various platforms. If you choose to use several channels, select either your blog or website as the hub or destination for all of your inquiries and sales leads.

 

The reason that you want to repurpose your content is that your reach within any singular channel is typically less than 5%. To get the most bang for your buck, you need to repackage and distribute your content on multiple platforms.

 

Here’s an example: You could write a story for a trade publication, such as Sign Builder Illustrated. After it is published, you can post the article on your blog and on LinkedIn with links back to your website and the SBI site (www.signshop.com).  You can also use some of the content in an e-newsletter or to create a YouTube video or webinar. Finally, use your content with an appealing photograph in postings on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest with links to your blog or website.

 

When sales success depended on a shoeshine and a smile, the rule of thumb was that a salesman needed to make at least five touches or interactions before a sale was made. The internet and digital marketing changed all of that. Today the number of touches required to make a favorable impression and influence a buying decision is significantly greater, especially in B2B sales. In this area, content marketing can make a difference in affecting buying behavior by increasing your visibility.

 

Social media is not the same thing as content marketing. Instead, social media works hand in glove with your content making plan to drive traffic to your marketing hub, which ideally should be your website or your blog. Ultimately, all components of this marketing mix should work in concert to:

 

● Build awareness of your shop;

● Position your shop as an industry authority, thereby strengthening your brand;

● Generate inquiries for more information and sales leads; and

● Influence opinions and ultimately buying decisions to increase sales and profits for your shop.

 

Your plan will differ from other shops, based in part on the uniqueness your shop’s expertise and product differentials, but also based on the needs of your target market. In fine tuning the components of your plan, you need to experiment with every significant direct marketing variable, until you find what works. These components include:

 

● Your content, which must be relevant to your audience;

● Your headline and introductory paragraph, which must not only capture the attention of your prospects, but should also be keyword rich;

● Your format and visuals, designed for readability and to maintain interest; and

● Your call to action, which should encourage the reader to respond. To improve response rate, you must make it easy for the prospect to reply. This could include a request for more information, such as a FREE industry study or e-book; an opt-in subscription for a monthly newsletter; or a contest entry. Make sure that you also include your phone number, location, website and email address.

 

 

Distributing Your Content

 

You have several distribution channels for your content. These include:

 

● Trade Publications. You can write articles for trade publication that your target audience reads. Not only do industry magazines have a tremendous reach among specific audiences, writing for these publications helps building your reputation as an industry authority.

 

If your sales targets are retailers, you could submit articles to Chain Store Age. In the field of vehicle graphics, top publications to submit articles and news releases to are Fleet Owner and Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ). In considering which magazines to approach, ask some of your customers, which trade magazines they read.

 

● Infographics. An infographic is a visual depiction of information. Whether it takes the form of a chart, map or graph, its purpose is to present a great deal of information, such as statistics, in a condensed form that is easy for the reader to understand at a glance and to retain. What makes infographics effective are their visual appeal – they attract the viewers’ attention and they are memorable.

 

● YouTube Video. An effective use of videos is to incorporate them into your written content on your website, blog and social media platforms. Many experts believe that most video clips are too long. Because people have short attention spans, you should keep your videos no longer than a minute. If you can build an audience, then you can begin producing longer videos. Keep your message concise.

In an effective video format, you should:

 

● Explain what you will show. To create interest, you could show a finished product.

● Describe the materials and equipment needed. 

● Show the procedure.

● Conclude with the results.

Test, Don’t Guess. The only way that you will know whether the addition of videos to your written content will produce results is to test. One easy way to measure the effectiveness is to track pageviews, or downloads of e-books or shares.  If videos work for you, continue to use them. If they don’t, try something else.

 

● Blogs.

 

● White Papers and Industry Reports.

 

● Case Studies and Testimonials. When I was an advertising copywriter, one of my responsibilities was to travel throughout the United States and Canada and write testimonial ads about customers, who used the company’s equipment to improve their shop operations. In the trade, these stories were widely read. Plus, we had no shortage of customers, who wanted to boast about their successes.

 

 

Creating Content that Prospects Want to Read

 

Some types of content are more popular than others. Here are some of the formats that work:

 

● Commentary on Current Industry Trends.

 

● Solving Customer Problems. Build stories around a questions or problems that customers frequently face. When I worked in a technical service capacity, I had to field many of the service calls. After addressing the problem with the customer in person or on the phone, I would write out my reply and post the story on my blog. If one customer has a question or problem, you can be sure that other have the same issue.

 

● Case Studies and Testimonials. If you what to create interest in your content, tell a story about a customer with whom your site visitors can emphasize. Corroborate your narrative that appeals to the heart with evidence. Couching facts in an entertaining story is much more engaging and memorable than a clinical study.

 

● Dispel Prejudices. Art Linkletter said that “kids say the darndest things”. Our customers also say some of the darndest things. Some of these things are flat out wrong. To dispel some of their ridiculous beliefs, you can write factual content that provides an alternative perspective.

 

● Feature Your Employees. When you hire someone new or if an employee has a special talent or achieved an award, you can feature them in a human-interest story. Putting a spotlight on the people in your shop is a great way to humanize your business and create a personal connection with your target markets.

 

● Create a Source Book. When I worked for RTape, I wrote a Dummies style book based on the questions that distributors had. To collect their questions, the sales people and customer service reps surveyed many of their distributors.

 

You have probably heard that you need to submit content for your blog or in social media several times a week. If you are running a business, that is next to impossible to do. More important than quantity is the relevance of your content to your target market. Prospects and customers need information that they can use in their business career.

 

In presenting this information, make sure that you validate your claims and emotional appeals with evidence, the way an attorney presents his case in court. Everyone has an opinion, but that doesn’t mean that all opinions are well-founded. Support your opinions with examples, statistics and visuals.  

 

Promoting Your Content

 

Producing content in any form takes time and money. To make the most of your investment, here are some ways you can promote your message:

 

Email Marketing. One of the best ways to promote your content and build a good following is email marketing. Every time you create new content, whether it is for a blog, in a YouTube video or webinar, announce your postings in an email blast or e-newsletter with a link to the source.

 

Backlinks. Make agreements with your friends in the graphics community or acquaintances in the markets that you serve in which they can use your content, if they provide a backlink to your site.

 

Social Media Platforms. If you are on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you can post short descriptions of your content along with either an appealing photo or one-minute video clip linking your posting to your blog or website.

 

Quantifying your results for video is usually next to impossible. Nevertheless, use of video in B2B marketing provides another pathway for delivering your content. By complementing your messaging on other platforms, it can attract attention and generate enough interest to drive traffic to your blog or your website.

 

The goal of content marketing is to trigger action. That action could be to:

 

● Share your content with another prospect;

● Download an e-book or industry study;

● Subscribe to your opt-in newsletter;

● Email for more information or to comment; or

● Call to see a salesperson.

 

Each of these actions is measurable. What’s better, in many cases, these actions indicate an interest on the part of your prospect and can lead to a sale if you attentively follow through.

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