What is Content Marketing (and Why You Should be Doing it)?

We have already arrived at the conclusion that traditional marketing (such as cold calls, print ads and direct mail) has become less and less effective over the years. That is because customers do not shop the same way as 10 years ago, and therefore, marketing has evolved towards more inbound approach. So what is content marketing and should it be on your radar?

"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action." [1].

In other words, instead of pitching your products and services, you provide valuable and useful content in order to attract your target audience. The key word here is "valuable", and you know the content you provide is valuable if your users do not try to avoid it (like when switching channels when a certain commercial plays on the TV), but instead subscribe to it or come back to it. Examples of content marketing ideas include: blogs, articles, papers, ebooks, tutorial-style videos, webinars, and many more. Need some ideas? As a tennis club or tennis business, your content marketing could look similar to these:

• Blog article on improving your topspin or forehand tennis tips.
• Video tutorials on changing grips or choosing the appropriate tennis equipment.
• Webinar on how to improve your serve.
• Ebook on nutritional tips (e.g what to consume before and after a tennis match).

Those are just few examples of content marketing. The goal of all content marketing is to provide as much value to your target audience as possible. Therefore, it is important to do some research and find the topics your audience will respond to (e.g. questions they frequently ask), their preferred format for such content (do they watch videos or prefer to read articles?), and the social media platforms they use (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).

How to get started?

Let's assume you have already established your marketing strategy, goals and target audience. You have also figured out the appropriate content type (e.g. video, blog) and content channel (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Next you must decide how often you will post your content and allocate resources (e.g. who will create and post your content). If you are simply too busy to do it yourself or do not have the resources, you can hire a professional to do the content for you. You can choose to hire a freelancer or a marketing agency. In either case you must pick someone that knows your industry and understands your target audience (a freelancer or agency that specializes or has experience in the tennis industry).

Setup analytics

As we already mentioned above, you can tell a content marketing is good if people want to read it. So, be sure to setup the appropriate channel analytics (e.g. Google Analytics, HubSpot or similar) and run regular reports to see whether your target audience is reading it. If a content is not being read or visitors move away from it too quickly (high bounce rate), you may need to change it.

Create a content calendar

Lack of planning is how you get behind with your content marketing. Inconsistent content can also sabotage your marketing strategy. You need to plan exactly what type of content you would like to publish, how often, and on which platform. Using simple tools such as Google Calendar and a spreadsheet would work well if you are not publishing a lot of content.

Create content and publish 

After all the initial preparation and research is completed, it is time to get started on the actual content and publish it. It is entirely up to you whether you prefer to create the content for several weeks or months in one shot or whether you want to do one piece of content at a time. If you will be creating a lot of content in advance (e.g. shoot 10 videos in one day), be sure to schedule the publishing of each (as opposed to publishing all of them in one day). Additionally, be sure you schedule sharing of your content via social media and email marketing, and notify any influencers who may be interested re-posting it.

Analyze and track results 

Finally, it is important to asses the performance of your content. Did your first blog get 100 visits and the second only two? If you pay attention to the analytics results you will be able to tweak your content or strategy to replicate your best performing blogs.

Great content is good for your customers, and therefore, for your bottom line. If you need more help with your content marketing, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sources:

[1] What Is Content Marketing? Forbes Media LLC. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/09/19/what-is-content-marketing/#2d79e2de10b9