1. Where do I to start with content marketing?
Any content marketing campaign requires a solid foundation of knowledge, preparation, and execution in order to succeed.
Failure to lay this foundation can lead to misguided efforts, disinterested readership, and a waste of company and human resources. Further, you won’t make money blogging, podcasting, or with your webinars.
The issue of “getting started” has been a huge stumbling block for many companies—from the biggest brands to the smallest mom and pops.
Click here to learn how to start a successful content marketing campaign from scratch.
2. Where should I post my content?
There’s a fine line between good content marketing and spam.
You don’t want to be seen as a spammer.
You want to create value to the people you are reaching out to. You want to answer questions they have. You want to help them out achieve what they want to achieve.
Spend some time learning the guidelines and the way to approach each individual platform. Follow them when you are trying to promote your own content.
To optimize your chances of getting shared you need to think about the audience and the network where you want your content to be viewed.
Here’s a list of 40 places to share, promote and distribute your content.
3. Where do I publish my content?
Real, credible content marketing revolves around creating high-quality content and building relationships with publishers who can benefit from that content.
Creating quality content simply isn’t enough.
What you produce can’t just be great, it has to be epic content — the right information, placed in the right publication to target the right audience at the right time.
So how can marketers increase their chances of publishing content on the sites that attract their target audiences? Here are 3 key steps to publishing your content where it will reach your target audience
4. What should I do you do before I publish my content?
With so many moving parts that take place even before you press “Publish,” a checklist can seriously come in handy. Before you push your content live for all the world to see , click here your 16-point content publishing quality control checklist
5. Where is content marketing going?
Here are some of the biggest issues enterprise marketers are dealing with in Content Marketing.
These are not in any particular order. They are all important, depending on where you are in your content marketing maturity.
Content creation and distribution in the enterprise, outside of the content about our products and services, have become both more important and more integrated over the past year.
Click here for the biggest content marketing trends in 2017
6. What’s the difference between Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing?
Although there is plenty of overlap between content marketing and social media marketing, they are actually two distinct entities, with different focal points, goals, and processes.
What’s the Difference?
To help clear the confusion, let’s look at the major ways in which they differ:
Content Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing: What you need to know
7. How important is content marketing?
When it comes to growing your business and building a raving and loyal customer fan base, there are few tools out there that can compete with a solid content marketing strategy.
As great as content marketing is, it can also be confusing at times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDocK4QMyA4
8. How do I pick the best content marketing channels for my business?
There are 120+ content delivery and marketing channels that marketers need to manage today.
Deciding which channels to use for what purposes is a critical element of business strategy regardless of whether you’re a Marketer in a B2B or B2C firm.
It’s not practical for most to manage all channels and certainly you need to prioritize resources on the channels which will give the best returns.
Should you focus on digital marketing channels?
Or can offline channels still deliver good ROI?
Which channels are best if I want to make money blogging, with webinars, or podcasts?
Get it right and you can reap the rewards of reaching and retaining your customers. Get it wrong and you could spend a lot time and money trying to either persuade customers to shift channels or chasing a market that isn’t there.
To help the process of channel review and selection, Smart Insights has developed this list as a starting point for a comprehensive view on all current channels available to organizations.
Click here and read the BIG list of today’s marketing channels
9. Which content marketing channels are best for business growth?
Take a look at these statistics:
- Inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads than outbound marketing into the marketing funnel.
- Adopting an inbound strategy raises average conversion rates from 6% to 12%.
- Brands that rely on inbound marketing save over $14 dollars for every new customer acquired.As you can see, effective inbound marketing (using content to attract customers) can make your business much more profitable.
Still not quite convinced? Click here for more in-depth about how content marketing can help you build your business.
10. How can content marketing benefit my business?
One of the reasons some companies have hesitated to allocate resources to inbound marketing techniques – like content marketing – is that it can be difficult to really understand the benefits of content marketing.
Getting people to think more highly of your business certainly sounds great, but the results are quite nebulous.
In this case, it helps to begin thinking about just how many benefits content marketing can bring.
After properly defining content marketing, this Moz article starts with the benefits that are more intangible and then moves into those that are tangible.
11. How do I create a content marketing plan?
Content marketing is the backbone of SEO.
This is exactly why a report from the Content Marketing Institute showed 80% of B2B marketers have a strategy in place for it.
