This document provides an overview of content marketing strategies. It notes that traditional advertising is becoming less effective as consumers avoid ads. Content marketing is presented as an alternative, creating useful content to attract and retain customers while educating them about products and services. The document outlines several content marketing tactics including developing a strong brand identity, starting a blog, creating diverse content like videos and ebooks, and leveraging email marketing and social media to distribute content.

1. A How-To Guide for
Content Marketing
Campaigns

2. 2 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
What was the last great television
commercial that caught your attention
and stuck with you? How many banner ads
have you clicked on recently? Print ads?
What’s “print”? The fact of the matter is
that traditional marketing is just not doing
the trick anymore. Consumers are savvy
and through technology and new media
platforms they’re becoming adept at
removing or avoiding commercials and ads
altogether. DVR and streaming video allow
consumers to skip television commercials,
banner and button ads online. They are
hardly registering with today’s well-
trained web surfers.
A How-To Guide for
Content Marketing Campaigns
Content Marketing
sells the idea of a product
Traditional Marketing
aims to sell a product

3. 3 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
One response has been to become more
aggressive with traditional content. More and
more websites and businesses are featuring
intrusive video commercials or pop-up ads that
appear before the website’s content can be
accessed. It might be too late though. The genie
is out of the box, and putting it back in – returning
to traditional ad formats – hardly seems like an
effective way of getting the attention of today’s
consumers.
Instead of the traditional ad for content approach,
smart businesses and marketers are recognizing
the power of content as advertising. That’s the
underlying premise of content marketing, creating
and distributing engaging and directed content
that’s relevant to your business’s products and
services and useful to your target audience.
A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns

4. 4 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
It’s non-interruption marketing that is meant
to attract customers and retain them by
offering valuable content that they’ll find
enriching and that will also educate them about
the importance and uses of your products and
services.
The value of this approach to your business is
two-fold. On the one hand, it trains your target
audience to think about issues and information
related to your products, services and your
industry, thereby creating an intelligent
and savvy consumer. Secondly, it builds a
relationship with your customer. Content
marketing is an investment; it functions on the
belief that delivering consistent and valuable
content to consumers will be rewarded by
consumer trust and brand loyalty.
A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns

5. 5 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Content marketing is based
around diverse online and digital
marketing approaches; it’s reliant
on tried and true strategies to
get online traffic, and social
media shares and virality to fuel
it. The great thing about that is it
means even small businesses or
startups with limited ad budgets
can pursue effective content
marketing strategies.
So let’s dig into how to go about
establishing your content
marketing campaign and building
your brand and business through
effective communication with
consumers.
A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns

6. 6 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Before embarking on a rigorous content
marketing campaign, you want to make
sure that your brand identity is distinct,
consistent and well defined. Integral
to this is having a clear design to your
website and marketing materials. Have
a strong logo and a well-designed and
easy to use website. Settle upon the
type of aesthetic you want to impart to
your audience: do you want to have a
professional and serious appearance? Or
maybe you want a handmade and low-key
look? Take the steps to ensure that your
business has the appearance that matches
how you feel about it.
Start by Developing or
Solidifying your Brand Identity

7. 7 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Next, make sure you have a clear
understanding about your view of the
importance or use of your products and
services and why they are beneficial for
consumers. It doesn’t matter what you’re
selling, any product or service is meant to
satisfy or engage a need. Depending on the
type of business you’re running, you might
consider a mission statement or an “about us”
section on your website that details why you
think your products and services are important
and what they mean to you. Tell the story of
your brand, or your vision or understanding of
it. Appeal to both the rational and emotional
sides of your audience. That’s the first step
toward communicating your own pride in
your business and expressing your desire to
meaningfully engage and benefit consumers.
Start by Developing or Solidifying Your Brand Identity

8. 8 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Blogs have become a ubiquitous part
of a business’s identity and they’re
one of the foundational elements
in an effective content marketing
campaign. By having a blog on your
business’s website or affiliated with
your business, you establish a space
in which to present information that
you consider relevant and beneficial
to consumers.
Have your blog match the character
of your website and company and
start to establish what kind of content
you want presented on your blog.
Do you want information and
statistics related to your products
or industry? Think pieces? Explainer
Start a Blog

9. 9 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
articles? Testimonials? All the above? Whether you’re
producing the content yourself, or having others do it,
make sure the content is high quality, informative and
well written. You want the language to match the identity
and character of your brand.
Make sure and include snappy and attention grabbing
titles and headlines for your posts. 80% of readers never
make it past an article headline, so you need to entice
your audience to read on. Headlines that incorporate
numbers (“10 Ways to Make Doing Your Taxes Easier”)
and directly address readers (“Ways You Can Make Doing
Your Taxes Easier”) have been shown to be especially
effective. While they can vary in length, aim for 500-700
words per post, which is long enough to provide useful
and engaging information, while not deterring your
audience by being too time-consuming to read.
Start a Blog

