Update: we have filled our need for this role. If you’re a writer, we’re always looking to add to our stable of freelancers, particularly those with design and development expertise.

The field of content marketing is full of people who believe that what they’re doing is the future because more traditional methods of salesmanship don’t work.

They’re wrong. A good sales letter works far better than most people realize. A copywriter can wrangle a buck through just about any medium. Get on the phone with an experienced salesman (who unlike his neophyte telemarketing sweatshop counterparts has done his research and targeted you), and you’re in for a hit to the wallet.

The point of content marketing isn’t to replace existing, effective sales methods. It’s one part of the complete marketing campaign, alongside sales letters, direct mail, email marketing and social media. It complements them.

What content marketing does better than direct sales is building consumer relationships, brand loyalty, and reciprocity. Direct sales is about the psychology of closing one sale. Content marketing is about closing a lifetime of sales.

Devise Your Content Marketing Strategy

It’s essential that you’ve got some sort of strategy before you get started, as it’ll inform your decisions from the time you set up your blog and choose or develop a theme, through to every article you ever publish.

Why are you doing this? Who are you trying to target? Is there an audience for content marketing in your niche — for instance, can a cleaning company produce content that’s going to be appealing to its consumers and relevant to the business of the company?

How often will you publish? What types of content will be published — features, interviews, tips, tutorials? Which products can be referenced in which types of post?

There are plenty of questions to ask, and if you’re new to online content and content marketing you won’t think of them all until you’re in the trenches. What’s important right now is that you consider why you’re doing this, who you’re doing this for and how you’re going to do it.

Set Up Your Blog

You’ve already got a site, but the easiest way to get started in the world of content marketing is to add a blog to that site. A blog on its own is just another teenage girl’s diary, but your business website with a blog attached is a platform for content marketing.

A blog is the easiest medium to get set up quickly and begin a content marketing campaign through. It’s not the only medium, and there’s a strong emphasis on blogging to the exclusion of other mediums out there — but to get started with do-it-yourself content marketing, it’s hard to argue with it as a solid choice.

WordPress is the platform of choice. I’m not going to bother explaining the other options, because really, this is the one that matters. Get it set up on your hosting account.

If you’ve got designers or developers on your team, you can create a WordPress theme to match the rest of your site’s branding, but let’s assume you’re doing this on a shoestring. Head over to a site like ThemeForest and purchase a theme that you think will work well for what you need. Check the ratings and the comments — it’s easy to buy a dud on any theme marketplace, but previous customers can save you from that if you take the time to check the product out.

Include Your Incentives & Captures

Before you go live, ensure that your site has got ways to get visitors into your system and incentives for them to give you that information.

Any sort of information capture is better than none — if they go to Twitter and follow your account, that’s a win. Getting their email address into your mailing list is ideal. It indicates that the customer has a level of trust in you (and you need to be careful not to destroy this valuable asset), and it means you have a direct, personal way of communicating with them. Good email marketing that provides valuable information and results in sales is an important extension of content marketing.

Don’t put too much emphasis on RSS feeds unless your users are a technical lot — it’s not used in as widespread a fashion as most online business owners think. Those technical users will know about their browser’s auto-detection function for feeds, so don’t chew up all of your sidebar space with RSS buttons and banners.

Incentives can be free reports or product samples given to users who sign up. They can even be freebies you give away on your site without the expectation of a signup or anything else in return. This won’t be as effective in growing your mailing list, but it will grow trust. That’s not something to be undervalued.

Don’t abuse customer information, ever. I’m sure you already know this, but it has to be said.

Integrate Social Media

Any good online marketing strategy attempts to reach customers through as many avenues as possible. If your customers read your blog, are on your mailing list, have followed you on Twitter and liked your Facebook page, you’re in a good position. Brand visibility helps build brand loyalty: every impression, whether it consciously registers or not, fuels the level of credibility that user perceives you to have.

Thus it becomes important that you’re pursuing an audience in every channel that’s relevant to your business. Make sure you’re tweeting and sharing each new post you publish through these channels and then engage with the followers who are reading them. Start conversations. But remember to get them to your social media pages in the first place from your site.

Start Publishing!

Once you’ve got these basics set up, you can start publishing. Remember that content marketing is about relationship-building: good content brings repeat vistiors, which means more brand impressions, which translate to increased brand loyalty. The more of that you have, the more likely initial and repeat purchases become. More importantly, the lower the likelihood of brand abandonment every time a sale rolls around.

So how do you do this with your content?

First: tone matters. You’re building friendships. For some personality-based content businesses, content written in the voice of a snarky bastard works well. In this case, you’re using content to market your products and services, and that’s not a great route to take. Don’t be condescending. Be welcoming.

Do not take this as a cue to be boring or employ dry corporate-speak. Use a voice with personality. People are used to reading corporate text all day — even from Fortune 500 companies who couldn’t be bothered hiring a real copywriter for their site. Adopt a voice that is uniquely yours and stick to it. Give people a reason to remember your personality and your brand’s personality.

Focus your efforts on the target audience you defined earlier. Too many professionals who try their hand at content marketing end up writing to their peers — their competitors. There’s no worse audience to market to. Make sure the content you’re publishing is most useful to your potential customers.

Reference your products and services. Don’t buy into the hand-holding hippy rubbish that suggests your blog is a shrine of holiness and editorial purity. You’re still running a business and your content marketing activities exist to market your company. Mention your products and services wherever it is relevant. Don’t go nuts, or you’ll look spammy, but remind your readers of what you’re selling.

Don’t focus too much on one channel. Content marketing is successful when a campaign is run across multiple channels. Social media is an important part of building a distribution channel. If you’re publishing to your blog every day but ignoring your Twitter account, even it out without flipping the tables and instead ignoring your blog. If you don’t have the time to keep both going, hire someone to take care of things for you.

Communicate. Internet marketing is about two-way streets. Choose the methods you’ll use to communicate with your visitors. Commenting systems are ubiquitous but not necessary, but if Twitter then becomes your main outlet for communication, use it. Remember that every communication and every impression builds brand loyalty and reciprocity.

Finally, don’t make one of the most common mistakes amongst corporate bloggers: if a post sucks, isn’t going to be as useful as you intended, or just speaks to the wrong people, don’t post it. Chuck it out and start again.

Go Pro

Content marketing is time-consuming, and the learning curve can be high — it might look easy, but figuring out what works and what doesn’t takes years. We recommend getting the professionals on the job. If your business is looking at expanding its online marketing activities, get in touch with us about our content marketing services.

We’re a public relations and content marketing agency for the web. Take a moment to look through our range of services and meet the team behind Methodic Studios.

We look forward to hearing from you.