Inbound marketing takes content. There is no way around it. If you want to improve your web presence and you want to use your website as a way to generate inbound traffic and leads then you have to create content. I try to put myself in my prospects shoes as much as possible. If I were to be in their shoes when I told them, “you have to create content if you want your marketing to work better.” I wonder what I would think? I feel like my head would start spinning.
I bet I would think…Where the heck do I start?
- How do you know where to begin?
- What do I do first?
- How do I know if any of the content I am creating is going to reach my target audience?
- Will it be worth the time?
- What if I don’t know how to write well?
These are the kinds of questions that come up when I start having a conversation about content marketing with the companies that I am working with.
Start somewhere.
You have to start somewhere. Just like being in a maze you have to start somewhere and work your way through it. Content marketing can feel a lot like that if you don’t have a structure. You would have no clue what type of content to start with and how to maximize that content for the short term and longer term future of your web presence.
Fortunately we have figured out a structure to help you make the most out of your content.
There are really 3 stages that your target market goes through when they are to be marketed and sold to. If we break these 3 stages down it will help you to come up with the kind of content you need to create to reach each ot those stages with your prospects. If you can get this structure down the idea of content marketing won’t feel so daunting and you won’t feel like you are working your way out of a maze of confusion.
The buyer’s journey is broken down by stages. You can see below each stage there are examples of the kinds of content that you should be creating for each stage. We define everything you need to think about when you start working through each buyer’s stage.
- User behaviors- recognize what each buyer’s stage looks like and the trends that happen with these kinds of people. This will help you to figure out what kinds of content you should create to stand out to those people.
- Research and info needs- this will help you to define what kinds of content we think those stages deserve to read and download.
- Content type- each stage has different kinds of content that needs to hit those stages.
Start with one stage at a time and create the content for that stage first. Work your way through each buyer’s stage and you will slowly but surely work your way through that maze of confusion around what kind of content you should be creating.