“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action,” according to the Content Marketing Institute.
The key thing to know about content marketing is that it isn’t just about pitching and promoting your products and services to potential customers, but instead focuses on creating and providing informational and attractive content to potential loyal customers.
Having loyal customers is so important as it guarantees revenue for your business. These customers are also more likely to recommend you to their friends and family, further demonstrating how key these customers are.
Some examples of successful companies that use and harness the benefits of content marketing include:
- P&G
- Microsoft
- Cisco Systems
- John Deere
The main key reasons that content marketing is used by successful businesses is that it has been proven to be cost-saving, and it increases your number of loyal and repeat customers and increases sales.
Marketing is impossible without good content
Content marketing is the technique of providing customers with valuable content. Tone of voice is key to good content marketing. Tone of voice is usually crafted by looking at a company and its values and services and going from there. It helps to make your company have a strong personality, something that sets it apart from other similar businesses and gives customers a clear idea of who they are as a business.
What are buyer personas?
A buyer persona is a representational description of your ideal customer. It is created from research and looking at your business to decide what your ideal customer would look like. You do this by looking at market research and data on your existing customers – surveys are also a great way to find the information that you will need.
Buyer personas are used to help businesses decided what their ideal customer would be like and lets businesses make changes so that they can become the best business for these types of purchasers. When a company has created and decides to use buyer personas it can successfully market itself to these customers. A strong brand is very important when thinking about these changes as this is what customers will think of when deciding whether or not to return to the same company. A customer has to trust in your business in order to keep bringing you their business as well as hopefully sharing your business with their friends and family by recommending you.
Some key questions to help create your buyer persona are:
- What is your age?
- What is your gender?
- Where do you live? Where are you from?
- Are you married or single?
- What is your highest level of education?
- What are your goals in life?
- What is your career?
- What are your special skills?
- Do you have any children?
- What does your typical day look like?
- What information informs your decision-making process?
- What are your favorite products?
- What are your hobbies and interests?
