Content marketing could transform your sales cheaply and easily

Content marketing is something that big companies are investing billions in. But here’s a quick and easy guide to content marketing for the ordinary business.

First of all, what is content marketing?

Since way back when there has been good old fashioned hard-sell marketing. You had a product. You wrote an ad. for it. You bunged it in a newspaper or magazine. Or maybe you sent a brochure out to potential buyers.

It worked for decades …. and still does to some extent. But over the last decade things have changed. Consumers are bombarded with so many thousands of marketing messages every day they’ve become ‘punch drunk’ on it. And very adept at actually ignoring a lot of the direct marketing messages they’re subjected to.

So here comes content marketing.

Content marketing is a way of marketing that’s subtly different. Instead of sending prospective customers advertising you offer them information that’s genuinely interesting and useful. Something that, hopefully, they will remember and refer back to when they are ready to buy.

Content marketing is a way of sneaking in under the radar. Of engaging with your prospective customers first of all. Of educating and informing them without any hard sell. But subtly guiding them towards your product or service when they are ready to purchase.

Content marketing is proving very effective for the big businesses who use it extensively already. But how can you exploit content marketing …. in a simple and inexpensive way?

Content marketing has always been possible to some extent. But the Internet is the key to doing it easily and on a modest budget.

Here are a few simple ways you can use content marketing:

* Post good quality articles, news and information around your product/service area on your website.

* Set up a blog.

* Use social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. (Yes, they’re not just for fun.)

* Offer a regular email newsletter, with useful news and information, that prospects can subscribe to.

* Create free informative ebooks or even courses that would-be customers can download.

* Send out news and press releases to the media.

* Make use of the opportunities afforded by review sites.

The fact is, even if you’re a small business, you should still be doing some content marketing … and using methods like this there’s really no excuse not to.

If you’d like some suggestions for how your business could exploit content marketing then don’t hesitate to drop me an email …. mark @ markhempshell.com