10. 10 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
While it’s simple enough to start a blog, you need a
strategy for increasing traffic to your blog and for
engaging your audience in a variety of ways that
they consider useful. There are many fundamentals
to running a successful blog, but there are some
basics to keep in mind from the get go. Above
all, maintain high-quality content and post
consistently - at least once a week. Learn about
search engine optimization (SEO), keywords and
tags so that you can ensure that your blog posts
appear high on Google and other search results
pages. Cite prominent figures in your industry or
social influencers, which both adds credibility to
your post and also may result in those individuals
promoting your blog at some point.
Develop a Diverse
Array of Content

11. 11 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
One of the most effective ways of
increasing traffic and appealing to a broad
array of consumers is to include images,
infographics and especially video in your
posts. They’re proven to increase traffic
significantly.
Explainer videos or animations are an
especially popular and well-received kind of
video content. They explain your services
or products or confusing aspects of your
industry, which increases brand trust with
your audience.
You might feel that longer form writing with
in-depth coverage on a specific topic is
the most effective way of communicating
the relevant content that you want to
disseminate. More and more companies
Develop a Diverse Array of Content

12. 12 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
are publishing Ebooks as part of their
content marketing strategy. Ebooks tend
to be substantial pieces of content (over
1,500 words) that are detailed and highly
educational.
You can format and design your Ebook texts
and offer them on your site, or for download
as a PDF. Offering a substantial piece of
content that your audience can download
signals to your audience that you take them
seriously and are invested in them.
Content should be taken seriously; it should
be high quality and contain interesting
information, otherwise, no matter how many
strategies you employ to get traffic, the return
on your time and investment will be miniscule.
A popular, thoughtful and informative blog
Develop a Diverse Array of Content

13. 13 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Successful content marketing
is all about distribution:
getting people to view your
content and to continue
circulating it. One of the
easiest methods to get visitors
to look at your content is
through email marketing.
Include a place on your blog
or website where readers and
consumers can sign up to be on
your email list. If you offer an
Ebook, have readers sign up to
be on your mailing list before
they can download the text.
Take Advantage
of Email Marketing

14. 14 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Weekly or once a month, send a
newsletter that informs subscribers
about new blog posts, videos,
Ebooks and interesting news or
articles related to your industry.
Keep your emails short and attention
grabbing and ensure they focus on
promoting useful content rather
than attempting to advertise your
products.
Just like with blog and other content
posts, use engaging headlines and
make sure your emails are personable
and polite. Inform subscribers how
often they’ll receive emails when they
sign up, and even make it easy for
them to opt out if they so choose.
Take Advantage of Email Marketing

15. 15 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram:
these are all distribution networks that
you can capitalize on for as part of your
online marketing strategy for free.
Social media sharing is one of the primary
ways businesses get attention and expand
their consumer base. It has been shown to
improve brand recognition, brand loyalty
and brand authority. It increases inbound
traffic to your site and leads to better
search engine rankings.
Social media platforms are also a great way
to gain information and feedback from your
customers by seeing how they respond to
Get the Word Out
Through Social Media

16. 16 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Get the Word Out Through Social Media
your posts and the type of chatter that
develops surrounding your products
and through social listening.
The key is to be active on these
networks. Promote your own blog posts
with multiple tweets with different
teaser quotes from them. Retweet and
share interesting articles or information
or tweets or posts that you think
your audience will find interesting and
relevant. Include social media widgets
and buttons on your website and on
every blog post or piece of content
that you publish. That way people who
find your content relevant or useful will
share it with their networks leading to
your content going viral.

17. 17 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
Success in content marketing
should be based around a few
metrics: page views, which is the
number of pages viewed on your
website in a given period of time,
average visit duration, and bounce
rate, the percentage of users who
visit your website and quickly leave.
If these numbers are improving and
you’re gaining more unique visitors,
then you’re content marketing
campaign is succeeding. Just note
that even if these numbers are
increasing, they might not translate
into higher revenue right away.
Don’t Automatically
Expect Higher Sales

18. 18 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
It can take time for you to see the fruits
of your content-marketing labor, but
if you’re pursuing this alongside other
online, digital and traditional marketing
you’re likely to find that you’re retaining
your customers and growing your
consumer base. In addition, content
marketing forces you to really reflect
on what you consider meaningful and
useful to your customers, which will help
you continue to shape and improve your
business.
It takes a lot of work and effort to run an
effective content marketing campaign,
but the results will be good for your
customers and good for your business.
Good luck.
Don’t Automatically Expect Higher Sales
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