Do it yourself: content marketing

The optimist (glass half full) would say ‘this year will be better than last year’. The pessimist (glass half empty) would say ‘this year will be even tougher than the last’. While the two were discussing it, the marketer would refill the glass and say, ‘plan for the best and expect the worst.’

In this article series for 2022, I’m going to be sharing my content marketing intellectual property – what I’ve learned over the last twenty-eight years in the marketing game, so that you can do it yourself. A ‘content marketing for dummies’ – without the insult.

‘What’s the catch?’ I hear you ask… nothing. The thing with marketing, if you’re good at it, you enjoy it and you have time for it, you’ll do it yourself. If you’re not, you don’t or you can’t… we are the people who can.

Who…

For nearly five years Gilligan Sheppard have been offering marketing services, however, communicating that offer without confusion has been a little… confusing. Do we just do GS marketing? Is it just for GS clients? In short, no and no.

“A jack of all trades is a master of none,

but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

We provide marketing services to a high level, but should you need a specialist, we can refer you to one. To this end, we have given our marketing services a new name… Master Jack Marketing.

Our purpose is to help you enjoy the journey. Don’t be baffled by marketing slang. Know exactly what your marketing budget is being spent on and how it works. Don’t forget who looks after what – is it the printer? Designer? Website developer? Website hosting? How about just one email whenever you need something?

What…

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.

It’s not informational garbage to fill the space, nor is it trying to sell ‘stuff’. Content marketing is impossible without great content. 

Where…

3.6 million Kiwis are active social media users and spend an average of two hours on social media networks each day. So yes, presence on social media is necessary to widen your audience and expose your offering to more people for a higher chance of winning new business.

Whichever social media channel you choose… the potential customer will end up at your website – well at least that’s the goal. So, the first task is to make sure your website is ready to receive new potential customers. Then figure out which social media channel your business should be on. Here’s a brief look at each channel…

• Facebook – create an online community around a topic or business for the widest age range 13-65+
• Instagram – reaches a younger audience of under 40’s
• YouTube – for either education or entertainment content, this audience is below the age of 50
• TikTok – to reach and entertain a young audience with fun, video-based content
• LinkedIn – used to be a recruitment tool, but is now a major business networking tool
• Twitter – great for marketing a person or product, audience skews towards males 30-60yo
• Pinterest – performs well with adult female audiences, especially in lifestyle content
• Snapchat – ideal for a young audience (18-24), predominantly female, with selfie-style video content 

How…

Content marketing is a four-step process, of which I will break down in following articles, but here are the headlines for now – and yes I know each one evokes more questions than answers, hence this becoming a series : )

1.     Write an article.

2.     Upload it to your website.

3.     Send a newsletter with the article to your database.

4.     Post about the article on your social media channels.

Content does come in different shapes and forms, but articles are the base for them all. The keywords are found via Google searches and the content of the article often provides a brief for an image / video / meme – but the foundation of all content is words.

Why…

Content marketing takes care of two audiences, 1. Your existing clients, and 2. Your potential clients. Are there any other audiences? No. Therefore, all your bases are covered, and there are so many benefits…

• Drive sales – keeps you top of mind for repeating business
• Connect with your customers – don’t let them feel forgotten
• Boost your social media following – generates interest and possible shares to new eyes
• Increase traffic to your website – all links lead to your website ‘click to read more’, which in turn, help to rank your website higher in search results

You will also be able to better curate your content based on the results. If a particular article gets more newsletter open rates, or more likes on your Facebook page or even a higher than usual unsubscribe rate… then you’ll know which topics to spend more time on.

Next month I’ll be writing about how to get your website content marketing ready. As is common, the setup is the most important task to run a successful content marketing campaign/strategy.

If this article has raised questions that cannot wait for the series to run its course, please get in touch, and ask.

This article was originally published on the Gilligan Sheppard website here. If you would like to receive our monthly newsletter, you can subscribe here.