What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing allows you to build trust and relationships, and it gives your prospects and customers the information they need to better evaluate your products and services before making a purchasing decision.

What makes content marketing different from advertising is that you’re not trying to directly sell to your customers and prospects. In some cases, you’re not even mentioning a product.

The benefits of good content marketing

When you invest in good content marketing, you can reap a lot of benefits, including

• A significantly lower cost per lead compared to paid search. In just the first five months, companies that use content marketing see their cost per lead drop by 80 percent. Over two years, the cost drops even lower as a cumulative result of better SEO and increased customer trust.
• Three times as many leads. In addition to the decreased cost per lead, content marketing can bring you more leads for the money you spend. For every dollar spent, companies get three times more leads than with traditional marketing.
• More time spent on your site. The more content you have on your site, the more customers and prospects have to read. They’ll stick around to click through blog posts or infographics, and they’ll learn more about you and your products in the process.
• Increased search visibility. Every time you add a new post to your blog, that’s another page Google can index. More pages don’t always equal more search traffic, but they do help you rank for keywords and show up in more search queries.
• More educated customers. People search the web for something because they have a problem (or want to be entertained). If you have a solution, you can educate these customers about their options by developing content that addresses their pain points.
• Stronger customer relationships. The benefits of content marketing extend to your existing customers too. When you provide valuable content, whether it’s email newsletters or topics on your blog that are relevant and helpful, you’re building relationships and increasing the likelihood that customers come back to you when they need to buy something again.
• A shorter sales cycle. No matter what you sell, there’s a sales process for customers. If your content marketing addresses challenges that customers face at each stage of this journey, you can help steer them toward a decision faster.
• Getting in front of your target audience. You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can definitely attract your ideal customer to your website with content marketing. When you create content with them in mind, you’re more likely to reach the people who are most likely to buy from you.
• Creating brand advocates. If you create great content, your loyal customers are more likely to share it with their network. That’s a great way for you to get in front of more potential customers who are similar to your existing customers.

A content marketing funnel is a system that takes your prospects through the purchasing process step-by-step, from when they first become aware of your company to when they finally purchase from you.

You can improve your conversion rate by creating a successful content marketing strategy that shepherds your prospects through the three stages of the buying process — awareness, evaluation, and conversion. Each of these stages will require different types of content to appeal to buyers at different stages of the decision-making process.

The awareness stage

Awareness is the first step to attracting customers, positioned at the top of the funnel where the net is widest. The goal here is to increase brand awareness and generate leads by creating content that informs about the industry or common problems, rather than focusing directly on your product.

Examples of awareness content:

• Blog posts answering high-level questions.
• Infographics showcasing industry insights.
• Short, engaging videos or webinars.
• “About Us” page highlighting your brand.

Content should be fun, engaging, and valuable, appealing to a broad audience. Gated content like e-books or guides can help capture leads with stronger buying intent by requiring them to fill out forms.

For example, you can use Jotform to capture visitors’ names, email addresses, and phone numbers. This can help you identify prospects who are more likely to purchase so that you can follow up with targeted content and offers later to move them further down the funnel.

The evaluation stage

The goals of your content in this stage are to nurture the leads you’ve already generated at the top of the funnel and track their purchasing intent. This content should still be educational, but you should also highlight product benefits and key brand differentiators.

Examples of evaluation content:

• Email newsletters.
• Product comparison blog posts.
• Demo videos and detailed product descriptions.

For instance, Shopify took a similar approach and created videos to show potential customers how their mobile interface allowed e-commerce shop owners to quickly and easily manage their stores on the go. While the videos were entertaining and showed customers using their product in various locations, they also highlighted specific product features that help Shopify stand out from their competitors.

The conversion stage

The bottom of the funnel is where things get serious. In this stage, your content should be geared toward converting prospective customers to actual customers. Often, sales teams will use this content, so it should focus on providing information that will help leads finalize their decision to buy.

Bottom-of-the-funnel content should also focus on speeding up the purchasing process. To do that, you need to create content that highlights why your product offering is better than the competition. Content at this stage is usually heavily data-driven and focuses on answering any last-minute objections a buyer might have.