Regardless of whether you’re a novice or you’ve had years of experience, creating a proper content marketing plan should be your priority.
Click here for 17 useful tips to help you draw up a successful content marketing plan
12. What does a content marketing strategy include?
If you’re developing a new content marketing strategy or reevaluating the one you already have, there are a few common elements to consider.
To start with, it’s important to document your strategy. Putting your strategy into writing helps focus thinking and get everyone on the same page. It also provides a benchmark by which to measure the success of your efforts.
If you’re looking for the key elements every content marketing strategy should include, you’re going to love this article from Marketing Tango: What to Include in Your Content Marketing Strategy
13. What’s the difference between content strategy and content marketing?
While many, many people use the terms “content strategy” and “content marketing” interchangeably, they are not the same thing, because you can strategize about non-marketing content.
For our purposes, though,when we talk about “content strategy,” you can assume we’re talking about “content marketing strategy.”
- Content strategy: Internal guidelines and governance
- Content marketing: Editorial calendar, creation, curation, promotion, iteration
- Content marketing strategy (overlap area): Vision, goals, audience research, voice and style, ideation, external governance
Content strategy concerns itself with the vision. Content marketing focuses on the tactics and execution.
With that out of the way, click here to dive into the steps you’ll need to take in order to create your own strategy.
14. Is content marketing right for my business?
The phrase “content is king” has generated a lot of buzz among online marketers.
While there are great debates to be had over the accuracy of that phrase, the point is that content is a bit different than other areas of marketing like social media and SEO, in that many of them are really only around because of content.
Think about it.
For one thing, without content, SEOs would have nothing to optimize for search engines.
The metadata they add to posts is an attempt to help robots like Google and Facebook wrap their digital heads around the complexities of the content they’re indexing.
Every link earned by every marketer points to a piece of content, and the keywords that people type into search engines are an attempt to find…
—yep— content.
Every email, every tweet, every landing page, and every product description—they’re all examples of content
So what is content marketing, then?
Content marketing is the use of that content—any of it—to help meet a marketing goal for your organization.
That could be acquisition of potential customers, retention of existing ones, making more people aware of your brand or your products, or really anything else.
Click here to continue reading how content marketing can benefit your business
15. What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
In
stead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.
Content marketing is good for your bottom line — and your customers
Specifically, there are three key reasons — and benefits — for enterprises who use content marketing:
- Increased sales
- Cost savings
- Better customers who have more loyalty
Click here to continue reading
16. Which companies and brands use content marketing?
Content marketing is one of the newest forms of marketing, but it’s proving to be one of the most effective.
According to a survey from the Custom Content Council, 72% of marketers feel that content marketing offers a better ROI than magazine advertising, while 69% feel that it’s more effective than direct mail and PR.
Despite these statistics, some marketers are still a bit skeptical about the benefits of content marketing. Below, we’ve profiled 25 companies that made it big through the effective use of content marketing. If you’re still on the fence about this powerful new strategy, these success stories are sure to make a believer out of you.
25 Brands That Made it Big with Content Marketing
17. What does content marketing have to do with digital branding?
Content marketing and digital branding are two completely different things but go great together like peanut butter and bananas.
Content marketing and digital branding can both stand-alone like bananas and peanut butter, but they complement each other perfectly.
Both techniques have commonalities and differences. So, click here to dive in to learn how to use content marketing to build your digital brand.
18. Can content marketing help boost search ranking?
For sure, content marketing can be very effective in increasing traffic, generating leads,enabling sales – and contributing to SEO.
When done well, content marketing can contribute to boosting a site’s position in search rankings.
Although this may not seem like the most obvious benefit to a successful content marketing strategy, it’s an effect that no business can ignore.
If you want to boost your search engine rankings, you’ll love these 7 quick ways to take advantage of your site’s content to rank higher in the search engine results pages.
19. What’s next in content marketing?
As the content marketing landscape continues to rapidly evolve, it makes sense to look to research to identify trends and patterns that can help guide your strategy.
That’s why SnapApp has gathered 25 content marketing stats all in one place – so you can start thinking about how this data will inform your plans.
If you’re wondering what’s next in Content Marketing, click here to dive in and explore these stats to get a firm grasp on what’s new.
