A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing: the terms you need to know
As a current or wanna-be business owner, you’ve probably stumbled across the words “content marketing” a thousand times.
For as active as you are on social media, you could give a loose definition of the term in conversation, as you know that content marketing is an approach that distributes information to an audience. However, you’ve never taken a deep dive into this in-depth strategy in order to drive customers to interact with your brand (or the brand of your dreams!)
According to The Content Marketing Institute, content marketing, by definition, is a strategic 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.”
In other words, instead of using traditional marketing, such as print advertisements, billboards, and TV commercials, content marketing allows you to provide your audience with useful information that helps current and prospective clients solve their unmet needs.
By producing engaging content that displays your expert knowledge on a subject, you will drive sales organically—without the sales pitch.
To help you develop a successful strategy to share content with your audience, I’ve listed and defined some simple content marketing terms below. When acknowledged in a content strategy, these terms will build the foundation of your content marketing campaigns to attract your dream clients and drive brand sales.
Analytics:
This can feel like a challenging concept, but it doesn’t have to be. Understanding the analytics, or data and statistics, for your content can help you decide what content speaks to your audience and what content needs to be delivered in a different way. According to Huffpost, analytics can help you answer questions like, “What is your target audience talking about? What are the wider trends of the day? More specifically, how are they interacting with your company? Are they sharing or liking what you post?”
PRO TIP: USING DATA ANALYTICS TOOLS LIKE GOOGLE ANALYTICS OR SPROUT SOCIAL CAN HELP YOU MAKE QUICK, INFORMED DECISIONS BASED ON THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN YOUR CUSTOMERS OR CLIENTS, THE PUBLIC, AND YOUR BRAND.
Audience:
These are the only people you need to care about. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service. These are the people you want to market to. To figure out who your target audience is, first you must think about the following factors: age, location, gender, income and education level, family status, occupation, and ethnic background. Once you’ve narrowed down the demographics, dig a little deeper into these personal characteristics: personality, values, lifestyle, interests/hobbies.
Let’s just say, if you’re a Target-loving mommy blogger, your grandma probably won’t be within your target audience— although you love and appreciate her constant support ;)
Conversion Rate:
This definition goes perfectly with call-to-actions because a conversion rate is the percentage of people who take a desired action. For example, you are running a paid promotional advertisement on Instagram. 1,000 people visited your website from the ad and 50 people bought your product. 50/1,000 = 5% conversion rate.
So, what is a good conversion rate? This question has no single answer.
A good conversion rate for your brand is simply one that is higher than you had before.
Copywriting:
In simple terms, copywriting is the process of writing advertising and promotional materials. American Writers & Artists Inc. urges us to think of copywriters as “salesmen in print.” Copywriters write marketing materials for websites, social media, emails, brochures, and more.
If writing isn’t your strong suit, hiring a copywriter (like me!) is a great way to boost your brand in a way that speaks to your audience and converts them into clients.
Infographic:
These nifty guys are visual images that represent data (and are a big 2019 content marketing trend!) Charts and diagrams are great to convert into infographics because they represent information that is easy to understand at a quick glance.
PRO TIP: Find customizable infographic templates on Canva to create data-driven content that is easily digestible!