Content marketing is a necessary component of every marketing strategy, no matter your business’ size, industry, or budget.
Any type of content, from your landing page to a whitepaper designed to attract email signups (and those emails, too, while we’re at it) are part of your content marketing strategy, so it’s important that you know your audience and create what they care about.
The good news is: you don’t have to write the content yourself if you don’t have time or skill. Hiring a content marketing agency can be a great investment in the future of your brand. Not only can a professional writer help create a steady flow of content for your blog and other assets, but you will see an increase in traffic to your site as well as conversions to sales.
If you do want to create your own content, these posts will give you valuable tips on writing for your audience as well as stylistic guides for specific types of content marketing.
For me, creating thought leadership content comes naturally. It is, after all, what I do for a living. And it’s my best marketing tool, so I write for sites like AllBusiness and Forbes to make sure my name is out there, showing what I know about content marketing, as well as what I can do with it.
But if you’re like a lot of business owners or marketing execs, creating your own thought leadership content might be at the very bottom of a very long list of priorities…if it’s there at all. That, my friend, is a mistake.
Originally published on AllBusiness.
I hate how grown-up we’ve all gotten in the world of business. We put on these professional personas and end up taking the human factor out of doing business. And yet, we understand we have to make human connections to sell.
It’s a conundrum.
Recently, I was visiting the Team page of a company called Nav. Rather than having the typical stiff suit-and-tie employee headshots, each staffer is superimposed into a funny photo, often as a character from a popular movie. So it appears like Inigo Montoya, Speed Racer, Frodo, and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer work at the company. Fun!
I love this example of how brands are humanizing themselves rather than hiding behind a wall of corporate stuffiness.
Let’s get back to being humans who work for companies, shall we?
The middle of the funnel (MoFu), or Evaluation Stage of the B2B content marketing funnel is rather like the “getting to know you” part of a relationship.
Your potential client has become aware you have something to offer in the first stage and wants to know more. These are your qualified leads.
Your prospect is interested but inclined to be skeptical. He will do some investigation into your company to find out if you are who/what you say you are.
As with a relationship, you want to put your best foot forward during the MoFu. You want to show your prospect all of your positive attributes such as trustworthiness and credibility.
You also want to entice them with the benefits they can get by purchasing your product or engaging your services.