20. What do I do when content marketing goes wrong?
If content marketing was easy, everybody would be doing it. What´s that you´re saying – everybody is?
Ah,but are they doing it right?
There are plenty of brands creating content by writing words on a page, sharing videos or attempting to jump on the latest pop culture bandwagon. But there are many more wondering why they are not neck deep in retweets or splashed across the front page of Reddit.
Maximizing the effectiveness of content marketing requires some finesse. Here are 5 things you can do when your content marketing isn’t going as well as you want it to.
21. What are content marketing channels?
Think of content marketing channels as content distribution channels.
Once you create content, you need to decide how you are going to distribute it.
To figure this out, you need to consider the context in which your audience will view the content and then use that to alter the content accordingly.
In short, you need a content marketing channel plan that considers these seven factors:
- Situational analysis
- Channel objectives
- Content/conversation plan (how you’re telling your story)
- Metrics
- Personas addressed
- Content management process
- Editorial calendar
If you’d like a content marketing channel plan, you’re going to love this article by the Content Marketing Institute: 7 Steps to Creating Your Content Marketing Channel Plan
22. Who on my team is responsible for content marketing?
There is an interesting fight happening in marketing departments around the globe: Where does content marketing belong?
- Does it belong to the PR pros because they are natural storytellers and are trained to craft a great story?
- Does it belong to advertisers because, without distribution, your content goes nowhere?
- Does it belong to marketers because it helps generate leads?
- Does it belong to a new role—the content marketer—so it can apply a very specific skill set?
The problem with this kind of thinking, of course, is it creates silos. Silos, by their very nature, are harmful to an organization and weigh it down when it really needs to be flexible to the constant change of technology.
Silos also create fiefdoms that prevent colleagues from talking to one another.
For a deeper look at where Content Marketing belongs inside your organization, click here.
23. Who is doing content marketing well?
As a content marketer, you might find it tough to uncover the valuable gems in that same big sea of content. It can be hard to learn about brands — beyond Red Bull, GoPro, and BlendTec — that are executing successful, creative content marketing.
Here are 38 brands doing great work that you may not know about.
These examples range from a blog created by a 70-year-old paint company to a veterans magazine publishing over 100 years, and from an amusement park’s website previewing the customer experience to a site featuring heroes by a church-administration software company.
The 38 examples are broken into the following categories — blogs, integrated marketing, newsletters, personalization/segmentation, SEO effect, visuals/video/audio, and websites.
If you want to know who is doing content marketing well, you can’t miss this
24. Who needs content marketing?
The short answer is; you do.
Here’s why.
Constantly clamoring to grab the attention of prospective customers, small businesses are competing with a lot of noise.
Consumers are cutting through clutter by fast-forwarding television shows, subscribing to ad-free digital radio, installing ad-blockers to browse their favorite websites sans-ads and customizing what’s in their social media feeds.
To avoid getting skipped over or ignored, savvy digital marketers must craft messages that their target audience wants to see.
When small businesses communicate with their customers by providing information instead of offering a sales pitch, the consumer will listen. The message and the brand is no longer an interruption, but a valued information provider.
You might be thinking, “That’s not what I do — I’m not a writer!” But whether you sell gizmos, fix cars or build homes, content marketing for your company can help you attract and retain customers.
Here are 5 ways content marketing drives results for small businesses.
25. Who uses content marketing?
93% – that’s how many organizations said they rely on content marketing for brand building and demand generation this year according to the Content Marketing Institute. With 87% of buyers stating that digital content has a large impact on their purchasing decisions this year, it’s clear that content marketing is on the ups.
So who’s doing it really well?
Which content marketing brands have rocked the boat and set the example? NewsCred scoured their archives and asked content marketers to weigh in.
Here’s their list of the 32 Top Content Marketing Brands.
26. Who does content marketing well?
According to Contently, 2016’s top content marketing covered topics like dating, science, 
politics, mascara, Ryan Reynolds, trap music, and anthropomorphic breakfast food.
While some brands fell back on conventional marketing—the average TV commercial, the basic how-to article, the microsite that only 12 people visit—these companies cut through the noise by taking calculated risks.
You’re going to love this top 10 Best in Content Marketing
27. Why does content marketing matter?
To understand how and why content marketing matters today, you need to understand what it can do for your brand, who your target audience is, and your content objective.
