First of all, I’d like to get it off my chest how happy I am that content marketing isn’t seen as an easy gig anymore.
It takes a lot of time and research to understand humans, and then apply that knowledge into creating content around a product or a topic that could interest them.
This is because content marketing is a big part of tech marketing. Some might say it is the backbone of tech marketing.
For those people, their reasoning is simple: a product cannot sell itself. Content needs to be created to show the value of that product to its potential user.
There is also a lot of terminology that content marketers need to understand and then apply to their work.
Here are five (5) of those terms.
Content Marketing
It makes sense to start with the definition of the term, content marketing, doesn’t it?
Or maybe a reminder, for those who are a little familiar with the term.
The Oxford dictionary defines it as “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”
In simpler terms, content marketing is creating content about a product or service for a targeted audience to give them a reason to use/buy that product.
Now different experts have their definitions. But the central theme is clear.
And that is to “stimulate interest” in a product.
Whatever you choose to define content marketing as, in the end, your aim should be to lead customers towards the final stages of their buyer journey. Click To TweetBuyer Persona
Grace is a 25-year-old bank customer service agent who loves listening to the radio in the morning. She says it helps centre her for the day.
She enjoys light breakfasts like bread and a cup of chocolate beverage in the morning. As she eats, she takes the time to listen to her favourite podcast or to browse Instagram.
The only thing she doesn’t enjoy about mornings is the commute to work. Public transport can be a drag in Nigeria.
She earns well enough, but not enough to buy and maintain a car. If only there was a way to make commuting to work easier and less stressful for her.
What you just read is called a buyer persona.
It is a sketch of a target’s relevant characteristics.
Now, there’s a new product in town. A ride hailing service.
People like Grace are their targets.
A content marketer is someone who identifies people like Grace, and creates content for her to sell the idea of the new ride hailing service.
Without a buyer persona, a content marketer is just stringing some fancy words together.
User-generated content
People will always give testimonies about places they’ve been to or products they’ve used.
Those testimonials are called user-generated content.
To define the term, it is content created about your brand by the end users which you can amplify to generate new leads.
A good content marketer is always on the lookout for these types of content.
This is because it is the most genuine form of marketing that any product can ask for.
A good product typically sells itself. So when the users share their good experiences, more people tend to make buying decisions quicker.
A good product typically sells itself. So when the users share their good experiences, more people tend to make buying decisions quicker. This is heaven for any smart content marketer. Click To TweetContent Curation
This is a hack that has saved many a content marketer from losing their audience.
It has also saved many from losing their jobs.
To curate means to gather relevant stuff together and present as one whole. Take a colonial and slavery history museum for example.
Colonialism and slavery took place over hundreds of years. A curator goes and gathers evidence of these events and organises them in one place.
In that way, one single story tells hundreds of years of stories.
As it is with museum curators, so it is with content marketing.
Content marketers hunt for relevant content in their niche, gather them into one piece of content, and put them out to their target audience.
Curated content could be old pieces of content, user-generated content, and content in the same niche from another author or brand.
This is a way to show your audience that you care about their general education and that you’re not just trying to sell stuff to them.
Calls to action (CTAs)
This is the most important part of content marketing.
Every piece of content created by a content marketer is targeted at an audience.
They want to educate, inform or entertain. But at the same time, they want to help the audience make a decision.
Take a content marketer in the skincare industry.
After creating content about how to deal with acne, there’s always a next step the content marketer would like the reader to follow.
It could be to buy a product. It could be to check out a review of a product that can be used for acne treatment. Or it could be to check out other pieces of content on skin care.
A call to action is a simple message encouraging the reader to make any of these decisions after consuming that piece of content.
The standard is to have the CTA at the end of the content. But sometimes, there can be more than one action that the content marketer would like the audience to take.
In such a case, they can have CTAs placed strategically across their content.
In short, a piece of content with not CTA wasn’t created for marketing purposes.
Calls to action are the end goal of every content marketing endeavour. A piece of content with not CTA wasn't created for marketing purposes. Click To TweetUnderstanding is one thing…
But it is just the first step.
As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of terminology surrounding content marketing. But a good grasp of these five will help you break the walls to the space.
The next step is to keep learning while you put what you’ve just read into practice.
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