Examples of conversion content:

• Case studies showcasing customer success.
• Blogs, infographics, or videos with targeted, compelling data.

Now that you know more about the content marketing funnel, it’s time to dive deeper into the different types of content marketing we’ve mentioned.

In this section, we’ll discuss videos, infographics, case studies, white papers, blogs, surveys, questionnaires, and quizzes that will help you to engage with your audience and quicken the sales cycle.

Video content

How-to videos, behind-the-scenes footage, and product demos can all help your audience make decisions. You can also film customer testimonials and short success stories to use as part of your content marketing strategy.

While you can publish video content on your website, adding outside distribution platforms can be very effective. YouTube is the first platform that comes to mind.

You can also publish videos on social media. Post short snippets on Facebook and in an Instagram feed.

You can also use Facebook Live and Instagram Live to stream live videos, such as a company announcement or a fun behind-the-scenes look at a project you’re working on.

Infographics

Infographics are exactly what they sound like — graphical representations of information. Companies turn statistics and complex data into bite-sized facts that can be represented visually. This makes it easier for your audience to consume, and, as a bonus, infographics are very shareable on social media.

Infographics can spice up your landing pages by replacing boring bulleted lists that highlight your features and benefits. You can also add infographics to your newsletters, repurpose them for slideshows, and share snippets of them on Instagram.

Case studies

A case study is a story about how one of your customers solved a problem with your product. It lays out the problem. Then it discusses the solution. Finally, it details the results of using the solution.

A lot of business-to-business (B2B) companies use case studies, but they can also be valuable for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. If you sell a complex product or service, it’s helpful for a prospect to see how it worked for someone like them.

Many companies post their case studies on their website, usually on a dedicated page called “Case Studies” or “Success Stories.” Some also offer their case studies as PDF downloads.

White papers

For more complex products or services, white papers can help your prospects gather more information about your business. There are three main types of white papers you can create: a classic problem-solution white paper, a listicle (like a top 10 list or checklist), or a backgrounder white paper that includes a lot of details about a product.

Most companies use the classic problem-solution white paper or listicles, which don’t mention a specific product until the end. The idea is to warm up the reader by letting them know there’s a solution to their problem and then drop in your product as the ideal solution.

Problem-solution white papers are very popular with B2B companies, particularly software companies, although they work for a lot of complex products. You can include sections like a market overview, the industry drivers creating pressure on the reader (your prospect) to choose a solution, and a checklist of things to look for when shopping for a solution.

Blogs

Regularly publishing posts on your company blog can help generate sales and engage prospects as well as current customers. You can use your blog to announce new products, provide behind-the-scenes looks at your company, demonstrate subject matter expertise by publishing commentary on an industry topic, and provide how-to instructions for products.

You can also use your blog to answer questions that members of your sales team are asked frequently, such as what customer support is like after the sale or how a certain product feature works.

Blogs are also an excellent tool for SEO. Search engines favor sites that are updated frequently, and blogs fit the bill. In addition, each post will be indexed, so you can continually conduct keyword research and write blog posts based on those keywords.

Forms, questionnaires, and surveys

Forms can provide a great way to generate leads, as can questionnaires and surveys. A lot of companies put some of their bottom-of-the-funnel content behind lead capture forms, which is helpful for salespeople because they can see what the prospect was interested in and follow up with them. You can also use simple contact forms for lead generation, asking users to check the box that corresponds to their interests.

Questionnaires and surveys go deeper. You can use questionnaires and surveys to ask customers what their biggest challenges are and what they think a good price point is. You can also ask questions about what types of industries users work in or what their interests are so you can better segment your content.

Ultimately, there are a lot of different content types you can use in your content marketing strategy.

A content marketing strategy is a complete picture of how you’ll use content to generate more business. It details everything — from who your content is for to how you’ll measure its success.

Now it’s time to put them all together into a content marketing strategy that drives sales.