Additionally, your business goal and what it is you need to gain from your content marketing efforts also matter.
First, let’s understand the need for content marketing.
Think about traditional marketing and display advertising. More often than not, consumers want to turn off ads or set up ad blockers.
One reason for this is they find ads annoying. Secondly, the ads are not relevant to their needs.
If your brand relies on digital advertising then know that the ad-blocking revolution is growing and will continue to get stronger
28. Why is social media important in content marketing?
You spend hours researching, writing, designing and publishing that awesome piece of content but are you getting the best results for all your hard work? Social media and content marketing go together like tea and digestive biscuits and one without the other just won’t work.
In this article, AgoraPulse will tell you why social media is important for content marketing and give you 5 practical ways optimize your content marketing results
29. Why is content marketing growing in importance to brands?
If you’re in the digital marketing space, you’ve probably heard an awful lot about content marketing. With each Google update, more and more black hat SEO techniques are falling by the wayside, and even legitimate techniques are losing their effectiveness.
Content marketing is only getting more important for SEO, and as it gains in popularity it is becoming more frequently abused.
These days, everyone is a content creator, from your neighbor’s fourteen year-old daughter who tweets every five minutes to your plumber who writes weekly tutorials on his plumbing blog.
Here’s a look back at how we got here, and a look forward at where we’re headed.
30. Why does content marketing work?
The main question most marketers or business owners are asking themselves on a daily basis is, what type of outreach will help to keep their business alive and thriving?
If you think about the constant flood of advertisements and marketing jargon a consumer is exposed to on a daily basis, you would think it’s almost impossible, as a marketer, to stand out among the noise.
On average, according to a market research study, one person is exposed to more than 5,000 advertisement and brand exposures per day!
Advertisers alone will have spent an estimated $600 billion worldwide this past year with the U.S. taking the lead and coming in at $189 billion in advertising dollars spent.
Continue reading on Inc.com >>
31. Why should I do content marketing?
Like other organizations, your business is likely wrestling with a convergence of changes that are upending the familiar tactics you’ve always used to communicate with prospects and customers.
Growing demographic diversity, the adoption of interactive technologies, and evolving media consumption habits have altered how consumers get information and how they perceive branded communication messages.
As you grapple with how to speak effectively with today’s consumers, you’ve likely heard about something called “content marketing.” Maybe you’ve read about it in an article, or perhaps a colleague or consultant has suggested it to you.
But before you dive in, you need to learn more.
What is content marketing anyway?
Is it just a fad?
Does it actually mean anything, or is it just a cool-sounding buzzword?
Could it actually help you achieve your objectives?
And if so, how?
If you’d like a definition of content marketing, why content marketing should be part of your marketing strategy, and how to get started with content marketing, you need to read this article from Campaignium now.
32. Why should I use content marketing in my business?
In a world where content marketing is part of 90% of marketer’s plans and people spend an average of 10.7 hours a day with content, this would seem like a no-brainer question to answer.
Here are 7 reasons that answer the question: Why use content marketing? The best part… they hold for both businesses and solopreneurs.
33. Why isn’t content marketing working for me?
Everyone’s doing content marketing. 94% of small businesses, 93% of B2Bs, and 77% of B2Cs use content marketing. Basically, that’s everyone.
Either way, that’s a pretty significant number of businesses that are having a go at it.
There’s a problem, though. Just because everyone is doing content marketing does not mean that they are winning at content marketing.
According to Content Marketing Institute, only 9% of B2B marketers consider their content marketing efforts to be “very effective.” In other words, all this content production doesn’t seem to be working.
There’s obviously a disconnect between what marketers are doing, and what is actually working. There’s this belief, a correct one, that “content is the present — and future — of marketing.” Marketing gods like Seth Godin have long sung the praises of content. Others declare that “content marketing is dead because now it is simply marketing.”
But is it content marketing working? Just because something is common, popular, or important doesn’t automatically mean that it’s working.
I wrote this article for those businesses who are doing content marketing just like they’ve been told, but aren’t seeing results. They don’t feel like content marketing is effective .
Why isn’t content marketing working for you? Here are a few of the most common reasons.
34. When can content marketing be bad for my business?
Do you remember the video of skydiver and BASE jumper Felix Baumgartner breaking the speed of sound in the Red Bull Stratos project?
