How to use Content Marketing

What is content marketing? The idea behind content marketing is that by sharing good content (with no strings attached) prospects and clients will be educated enough to be influenced - most commonly to make a buying decision.Aside from direct sales, there are a number of specific goals that can be reached using this newly acquired influence. Learn more about content marketing.
While creating and publishing custom content as a marketing tool can accomplish many things, they can be divided into three main categories:
The Expert Factor: Creating high quality content will establish you as the expert, through thought leadership. By sharing thoughtful insight, answers that are hard-to-find and key industry information, your readers will begin to view you as the go-to expert. This can take some time, and will definitely take some commitment. If you stick with it, you'll see big payoffs. As a Sales Tool: Areas such as lead generation, direct sales and customer retention can all be addressed using custom content. By giving prospects what they are looking for, you can begin the sales process with them. Search Engine Benefits: Whether you decide to blog or just write on your site about your industry, there are clear search engine benefits. Search engines will rank your site for the topics you write about, which will also be the topics that your prospects are going to be searching for. And by regularly writing new content, the search engines will continue to rank your site. Learn more about Search Engine Optimization.
Content as a marketing tool has some pros and cons. Here are the top three of each:
Doesn't cost very much to use/create content marketingAs an expert in your industry, it won’t take a huge investment of time to create and publish this new materialAs a means to build credibility, it is more effective than typical advertising. Everyone prefers to be educated rather than "sold"It does take a commitment of time.If you are new to the industry, it could be challenging to create solid and useful contentGetting started can take some time - especially to determine which approach will work best for your business and goals. Consider reading a book about it.
Using custom content as a marketing tool has a lot of potential for an online business. It builds credibility, doesn’t cost much (if any) money and won’t take much time after you get started.
Looking for help getting started in your online business? Check out the Quick Start Guide to Online Business at the link above.
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