If you’ve Googled digital marketing, I’m willing to bet that you’ve come across this term. So I thought we’d take it back to basics and discuss content marketing definitions and examples.

Content marketing is the golden child and with good reason. 72% of marketing professionals believe it increases customer engagement with a brand and increases leads. 

So what exactly is content marketing? 

Well let’s break it down, ‘content’ refers to anything you create and post online.  

This could be blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, images and videos for example. 

And yep, this includes the photos/videos you post on social media. That’s because social media is a channel through which you share your content. 

Other channels include your website or any other online presence where you share content. 

As such, content marketing involves creating content to market your business. 

This is classed as ‘inbound marketing’ as you are trying to draw people in and turn them into customers. 

If you’re reading this and worrying about all the content you need to create, don’t panic!

If you are low on resources or time, you can always curate other peoples content and add your own comments. 

For example, you may share a study or news article written by someone else and share your thoughts on the piece. 

How Content Marketing Works

Content marketing works in a plethora of ways, so I’m afraid there isn’t one quick answer.

By regularly updating the content on your website you help with your Search Engine Optimisation (where you rank on Google). This is especially true if you consider keywords whilst creating your content.

By sharing your knowledge through content marketing, you also position yourself as an expert in your field, helping to build consumer trust. 

Examples Of Content Marketing

Video Content 

The first example I have for you is a golden oldie. 

Blenders may not seem the sexiest of products (especially before the rise of Instagram Wellness) yet BlendTec created a series of videos that managed to increase brand awareness exponentially. 

The videos featured the business owner dressing up as a scientist in a lab and blending random objects – including the latest iPhone. 

Coupled with the catchphrase ‘Will it blend?’ the campaign quickly went viral with BlendTec’s owner noting that sales were impacted almost instantly. 

The campaign proved so popular that at its height you could even buy branded merchandise with the phrase ‘Will it blend?’ on. 

Image Content

Shutterstock’s trend report is now in its eighth year, and there are good reasons as to why the company is continuing to produce it.

When it first launched, they shared an infographic online that was translated into 20 languages and focused on trends predicted from user downloads. 

Within the first two weeks of the infographic being shared, it was featured in over 170 articles and comments. The email promoting the infographic also had an open rate if 20%.

All of this coverage helped Shutterstock to reach a wider audience and gave them social credibility as many people who read the articles saw them as the expert voice. 

Written Content

Florida Physical Medicine knew they wanted to rank higher on Google for ailments related to car accidents. 

As such, they created onsite, written content that focused on niche keywords.

As part of this, they created valuable and informative content that answered common questions about the ailments. They then suggested that people who suffered from the ailment should request a free consultation which helped improve lead generation. 

By the time they had read the article, the potential customer already had trust that the brand knew what it was talking about, so were more likely to convert by requesting the consultation.

Over the next four to six months this resulted in:

• A 153% increase in site sessions year over year (sessions represent a single visit to your website.)
• A 121% increase in leads (51 to 133) year over year
• All existing keywords ranked in top 10: up 152% (134 to 338) year over year

I hope these content marketing definitions and examples helped to demystify it a bit, as content marketing is truly one of the best ways to grow your business. 

If you’ve got any questions about content marketing, drop me a comment below or join me on Instagram. 

Sources: 

OptinMonster

Smartinsights

Content Marketing Institute

If you have a business then I going to go out on a limb and make an assumption: you want to make money.

Shock. Gasp in horror. Swoon if you must. 

I know in modern times the statement “I want to make money” seems a bit of a faux par, with businesses instead talking about their missions and how they want to change the world. 

But to have a big impact, you at least need to be making a living wage. And generally, that means making sales or securing clients. 

One of the best ways to do this is to get strategic with the type of content you are producing and sharing, focusing on four main types. 

Marketing mastermind Dave Chaffey has created the RACE framework to make this even simpler.

A word of warning though, you will need to understand how your customers find you and buy from you to use this framework successfully. 

Type 1 – Reach

This type of content is all about building brand awareness.

You can do this on your own site with a focus on search engine optimisation. However, its also worth thinking about places like your social media platforms, other websites or even offline marketing if you fancy going traditional.

Success Indicators For Type 1 

• Unique visitors to your site/profile
• Fans or followers on social media
• Audience share. 

Type 2 – Act

This type of content encourages your audience/potential customers to take action.

This could be adding your products to their basket for example. 

Similar to the content in ‘Reach’ you can share it both on your website or other places you have an online presence. 

Success Indicators For Type 2

• Bounce Rate
• Product page conversions
• Pages per visit

Type 3 – Convert.

It should be no surprise that this type of content is all about those conversions – kerching!

When the customer reaches this content, they should in an ideal world already be familiar with your brand due to your ‘Reach’ content and be ready to commit, after your ‘Act’ content has helped move them through the sales funnel.

Success Indicators For Type 3

• Unique visits & fans
• audience share
• revenue or goal per website visit

Type 4 – Engage

You may be thinking that the hard work is done once you’ve made the sale. However, now is not the time to rest on your laurels!