Or Google’s interactive, timely Google Doodles?
These are just two examples of successful content marketing, where brands are engaging consumers in a completely non-promotional way.
Content marketing has taken off in the past couple years (what is content marketing? Learn more about it here). In fact, 72% of marketers feel that content marketing is essential for their business. It is a fun, authentic way for companies to connect with their target audience and build awareness and brand loyalty.
72% of marketers feel that content marketing is essential for their business.
However effective content marketing can be, there are some scenarios where content marketing can be a bad idea for your business.
35. Why is content marketing the new SEO?
SEO is not what it used to be.
You can’t just pop up an ugly website, throw up mediocre content, build a few links and expect to rank well.
These days you actually have to build a good website, write high quality content that solves peoples’ problems, build thousands of links and get thousands of social shares.
But there is one big issue…
It’s hard to scale all.
Building thousands of high quality links manually is really expensive, and even if you have the money, it will take months, if not years, to build those links.
If you don’t have anything worth sharing on the social web, you won’t get social shares unless you buy them from spammy accounts.
If you want to build thousands of links naturally and get thousands of social shares, you need to read this article.
36. Why is content marketing important for B2B marketers?
Content Marketing is a fairly established and versatile form of marketing, but understanding the role it plays in the B2B space can be challenging.
B2B marketers find it challenging to adopt content marketing strategy because their products or services may not be particularly “interesting” (at least not in the traditional sense of content sharing).
So what focus should marketers have when implementing a content marketing strategy in a B2B context?
If you’re in the B2B space, or have clients that are, you’re going to want to see this series on content marketing for B2B. Click here for pros and cons, consumption behaviors of B2B customers, and some best practice examples
37. Why is content marketing the best long term marketing strategy?
Older marketing and advertising strategies have been based on short-term gains.
For example…
…a direct mail piece might convert a handful of recipients, but once it’s sent out, most of the batch gets thrown away and the design is scrapped in favor of next year’s model.
…a billboard might work well for a few months, but eventually, the design will grow tiresome, and you’ll need to purchase new space to see another influx.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach, especially if you’re seeing a positive ROI.
If you want to be successful in the long term, you’ll need a strategy with a little more staying power.
Inbound marketing strategies, like SEO and social media marketing, are effective in producing a slow build of results, but for my money, there’s no better long-term strategy than content marketing.
Here’s why content marketing is the best long term marketing strategy
38. Why is content marketing “king”?
Content marketing is not a new concept in the world of digital marketing, but right now, it is more important than ever before.
Content is the king and it is increasingly working its way to the forefront of all digital marketing strategies, as it becomes a crucial element that reaps big rewards.
In saying that, a one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice when it comes to content marketing.
Instead, a focus on creating unique, high-quality and utterly authentic content that is entertaining, useful and interesting for consumers will get you the crown.
From text, video and imagery to infographics, surveys, webinars and podcasts, whatever your preferred content medium is, ensure it is shareable and relevant to your industry.
So, why is content king? Here’s 5 reasons
39. Why is content marketing the new branding?
Branding isn’t your company name.
It’s not a tag line. It’s not a logo.
Branding is just another name for creating a perception.
When marketers ask, “How do we want to brand this product?” what they’re really asking is how they want their audience to think about that product once it comes to market.
A brand is a promise. It’s an expectation of an experience.
The company and tag line and logo and brand colors only exist to call that experience to mind.
Brands can meet that expectation, exceed that expectation … or in the worst cases, fall short of that expectation.
Click here to continue reading and to get your free Content Marketing Media Matrix for Small Business Infographic
40. Why is content marketing effective?
You’ve probably heard that content marketing is the wave of the future.
While it’s true that content marketing is massively effective for nearly every company and industry on the globe, many marketers don’t understand why.
But do you know why?
Let’s shine a light on this puzzling (yet fascinating) state of affairs. These 10 statistics that will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that content marketing is today’s marketing.
41. Why content marketing is necessary?
Content marketing is more than advertising, it is all about showing your customers who you are, rather than just telling them.
It has transformed the way businesses interact with their customers.
Since the rise of social media, brands now have to become closer and more communicative with their customers if they want their loyalty and trust in return.
