I spent a lot of money and time to attend this year’s Content Marketing World. And guess what. It was worth it. Below are some of the lessons I learned, along with the name of the Content Marketing World speaker from whom I learned each lesson.
Start at the bottom of the funnel.
The typical sales funnel concept says your website should offer three kinds of content. At the top of the funnel is information for people who are deciding whether they need or want what you are selling. In the middle of the funnel is information for people who know they want what you are selling but aren’t yet sure they want to buy it from you. At the bottom of the funnel are people who are ready to buy from you but need a nudge to pull the trigger.
Forget this. Start at the bottom by focusing only on buyers, not lookers or tire-kickers. The problem is, the kind of information buyers want is not what most companies want to provide, because it is the kind of information that puts them at risk of losing the sale. Get over it. Buyers are not going to buy until they get this information, so you’ll lose the sale anyway if you hold it back.
Buyers care about price, comparisons and reviews. Many companies, especially B2B companies, are hesitant about sharing pricing information on their website because they don’t want their competitors to have this information or they sell customized services that don’t have “off the shelf” pricing or they are expensive.
The fact is, your competitors already have a pretty good idea of your pricing. You can probably give a price range for custom services, and if you are expensive, you only want to talk with people who can afford to buy, not those who would be scared off by your prices.
You don’t need to put your entire price list online. But you do need to educate people about pricing — that is, the factors behind your price. This helps potential buyers understand the value you offer and makes your product less of a commodity.
(Lesson from Marcus Sheridan, author of “They Ask, You Answer”)
Make existing content work harder.
Creating quality content is a lot of work. So, we need to squeeze every ounce of effectiveness out of the content we’ve already created. The best way to do this is to build links to your content. Here are a few linking-building tips:
• Find high-authority pages on your website, and link them to low-authority pages on your site. This applies to new content, too. Always link good old content to new content. You can use SEO tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to find the high- and low-authority pages on your site.
• Guest post on other websites that have high authority on similar topics. And make sure that you post really good, detailed content. To get people to open your emails requesting that you guest post on their site, offer them something of value. For instance, offer to send a list of keywords they are not ranking for but their competitors are. Or ask where you should post a positive review on their website about a book the website owner has written.
• When you appear on a podcast, mention the resources available on your website, and ask the producer to link to them in the show notes.
(Lesson from Ian Cleary at RazorSocial)
Creating great social content is like programming a TV network.
Too often, marketers approach the creation of social media content as a one-off project, creating stand-alone posts that don’t relate to other content on their social media page. Creating effective social media content is more like programming a TV network — that is, it is episodic. One story follows another related story but also offers a variety of formats.
One way to do this is to follow a “hero, hub and hygiene” approach.
• Hero content is like a TV mini-series, a special program that only happens once or twice a year. This could be a contest, for example, or a series of videos about the history of the company. It’s a special event to which you commit a lot of resources to create and promote.
• Hub content is like a weekly TV program, such as Friends or Law & Order. It is regularly scheduled content that your social media followers come to depend on. Examples would include customer profiles or short videos on how to make the best use of your product.
• Hygiene is the regular content that you put up on a daily basis and is often user-generated. For example, photos of company outings, links to news stories about the company and introduction of new products.
(Lesson from Adam Constantine and Nicole Martin with Pace Communications)
Overall, my week at Content Marketing World reminded me that effective content marketing is about providing information that goes beyond hype to providing something of value. The question you are seeking to answer is: Will someone find this information interesting or useful even if they don’t buy my product? instead of simply: Will someone buy my product after reading this content? Content marketing is less efficient and costs more than traditional marketing. But, because you are building a relationship instead of just making a sale, it is more effective and more likely to lead to long-term customers — even evangelists.