This week we discuss how you can move from a nice to have to a must have, creating profit from content marketing to make it an invaluable part of your strategy.
We’re often asked “how do I profit from content marketing?” The point of marketing – any kind – is to inspire action. What that action is depends on your business. But, for most, this usually involves buying a product or service. Effectively, marketing should get people to take notice of you. The content is meant to grab someone’s attention, make them listen and then call them to act. Simple, right?
Well, not always. The internet is an entirely different medium from television, radio and print. Thus, the traditional tactics used to market brands on these platforms, don’t always transpire to success online. The web works in a completely different way. Online, content is the most valuable thing and profit from content marketing is the goal.
On the internet, people go in search of interesting and valuable content. And understanding this is the key to drawing profit from content marketing.
Forget 30-second TV ads and radio snippets of someone yelling at you to ‘hurry, buy now’. It won’t work online. Looking at the digital habits of shoppers, they don’t want to be bombarded with advertising telling them why to buy something. They’re smarter than that and they expect more.
Take the made-for-television ads, which act as previews for many YouTube videos. These ads usually have a ‘skip’ button pop up after 5 seconds – which is the route most of us would choose to take. This goes to show one of the stark differences between television and online ads. The attention span of an online user is far shorter. If you can’t grab someone’s attention in the first few seconds, you’re never going to get it. In essence, the 30-second ad is dead, and instead you only have an extremely small period of time to get your message or name across.
So, to profit from content marketing, you need to create branded content that readers, viewers and users are going to see and share. Don’t make an advertisement. Make content.
How can you do this?
1. Start a blog for your brand and post regularly on it.
2. Create an infographic about a relevant news story and include your logo on it.
3. Start a Twitter account for your brand and use it to interact and connect with followers and potential clients.
4. Create a quirky animation and share via social streams.
5. Produce a video for YouTube, or even found a channel on the site if you want to regularly post videos on here.
6. Comment on other people’s blogs, forums and twitter posts. Rather than fill their pages with spam, engage with them and contribute relevant and values responses.
7. Create an ebook. This is a great way to get your whole brand message across in one lump.
8. Start a free podcast or webinar featuring specialist industry advice. You can then use transcripts of these to produce an ebook.
9. Identify a common problem or issue that faces your industry and produce a report that provides solutions on the topic.
10. Formulate a press release and distribute it through a site like PR Newswire where it has a possibility of being picked up by a high profile site and included in their content.
If you’re looking for a London based agency to help with your marketing needs, then why not get in touch with DVO!
