Zone 4 - Content Marketing Services

Strategic Content Marketing

To Boost Your Brand & Attract More Customers.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is one of the most essential tools to generate traffic, get more leads and increase your sales and revenues. Even more so for Direct2Consumer eCommerce brands, smaller organisations and startups with lean marketing budgets.

Compelling Content Marketing should:

Align your Content with your commercial goals and ideal customer profiles.
Organise content assets into logical and natural journeys prospective customers take.
Map content to a typical sales funnel - Awareness, Interest, Demand & Action.
Deliver results - establish thought leadership, provide value and attract new and returning customers.

Why use Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available. Consistent, high-quality, engaging content impacts audience decision-making more than any other technique.

Content marketing delivers 3x as many leads as other marketing channels.
Content marketing costs 62% less than other marketing channels.
Brands that use content marketing have 7.8x more organic traffic.
56% of people are influenced to purchase after reading a blog post.

Benefits of Content Marketing:

More onsite Content means your audience will stick around longer
Fuel your social media engagement and PR
Your audience will trust you
You'll generate more and better leads
Original Content can improve conversion rates
Support your audience through the conversion funnel
Boost your SEO and traffic via higher visibility in search engines
Establish expertise, authority and trust
Create brand awareness
Connect with your audience through multiple content formats
You'll cultivate loyal brand fans
Decreased marketing costs - content marketing only costs time, and it's incredibly cost-effective

How do you do Content Marketing?

You need to use an effective framework to design and execute Content Marketing strategies that focus on the needs of your target audiences and align with your commercial goals. A suitable Content Marketing Framework should be developed in the following way:

Customer Avatars

Identify your target audience, what problem they are searching for and what you should write about. Then, develop customer avatars - demographics, psychographics, pains & frustrations, fears & implications, main problem statement, goals & desires, dreams & aspirations and possible objections. This helps determine what content will resonate with them, target messages and the media you need to use to reach them.

Keyword Research

Keyword research allows you to base your content marketing on actual search engine intent data to develop valuable and relevant content ideas. Identify keywords and align Content with the stage in the buyer's journey—no problem awareness - keywords with high search volume and low competition. Problem awareness - focus on their pain points. Consideration - solutionsDecision - comparisonAction - FAQs

Content Calendar & Blogs

Content Calendars promote consistency, allow you to plan for time-sensitive Content, and help you align Content with brand/company milestones. Blogs drive more traffic to your website and generate more leads. Focus on "RESULTS" - Riveting headline, Exciting introduction, Smart SEO, Uncomplicated Content, Leverage graphics, Tactical summary and Simple next steps.

Graphics, Presentation, Video & Podcast

Repurpose blog content to increase reach and bring more eyeballs to your website. For example, graphics can be shared on social media. Presentations can be shared on SlideShare (one of the top 200 most visited sites globally). Videos can be shared on YouTube, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter and IG (good for promoting top-of-funnel Content). And, Podcasts can be shared on Podcast Directories (Libsyn & Buzzsprout).

Lead Magnets

The best Lead Magnets are those with a strong desire that is easy to consume, e.g. free resources, tool kits, cheat sheets, templates, checklists and infographics. This Content and format should be designed around the customer avatars and the main problems you are trying to solve. You also aim to provide thought leadership and position yourself as an expert.

Middle-of-funnel email nurture

You can empower your leads to achieve small victories by creating an email sequence that sends them applicable, bite-sized Content. The more frequently you expose leads to your product/service, the more likely they'll become customers. Schedule x5 emails, each seven days apart. Tell your story, provide some actionable tips (x3) and then your unique solution.

Bottom-of-funnel Branded Content

Build trust by demonstrating that you understand and can solve your customer's problems. Introduce the specific approach that you recommend to solve their problems. List products, services and solutions. Provide a clear call to action. Examples include white papers, case studies, buyer's guides, product comparison guides, FAQs and Product tours.

Bottom of funnel email nurture (sales content)

According to eMarketer, email remains the best-performing channel for converting leads into sales. So schedule x5 emails, each seven days apart. Provide a teaser, product offers, answer objections, social proof, and a special offer.

Social media

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram can all be used to drive traffic and generate referrals. Create viral Content and an open loop, as well as nurture content collaborators.

Paid promotions

Native advertising and sponsored Content can help position your Content contextually, trustworthy, relevant, and valuable. Paid social media promotions can deliver faster results than organic Content and allows your Content to make it into the news feed of your target audience. Paid search can also provide more immediate results than organic to match Content with the prospects' search intent and stage in the buyer's journey.

Content Matrix

You need to ensure that your Content lands at the right moment in the natural journey that your readers take. To do this, you can use a Content Matrix to organise your content assets in a more logical and natural journey prospective customers take. Put yourself in the customer's shoes and map your content assets to a typical sales funnel - Awareness, Consideration, Preference, Action, Loyalty and Advocacy.

This approach puts your content strategy to work to achieve results by aligning Content and target messages to the conversion funnel. This will help you use an emotional and rational approach at the right time to ease your readers through the funnel and into buying mode

The Truth about Content Marketing

The 2021 Content Preferences Survey indicated that the top content formats consumed were Webinars and eBooks (57%), with White Papers coming a close second (55%)—moreover, 54% of audiences research product quality, and 42% research customer services before purchasing. Content marketing is inexpensive, safe, available for anyone in any industry, and beneficial in many different areas. The sooner you start investing in it, the sooner you'll see results.

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