The Wizeo Guide To Content Marketing

Content marketing harnesses the power of words to persuade, the ancient art of storytelling to trigger emotional responses, and the science-like algorithms in search to grow your business and take your brand to the top.

“Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them” – Doug Kessler

Why does that distinction matter? Because according to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of our purchasing decisions are subconscious. As savvy as we all think we are, our hearts lead our heads when we need to sign on the dotted line. Creating an emotional connection with customers holds serious sway over their decision-making.

So, let’s start a conversation with your customers. This guide to content marketing will help you start talking their language, focus on solving their problems, sell your brand story, and ultimately bump up your bottom line. 

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What Is Content Marketing
• What Are The Benefits Of Content Marketing
• Content Marketing For SEO
• Getting Your Content Marketing Plan Up And Running 
• Content Marketing Success With Wizeo

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the natural result of trying to speak with and engage fully with customers. As such it is rooted in your target audience, their pain points, and their values. 

Content marketing is the creation and sharing of useful, engaging, and relevant content that offers solutions to your customers’ problems to make their lives a little bit easier.

It takes your brand purpose and story and intertwines that with compelling reasons why you can best help your customers achieve their goals or overcome challenges. So, rather than buying pricey ad space in the hope you’ll catch the eye of your target customers, let your content bring them to you. 

Content marketing takes many forms including:

Social Media Content Marketing

From Facebook posts, Instagram reels, and Tik Tok videos to LinkedIn updates, social media is likely to be a core part of your content marketing strategy. After all, it’s where your target audience will be spending a large portion of their online lives. At its best, social media offers customers a chance to enter into a two-way dialogue with your brand. It also expands your brand reach. People using social media to find new products, brands, or services has increased by 43% from 2020-2021.

Social channels can amplify other content. For instance, you could share a blog post on Facebook or add a link to your product’s landing page to your Instagram account. Remember though, social media is no walk in the park, and you’ll definitely need a social media strategy in place to ensure you make the most of the opportunities each channel presents. 

Blogging:

A blog gives you a platform to produce regular content and crucially publish it on your website. Get your SEO right and you’ll have an effective inbound marketing strategy that brings customers in from the Google SERPs straight to your website. 

Blogs are a valuable content marketing tool, allowing you to publish useful, targeted content that establishes you as a trusted industry leader, just a click away from where customers can purchase your goods or services.

Pillar Posts:

Pillar posts are pages on your site (like this one) that introduce a topic in your industry and provide a platform to delve into it in greater depth via any number of linked pages. There are a few advantages to this kind of approach. Firstly, the in-depth pillar post demonstrates your industry knowledge (and is hopefully of use to your target audience). Secondly, it enables you to target a range of keywords related to a specific topic on separate pages. Ideal if you want to get each ranking on Google. 

Lead Magnets:

White papers, how-to guides, or in-depth insight reports mark your brand as a thought leader in your industry and are a powerful way to attract customers to your site. While these high-quality resources are usually free-of-charge, they usually hide behind an email sign-up screen. The result? They benefit from your industry knowledge, while you have a chance to convert them into a customer. 

Video or Podcasts:

We love words here at Wizeo, but even we hold up our hands and say the best content isn’t always written content. Depending on your industry, your services, or your target audience, videos hosted on your website or podcasts might be the best way to reach potential customers. Podcasts are booming in popularity, as more and more people tune in to the on-demand accessibility of listening wherever and whenever they like. Again, visual, audio, and video content stretches out to fill social media plans, inspire blog posts, and creative content for your website.

Email Newsletters:

Direct marketing to customers has always been powerful. But, email newsletters aren’t only about putting products in front of your hot leads. Pack them full of your brand stories and recent blog posts, grab your customers by their emotional lapels, and remind them regularly that your brand is there, ready to solve their problems.

P.s: Here’s a content marketing dictionary if you want to learn more about specific terms.

What Are The Benefits Of Content Marketing?

As we’ve already said, emotional responses rule customer buying behavior. Content marketing leverages that emotion and makes it work for your brand. When you get it right, content marketing can be one of the most effective marketing strategies you can deliver.