Simply broadcasting advertising messages is no longer the only strategy available and it’s not advisable if your customer has made the effort of including you in their ‘social’ circle.
Here is 5 reasons why content marketing is important to your business
42. Why is content marketing the future of marketing?
Technology innovation has enabled incredible changes in the human behavior. If we look back just 20 years, we recall huge changes that disrupted the status quo:
- In the mid 90’s, access to the internet changed the way people sought and consumed information (and marketers had to grapple with a whole new way of marketing online)
- In the early 2000’s, online social networks allowed millions of people to connect with each other (and marketers had to develop playbooks to best engage with the prospects and customers)
- In the late 2000’s, smartphones gave the public instant access to everything the internet offered, no matter where they are (and marketers had to ensure their content strategies were mobile-friendly)
Today, HubSpot believes we’re in the beginning of another period of major change.
Here’s the future of content marketing: how people are changing the way they read, interact, and engage with your content.
43. Why does content marketing work?
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times – content is king.
Content, however, is also everywhere.
This means that producing content that truly stands above the rest becomes harder and harder each passing day.
Here’s how to implement a content marketing plan that will not only increase the awareness of your brand, but will help you build your brand and your customer base.
44. Why does long form video content marketing work?
In a world where gurus advise keeping online videos short and sweet, here’s why long form video content marketing works so well.
45. Why is content marketing important for B2B?
Here’s why…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJiWCa4LnpI
46. I know I asked before… what is content marketing?
Maybe there’s a little confusion of what content marketing actually is. You know it has something to do with all this Facebook and blogging stuff that people are doing. You know you need to be a part of.
Other than that… the story stops.
To really represent your brand online effectively, you need to know where you’re doing what you’re doing.
That includes knowing the true meaning of content marketing.
47. What is the best B2B content marketing strategy?
If you have been following, you know that the tides are turning.
While during 2016 we were facing the trough of disillusionment, the energy and momentum we are seeing right now are far more positive.
Want proof?
See the newest research.
B2B Content Marketing 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America
48. How much does content marketing cost?
Businesses interested in leveraging the many benefits of content marketing seem to have an ever-growing list of solutions and content strategies from which to choose. You can hire freelancers, outsource their content to an agency; or you can onboard and train your own in-house team.
With so many options, it can be hard to decide which is best for you.
Understanding how each of these solutions can best align with your overarching business goals, budgeting restrictions and the needs of your customers is a necessary step before you promote your brand with a content driven strategy—especially when on a tight budget.
While many of these strategies can prove successful for a variety of business models, not every tactic is going to be effective for your specific company needs.
Here’s how to identify the content needs of your business and about the pros, cons, and costs associated with multiple content marketing solutions to better inform your budgeting decisions.
49. What is a powerful content marketing strategy?
If you’re ready to jump into content production and want to start writing right away, I understand.
At some point, you’ll need to define why you create content and what you’re trying to achieve with it. These are the decisions that give your content focus and clarity — and make you stand out as a content publishing guru.
Why not make those decisions now so you can lay a strong foundation?
You need to know your objectives, your target audience, and your strategy.
You need to learn the technology and work flow that will help you meet your objectives.
If you want to confidently plan and create your powerful content marketing strategy so you can create the type of content that will engage your ideal customers and grow your business, click here.
50. How much does content marketing really cost?
So you’re looking to get a better idea of how much real content marketing will cost your organization and in doing so you’re trying to budget accordingly.
Since you know the importance of content marketing in today’s market and have made the transition from a SEO to content marketing agency, we wanted to give insight into what content marketing will cost your business at every level of a campaign.
Crafting a content marketing campaign requires a number of processes that must occur continuously and dynamically in order to maximize the potential of your content reaching its intended audience in an effective manner.
Click here for the process Vertical Measures uses when developing campaigns.
51. How do I write content for content marketing purposes?
By now, you have a winning strategy for how you will use content to grow your business… an effective idea-generating system in place… and an editorial plan for the content you’ll create over the next few months, give or take.
It’s time to start creating content.
But not just any content. We’re talking relevant, creative, engaging content that actually gets read.
And that’s exactly what you’re about to get – six steps of the creative process, in depth and with specific examples showing you how to turn your idea into a finished piece of content.
52. Do you know any content-writing secrets or shortcuts?
Since most content starts with written words, it doesn’t matter what type of content you produce, you can benefit from knowing the secrets of professional writers.