Define your positioning

Before creating content, determine who it’s for and why. This involves identifying your ideal audience, their needs, and how your product solves their problems. Use audience personas — detailed profiles of your target customers — to guide your strategy.

For example, an outdoor retailer’s positioning statement might be: “We sell premium camping gear that holds up to extreme conditions for outdoor enthusiasts.” Tools like Jotform can help gather insights from your existing customers to refine your positioning.

Develop the business case

Content marketing will benefit your business, even if the results aren’t immediately apparent. You’ll be able to drive brand awareness, bring the right kind of visitors to your website, and produce information to help nurture leads through the sales funnel. These alone should help build a strong business case for content marketing. But if you need more, here are a few things to include when you’re making a push for content marketing:

• Why you need content marketing
• How it will help you meet marketing and sales goals
• The budget and infrastructure you need
• The business results you expect

By planning for these, you can address common challenges, like justifying budget and resources.

Craft a strategic plan

Once approved, create a roadmap with clear goals and KPIs to measure success. Here are a few goals that can be part of your content marketing plan and some sample KPIs:

• Create brand awareness. Since this goal is all about getting your brand name out there, measuring brand mentions and social shares is a good way to determine how well your top-of-the-funnel content is working.
• Drive more website traffic. You can measure all of your KPIs related to this goal with your website analytics platform of choice: number of visitors per month, percentage of returning visitors, time spent on site, and conversion rates for calls to action.
• Generate sales leads. This goal may require a little more legwork to measure success. The KPIs should include the number of leads you get from each piece of content and your landing page conversion rates.
• Convert leads into customers. KPIs for how well you’re generating revenue from your leads can be the lead-to-customer conversion rate for each piece of content and the average time it takes to close a sale for new customers.
• Boost customer loyalty. You can measure how well you retain your customers and drive upsells by looking at your retention rate (or churn), as well as the revenue from upselling and the percentage of repeat customers.

Keep in mind that you can have more than one goal for your content marketing program, and you’re not limited to the five goals listed above.

There are a lot of content marketing goals you can set. Let’s delve into a few that you may want to start with when you create your campaigns.

Generate brand awareness

You can generate brand awareness by getting your content out there, increasing your brand’s visibility, and building thought leadership in your industry. You could use a KPI like brand mentions or social shares to measure this.

Build trust with your audience

Useful, interesting, and valuable content builds trust with both potential and existing customers because it teaches them about your expertise, your products, and your company as a whole.

Some content types good for building trust are blog posts, e-books, and videos with tips for using your product or other information that could help your customers in their jobs or lives.

Attract more leads

The content you create can attract leads and new customers if it’s shareable, sparks conversation, and establishes authority.

Companies can attract leads through infographics, videos, and blog posts about industry topics and items of interest to their audiences. A content marketing KPI you can use is how many leads you get through email capture forms.

Drive conversions

When you set a goal to drive conversions, you move into more bottom-of-the-funnel content. You can do this through case studies, more detailed blog posts, or videos about your products and how they benefit customers. You can also answer customer questions through relevant, helpful content.

Using content marketing metrics

Monitoring key metrics like social shares, website traffic, backlinks, and click-through rates can help you determine how effective your content marketing is. Here are a few you should pay attention to:

• Social shares. Keeping track of how often and how much of your content is shared on social media is a valuable way to measure brand awareness and let you know which top-of-the-funnel content is working.
• Website traffic. Check what’s bringing people to your website. It could be search engine traffic as visitors search for the keywords you’re using in your blog posts, or it could be social traffic.
• Click-through rate (CTR). The CTR for your website is based on how many people actually click through to your website from search engine results.
• Backlinks. If your content is particularly shareable, people around the web will link to it. Backlinks are still valid for SEO purposes.
• Time on page. Along with website traffic and returning visitors, this content marketing metric will show you how engaging your content is.
• Conversion rate. To figure out how effective your content with calls to action (like downloading an e-book or making a purchase) is, you’ll need to look at the conversion rate. This is how many people took the specified action as compared to the total number of visitors to the site.

While there are many different metrics you can use to measure your content marketing efforts, these are a good starting point.