These are just some of the benefits of content marketing:

• Excellent ROI. Evergreen content continues to work for you long after you’ve paid someone to create it. There’s no pay per click, or pay per impression to factor into your budget. 

• Increase brand trust. Content marketing allows you to position yourselves as an industry thought leader. Beautifully written, engaging, and accurate content helps you showcase your knowledge and expertise and build a community of loyal customers. 
  
  Need inspiration? Here are some thought leadership content examples.

• Increase sales and conversions. With increased trust comes increased sales. But there is something else at play here too. Globally, customers are four to six times more likely to purchase from purpose-driven brands. Your content marketing strategy enables you to share your values and leverage what is important to your customers.

• Better SEO and increased organic search traffic. The big one. Well written content is not only great for customer engagement and leads, but it’s great for SEO too. The Google search algorithms were practically written for content marketing – valuing relevance, usefulness, and authority when deciding which pages reach the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Content Marketing For SEO

There’s a happy by-product of effective content marketing. And that’s top-notch optimization that pushes your pages up the results pages of Google and other search engines. 

But while the objectives for producing SEO content (better rankings in the SERPs) and customer content (increased trust and conversion) may differ slightly, the two are never mutually exclusive. Why? Because Google will score relevant, useful content more highly. And, there’s no point in creating mind-blowing customer content if it’s never going to be seen. 

Successful content marketing goes hand in hand with SEO. It is a finely balanced relationship that has the potential to be a powerful marketing force. But you need to get it right. Overstuffing keywords into a blog post makes for nonsensical drivel while writing without a care for the SERPs means your hard work will fall on deaf ears. 

Hiring a professional content writer can help you get this tricky balance right. It’s something all our content wizards at Wizeo have oodles of experience in turning sharp, on-brand storytelling into compelling, performance content. 

Getting Your Content Marketing Plan Up And Running 

Ready to get started? We’re right behind you. But before you pick up your metaphorical pen and start committing blog posts to paper you need a plan. The best content marketing strategies rest on five basic principles. Take the time to get these right to get your brand flying. 

• Know Your Audience. Who are they? What problems do they face? What are their pain points? Do they have any particular values or interests that align with your brand? Customer research is the cornerstone of effective content marketing.

• What’s Your Purpose? You probably know what you do, and how you do it. But do you know why? Get your brand purpose written out and stick to it. Use it as your bible when you face difficult decisions on which direction your content (or business) takes.

• Find Your Voice And Keep It Consistent. Deep down, who is your brand? You’ll need to dig deep and define your personality in order to nail down your brand voice. Write out your guidelines, share them with your staff, and most importantly, stick to them. Consistency is key in creating an instantly recognizable brand across your marketing platforms. 

• Does It Add Value? Ask this question of every piece of content you create. Is it simply describing your products or services, or are you adding value to your customer? How is your content addressing a need? If it doesn’t add value, write something else.

Successful Content Marketing With Wizeo

Here at Wizeo, we know that getting your content marketing up and running can seem daunting. Writing high-quality blog articles several times a week, regularly updating social channels, and planning content schedules can be a full-time job. 

So, if you don’t have the time on top of your usual day-to-day role, or are unsure your writing skills are up to the task, a specialist content marketing agency like Wizeo can help. There are benefits of outsourcing your content marketing beyond saving your work-life balance too:

• Excellent ROI. You only pay for the content you need, rather than a full-time staff member.

• You have access to professional writers specializing in a wide range of niches. Need a press release stat? We’ve got a PR wizard who can help. Want to boost your social engagement? Our social copywriters are at your service. We match your brand with the writers who know your industry best so your passion – and theirs – shines through. 

• Regular high-quality content. Guaranteed. You don’t need to worry about how you’re going to keep content coming during sick leaves or vacations. Our team is flexible and available to you all the time. 

• It’s flexible. Need to up your content output rapidly? Need to take a break to reassess your direction? A content agency like Wizeo can roll with the changes as and when you make them.

Are you ready for some content magic? Explore what Wizeo’s content marketing services can do to take your brand to the top.