Instead, work on building your customer relationships as this can help transform them into repeat buyers and brand advocates.

This is important as retaining customers is a lot more cost-effective than finding new customers. Also, word of mouth from previous customers can be a great help in marketing your business. 

Success Indicators – Type 4

• Repeat purchases
• Brand loyalty
• Advocacy.

So in conclusion, when planning & creating content for your business it is important to target your ideal customers all the way through their buying journey – and even after they have made a purchase.

By targeting your content in such a way, you are giving your customers the best chance of converting and your business the best chance of making sales. 

1. There is no such thing as a digital marketing expert. The digital world is always evolving and updating, in a way that makes it impossible for one person to be an expert at it all. If someone does tell you they are an expert, they are lying to try and get your money.
2. Nobody cares about your product/brand/founder story as much as you do. Sorry but it’s true.
3. Some books that were written 100 years ago are still relevant. Methods change over time, but the human psyche rarely does. 
4. What you don’t say, can mean just as much as what you do say. 
5. You don’t need to be on every platform or be everything to everyone – stop people-pleasing, and focus on what you are good at. 
6. If you’re building hype for your product/event make sure you can deliver on it, don’t be the next Clubhouse or Fyre Festival.
7. If you’re going to be on social media, make sure you offer a good level of customer service. 
8. ‘Always Offer Value’ – how you treat this advice will make or break your digital marketing. 
9. Yes, marketing is creative but don’t forget to crunch those numbers. Data is our lifeblood. 
10. Marketers are not graphic designers – sure some individuals may have similar skills but they are two distinct practices. 
11. It doesn’t matter what your competitors are doing, all that matters is what your customers want & how you can deliver it. 

Or maybe you will – I’ll let you decide.

It’s hard to imagine an online world without clickbait headlines, but we may soon have to.

While it’s hard to establish when exactly clickbait headlines began, the term itself was first popularised in 2006 giving the sensational, emotive and often humorous style of writing an official title. 

This style of writing then gained momentum, due to sites such as Buzzfeed – and with good reason. For a while, these types of headlines were good at driving website traffic and encouraged social sharing. 

However, it seems the general public has begun to tire of the ‘over promise, under deliver’ nature of these headlines. 

Research carried out by Penn State’s Media Effects Laboratory and Institute of Computational and Data Sciences has found that Clickbait headlines (defined as relying on ‘linguistic gimmicks’ such as superlatives and curiosity gaps) are not any more effective in driving website traffic than traditional headlines. 

In fact, it found that the Clickbait headlines actually performed worse on occasion. 

The researchers carried out two studies, and each time they presented a group of 150-250 subjects one of eight headlines, featuring both Clickbait style writing and more traditional headlines. 

The headlines presented to the subjects were classed as Clickbait if they included the following traits: 

• Lists
• Positive Superlatives (eg Best, Greatest)
• Negative Superlatives (eg Worst, Least)
• Modals (eg Could, Should)
• Demonstrative adjectives (eg This, That)
• ‘Wh’ Words (eg What, When, Who)

They then monitored to see if the subjects would follow through and read the article or share it on social media. 

The study concluded that Clickbait headlines “did not dramatically outperform” headlines written in the traditional style. Whilst they could only speculate on the reason, they suggested that because are so common these days, they no longer stand out as intriguing. 

Interestingly, for the first study, the researchers used AI to identify which headlines were traditional and which were clickbait headlines. This AI was similar to the type used by social media platforms. 

They found that the AI systems frequently disagreed on what was classed as a Clickbait headline – in fact, they only agreed 47% of the time

This may not seem a huge deal if you’re not planning to research Clickbait with AI, however, it does pose a problem for social media platforms that are trying to clamp down on the spread of misinformation & fake news.

It is widely believed that due to its exaggerated nature, and social sharing potential that Clickbait headlines can help misinformation spread – especially as the topics tend to be trending and easily skimmable.

Therefore, many a social media platform has assumed that by reducing the reach of these articles that are shared, the less misinformation will circulate on their platform. 

As such, they were relying on AI to scan content and accurately determine which content was trustworthy and which were clickbait. If the AI struggles to do so, it could see some Clickbait titles slip through the net and feature on more people’s newsfeeds. 

It also opens the door for Clickbait to evolve. If, for example, Clickbait writers notice that their stories get more reach when including questions rather than lists it is only logical that the number of Clickbait headlines including lists will reduce, whilst the number including questions will increase. 

In turn, this will mean that the AI itself has to evolve to match, eventually leading to a cat and mouse style contest. 

So what does this all mean for us?

Well two things, firstly if Clickbait headlines aren’t your style you don’t need to worry. Writing in a traditional style won’t hinder your website’s traffic & may even improve it.

It also means that websites that intend to spread misinformation, may have to evolve constantly, to keep ahead of the AI trying to stop them. This may make Clickbait headlines harder for users to identify, making it even hard for digital novices to identify a trusty source