Without any doubt, content is a king these days. And if you want to build a connection with your audience, you have to speak the right marketing language. Essay writing skills that you can gain at college can be very helpful but you can outsource your task to professionals as well as essay editing. And when you’re going to own the world, you need to be on the cutting edge. So, what should you be able to do when you want to become a good content marketer?
1.Show your passion
Pure passion is one of the things that is impossible to fake, and it can make your content. At the same time, it can break your content as well. Whatever business you work for, you need to love it and believe in it. When you’re really interested in the project, you are able to create engaging content.
What should you do if something goes wrong and you can’t lace your voice with passion? Delve deeper. Find out more about your project, about people who are working on it. Are there some views that you’re ready to share? Would you say that you want to contribute to the common goal? If not, you’d better look for other projects because without passion you’ll be just an average content marketer.
Looking for a job, consider 3 important aspects:
- things you’re already interested to write about;
- things you would like to write about;
- things that have nothing to do with your interests.
2. Understand the sales funnel
The sales funnel is a useful tool that helps you to understand the customer’s journey. It includes all stages from the moment people run into your company for the first time to repeat purchases and long-term collaboration. Don’t think that only sales managers should be involved in this process since this pipeline includes several marketing stages as well. When you know about them and understand their results, you can come up with a better content strategy that meets your goals.
Lead Acquisition
The first task of any marketer is to boost your brand awareness. If people know nothing about your company, how will you generate more leads? So, you need to develop good informational support: newsletters, landing pages, YouTube videos, social media posts, etc.
At this stage, you can attract thousands of people, e.g. generating hype content. Write about Eurovision 2021, and everyone will read your blog. Does it mean that all these people will convert? Of course, not.
Lead Nurturing
The second, no less essential task is to nurture your leads. They’re cold for now, they know a little about you, and maybe not sure whether they need your product. We look through various websites every day, should we buy from each of them?
Good content marketers should be extremely careful now, as it is easy to lose your prospects by choosing the wrong strategy. People these days don’t like it when you’re pushing them. Nurture softly. Provide your audience with useful and, what is even more important, personalized content. You need to have some insights about your target audience, to understand its pain points and expectations.
Initial Contact
Now you see that some people from our first stage open your letters regularly. Some of them read all the content you send and leave their comments, while others choose it more accurately. Nevertheless, they don’t ignore you. And that’s a signal that you should take the initiative.
It is the part where you need to work together with a sales manager, to unite your strategies. Your colleague will ask you to come up with scripts for webinars, with commercial offers, presentations, etc.
So, when you understand the sales funnel and its primary stages, you can create pieces of content that are not just exciting. Remember about your final goals — to attract more leads and to nurture them so that they become customers. However, your job doesn’t end here.
Customer Retention
Content marketers are in charge of building and developing huge communities, and it means you should also work with people who are already loyal. They don’t need to read about your product’s advantages, sales, benefits, and so on. They want to be a part of your brand, and to know that you share the same values. When you don’t understand the task of this pipeline stage, you can easily break your content with stupid jokes or memes that your audience doesn’t understand.
3. Know SEO and SMM Basics
You are a real professional who knows how to make people fall in love with your content? It sounds fantastic! However, how should users find your content, if it is ranked extremely low in search engines? Grab a firm grasp of SEO so that you understand how they work and how you can get the most out of them.
SEO principles include meta description and meta tags, unique URLs, headings, and subheadings. You also should add relevant keywords but don’t overdo them. Though it is necessary to consider the rules of the game, your primary focus should be on people, not engines.
When it comes to social media, it is important to understand that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms update their algorithm all the time. You have to be flexible and keep abreast when you want to create modern and trendy content.
4.Analyze Data
We know that numbers can terrify creative people. Your brain works differently, you generate ideas and concepts. The ability to think out of the box is a great advantage. Nevertheless, if you need real power, you don’t have to wait for your colleagues to tell you what’s working. Instead, you should be able to work with Google Analytics and other tools that will provide you with valuable insights. Actually, with clear data of what’s performing well and what is your area of development.
When you know how to work with analytical dashboards, you can easily find out the number of social shares your posts receive on average, the best-performing blog topics, the most popular newsletters, etc.
Content marketing is like a minefield. You should be a strategist and a tactician, a leader and a subordinate, a front runner and a spy. Develop your skills, and you’ll get the most out of this profession!