Content Marketing Advice

This article aims to provide you with content marketing advice. Content marketing is not a new thing, the term might be relatively new, but content has been a vehicle to get in front of potential buyers for as long as marketing has been a function.

If you take a look through the jobs boards, you may notice that there are more content marketing positions being advertised than ever before. Why is that?

Why the popularity of content marketing?

Marketing has changed in the past 10-15 years. The Internet, search engines and social media has shifted focus and one of the last bastions of free marketing is search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO may be changing due to the rise of AI, but this does not mean it is detrimental to content marketing, quite the opposite in fact.

AI uses content for training and regurgitates good content as its own. For example, I asked Google's Gemini to give me some stats on content marketing, this is what it gave me...

• Increased brand awareness: 90% of marketers report that content marketing increases brand visibility (Source: Content Marketing Institute).
• Higher website traffic: Content marketing has been shown to drive significant increases in website traffic (Source: HubSpot).
• Improved lead generation: 61% of marketers say that content marketing helps them generate leads (Source: Content Marketing Institute).
• Increased sales: Content marketing can have a direct impact on sales, with 70% of marketers reporting that it has a positive impact on conversions (Source: Demand Metric).
• Higher customer engagement: Content marketing can help to build relationships with customers and increase their engagement with your brand (Source: HubSpot).
• Improved search engine optimization (SEO): Creating high-quality content can help to improve your website's search engine ranking, making it easier for potential customers to find you online (Source: Moz).

You can see each bullet point has a source. Great for those brands.

But, enough about AI, because in reality some searches will be via Google (or one or two will be via Bing). For example, the here and now, local searches, news and when a user wants clarity from the horses mouth.

Content Marketing Tips

I've broken the content marketing advice into sections so you think about your audience, what sort of content you'll produce and how you'll monitor and improve its performance.

Understand your audience

Firstly, it is important to understand your audience. You should be in a unique position to know your audience better than anyone. What are their demographics, what brings them to you, what sort of problems do they encounter?

Take a step back to try and break your audience down into small groups with similar idiosyncrasies. This will enable you to compile a list of topics relevant to these groups. This list will formulate the basis of a content strategy.

A little SEO understanding

Technology makes you play games. Games using big-tech rules. SEO is no different.

I have written a guide to SEO that will help if you're not familiar with it.

You need to think about keywords for any content you put out there, these help search engines understand what you are writing about and whether to match your content with a user's search. Some keywords get more searches than others, so it is important to research these numbers to get the most bang for your buck.

Here are some free tools to help you research keywords and to generate keyword ideas:

• Google Keyword Planner: Probably the only one you will need. Set your location, and use the keyword planner to add keywords to see a rough estimate of the number of searches per month and the competition for that keyword. There is a slight catch, you need a Google account and a Google Ad account. However, you don’t need to run ads to use the keyword planner — Google just wants you to run ads because they’re greedy!
• ChatGPT: It doesn’t do the keyword research for you, but it is a great way to generate keyword ideas to feed into Google’s keyword planner. Be specific though, tell the AI overlord about your business, your location and your ideal customer so that it has all of the information to give you quality responses. Be sure to use please and thank you to increase your chances of survival when it turns on us.
• Moz Explorer: This is very limited as Moz is a premium service, but it can give you an idea of search volumes and some suggestions for alternative keywords.
• Backlinko Keyword Explorer: Another tool that’s pretty useful. It leverages SEMRush which is a premium service. I’m not entirely sure if there are limits. When you’ve run your search, remember to change the location so that it’s relevant for you.
• Answerthepublic: This tool is good for searching a keyword and getting a list of questions that people search for around that keyword. You can combine this with Google’s Keyword Planner for an idea of numbers.

Once you have your keywords, add them to your document with your content topics so you have a record to refer back to.

Educate, inspire or amuse

The majority of your content marketing should not be about selling your product. In some instances, this is good, but realistically, your content marketing strategy is not about the hard sell. It's about raising awareness of your business, from there you can think about generating interest.

Keep in mind the rediculous sounding TOFU, MOFU, BOFU model (top of funnel, middle, bottom):

With your net wide, you want to be targeting relevant audiences, but not to sell. Is there a problem you can help solve? Perhaps a tutorial, your expertise, or a video how-to will help them.

I can't advise what to do, as I don't know your business, but if you can be of service to potential customers then it will help your brand.

Medium and Tone

Thanks to those magic things in our pockets (phones) we can capture beautiful imagery and video without much skill or training. So if you have a younger audience, maybe video or pictures would work best.

Just think about your audience for tone. Targeting solicitors and generation z will have very different tones. But that is not to say you can't be different. Just find the right balance for your audience, you do not want to offend, but equally you don't want to be ignored either.

If you're not comfortable writing content, don't worry, AI can help. Don't get AI to write it all as it doesn't know your business or audience, but you can get it to edit and tidy up your content. Start by writing down your draft, and get OpenAI or some other LLM to help polish it for you.

Give your content a boost

To give your content a boost and to aid SEO, post your content across your social media channels and try get others to link back to it. For ideas about where to post your content, check out the SEO guide.

To round up

This article offers advice on content marketing, emphasising its growing importance in today’s SEO-driven digital landscape. While AI is influencing content creation, it ultimately enhances content marketing by relying on high-quality material for training and generating insights.

Key Tips for Content Marketing:

• Understand Your Audience: Identify your audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points to create targeted content.
• Leverage SEO: Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or Moz Explorer to optimise your content for search engines.
• Educate, Inspire, or Amuse: Focus on building awareness and engagement rather than hard selling, using models like TOFU (Top of Funnel) to guide your strategy.
• Choose the Right Medium and Tone: Tailor your content format and style to suit your audience, from videos for younger demographics to professional writing for more formal industries.
• Boost Visibility: Share content on social media and encourage backlinks to improve SEO and reach.
• Creating high-quality, audience-focused content is the cornerstone of effective content marketing.