What is Content Marketing?

The Gist: From blogs and case studies to videos and infographics, content marketing is a unique way to help boost traffic to your site, improve brand awareness, and convert your leads into customers. 

In a nutshell, content marketing is a differentiated approach to marketing that strictly focuses on attracting a clearly identified audience through content that’s valuable, relevant, and consistent in a variety of forms (like videos, blogs, social media posts, etc.). Rather than continually pushing a product or service onto your audience, like you might do with bottom of the funnel advertising, content marketing aims to provide valuable information that your audience could benefit from.

If you are looking to increase sales, save on costs, and bring in more loyal customers, content marketing is the answer. Here’s what you need to know about content marketing and the value it could bring to your business.

Content Marketing Comes in Many Different Forms

The beauty of content marketing is that it can be executed in so many different ways. The playing field is wide open, leaving quite a bit of room for creative freedom! Sometimes the best way to convey information is through video, while other times it’s best portrayed through something like an infographic. 

Here’s a look at some of the different types of content marketing that exist and their uses.

Blogs and Articles

One of the most well-known and popular forms of content marketing are blog articles. Starting a business blog as a part of your content marketing strategy can help to draw organic traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads, and help you to establish authority with your audience. Creating effective blogs that ultimately lead to increased searchability involves using SEO best practices (like accurate keyword placement, internal/external linking, etc.) while also covering topics that your audience will actually find useful.

Pro Tip: Create a content calendar and stick to it! According to Hubspot, sites that post 16 or more blog posts a month see 3.5x more traffic than those that publish less frequently. (I know, this sounds daunting, but you don’t need to start with that many. It’s feasible to start small with 1/Mo. and continue to build momentum with the right resources!)

Case Studies

A case study is a document or a webpage that allows you to illustrate and explain how you achieved success with one of your customers. Essentially, it gives you the opportunity to showcase the value of your product or service by showing actual proof of its effectiveness with others. There’s nothing like hard-hitting facts to turn cold leads into hot ones! 

A successful case study usually includes:

• An explanation of your customer’s history and the challenges they faced
• The goals your customer wanted to meet
• A step-by-step process of how your company helped the customer
• A detailed analysis of the results (complete with metrics)
• An explanation of the outcome of the case study and how it helped your customer

Pro Tip: Send out surveys to all of your customers. You can use the data collected from these surveys to learn more about your customer base and find the right case study candidate.

White Papers

In addition to blogs and case studies, white papers are also a valuable type of content marketing to consider looking into. A white paper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that represents a problem and provides a solution. It presents an opportunity to educate your audience on a specific issue or topic and explain how your business can help. 

The best white papers typically include a:

• Minimum of six pages that includes graphs, charts, and references
• PDF file format
• Title page, table of contents, executive summary, introduction, education for readers, the solution, how your company used the solution, summary
• Professional design and format

Pro Tip: Use a white paper to highlight the ways in which your product or service is the solution to your customer’s problems. Make it easy for them to get to the bottom of the sales funnel.

Infographics

Infographics are the visual and graphic portrayals of information — think graphs, charts, and flyers. When there is a lot of or more complicated information to digest, an infographic visualizes it,  making it easier to understand. In fact, according to research from the Search Engine Journal, we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text, making infographics an invaluable resource. 

Pro Tip: The more your infographic is shared, the higher the chance it has to gain traffic. So, give your audience a simple way to share it themselves! You can do this by including shareable links to different social media platforms. 

If you need help brainstorming and designing a compelling infographic, Axle Eight can help. With experience in creating infographics and an eye for design, they can ensure that you get your message across in a visually-pleasing way.

Video

Videos are a form of content marketing that have risen in popularity over the years and have no signs of slowing down. In fact, Cisco Visual Networking Index predicted that video traffic will account for 82% of consumer internet traffic by 2022. And boy were they right. This means that if you’re not using video in your content marketing strategy, you may be missing out on crucial opportunities. 

 

Pro Tip: Instead of focusing so much on your brand or sales, tell a story with your videos. Viewers will better understand what your business has to offer them through relatable storytelling.

Landing Pages

A landing page is a standalone web page created for a promotion or marketing strategy. It’s where visitors will be sent if they click on a link in an email or an ad. Unlike a homepage, your landing page is near the bottom of the sales funnel, it’s the place to drive a hard sell and get your audience to commit. With a clear goal to increase conversions, landing pages are designed with a clear call-to-action (CTA).

There are generally two types of landing pages:

1. Lead generation: this landing page uses a form as a CTA. It is used to collect data (i.e. names, email addresses) of potential customers that can be used to build a lead list.  
2. Clickthrough: this landing page is typically used by e-commerce or SaaS businesses that present a button as a CTA and will take potential customers straight to a sales or subscription page. 

 

Pro Tip: Fewer links on your landing page increases conversions, so provide as little as one link on your landing page so as not to divert attention from the CTA.  

Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is a valuable incentive that businesses offer to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. The incentive could be anything from a discount to an ebook. This gives companies the opportunity to further promote their products or services by adding prospect customers to their mailing lists. 

Typically, lead magnets are created, posted to a website to collect contact information from interested individuals, and those people are then added to a distribution list to receive any future communication from the business.

 

Pro Tip: Consider making the incentive for your lead magnet free, such as an eBook, tutorial, or even a credit to be used on your site. This is referred to as the Zero-Price Effect, as more people are likely willing to hand over their information for something free.

How Axle Eight Can Help

Content marketing is an imperative piece to any marketing strategy. With so many different directions you can go in, it may be difficult to figure out where to even start! Let alone, how to ensure it’s executed efficiently and is results-driven. With years of experience in content marketing of all kinds, Axle Eight can lend a hand!…or a lot of hands…

Axle Eight is a boutique digital marketing agency that offers a custom experience to every client, without requiring a long-term contract. Whether you are looking to get the most out of your blog, need an infographic, or want to completely overhaul your paid advertising efforts, we’ve got you covered. 

 

Ready to bring in more business with content marketing that performs?

 

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