One of the biggest struggles content marketers have is producing enough content and simultaneously keeping the quality high.
That’s something you must work through on a daily basis.
If you want secrets or shortcuts, you’re going to love these 12 secrets of professional writers: the tips and tricks that help them consistently produce a steady stream of high-quality content.
53. Do you have any content marketing templates?
As a matter of fact, I’ve found 12 tried-and-true templates that content writers have used successfully for years.
These templates are invaluable for finding the right structure for the type of content you’re creating.
Why is this important?
Because when it comes to communicating your ideas, the way you organize and present them is as important as your ability to put them into words.
In most cases, one of these templates will suffice. What’s more, these templates work for video and audio content as well as written.
So each time you begin a project — no matter what type of content it is — after gathering research and developing your ideas, review these templates to find the best structure for your particular message.
Then all you have to do is plug in your ideas and develop each section.
Click here for the 12 tried-and-true content marketing templates
54. I’m stuck. How can I get through this content marketing road-block?
Because content marketing involves more than publishing a few blog posts, and because content creation demands a huge commitment of time and resources, there are a lot of roadblocks that can slow your progress.
Some of them are obvious: dealing with writer’s block, for instance.
Others stem from wrong thinking about what content marketing is and how to manage it.
Here’s how you can overcome ten common obstacles
55. How do I optimize my content for search?
Planning and writing your content is only part of the process.
You also need to optimize it so people can find it in search engines.
There are rumors that SEO is dead, especially since Google’s Panda and Penguin updates.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, well-written, well-optimized content is the best SEO possible.
Here are the basic tactics to make sure your content can be found by search engines and readers.
56. How do I promote my content so I can increase my traffic, engagement, and sales?
The secret to content marketing boils down to three things: creating great content, making sure it gets found in search engines, and promoting it to your followers.
Once you create great content and make sure it ranks well in search engines, it’s time to promote it.
Here’s how to promote your content.
57. Is it possible to drive business objectives with content marketing?
It’s easy to get sidetracked by all the tasks of content marketing — planning, writing, publishing and engaging — and forget the bottom-line purpose of doing it.
The ultimate purpose of content marketing is to market your business, resulting in higher website traffic and sales.
Once people are on your site, you need to convert that traffic into sales.
That’s why you’ll love these five methods for monetizing your content without advertising.
Not all of them will work for every business.
All of them are valuable strategies that are being used successfully by other content marketers.
Read through all of them, and then pick the methods that could work for your business. Test them out, and then create the unique mix that’s right for you.
58. How do I create a winning content marketing strategy?
Content marketing isn’t an “optional extra”…it’s ESSENTIAL!
You know that.
But who can they trust to implement a content strategy that will actually deliver qualified leads and prospects without creating a ton of extra work or hurting their brand equity?
Click here for a step-by-step plan for turning your content into free, organic traffic
59. I’m struggling – How can I make content marketing work?
A lot of businesses are starting to take their content marketing campaigns seriously.
However, just because more people are turning to the world of content marketing strategy as a means of obtaining potential customers, doesn’t mean that everyone knows what they’re doing.
In this post, we’re going to take a look at some of the common struggles that people face when it comes to their content marketing campaigns.
If you’re struggling to get content marketing to work for you, click here.
60. How do I create meaningful content for my market?
Meaningful content turns your readers into customers long-term. That’s why you want your readers to come back to your site again and again.
How many times have you come across an online post that made you go, “The writing is wonderful! Let me read this once again.”?
Or a site that you think – “Let me bookmark this site right now, they have great content!”?
The Internet is abound with varied content and I bet you’ve read articles that also made you think, “What a waste of time!”
Another common reaction to posts that seem done-to-death and repetitive is, “I could have written better than that!”
While every content marketer hopes to elicit the first response from readers, the other two are hardly helpful in figuring out what takes a post from being a “waste of time” to becoming “wonderful”!
If you want to prompt the “Wow!” response every time, content marketers like you need to know what’s in this article from E2M Solutions.
61. How can I write stronger content?
There are plenty of folks happy to tell you how to write better, just as any doctor will tell you to “eat right and exercise.”
Changing your writing (or eating) habits only happens when you understand why you do what you do.
You’re about to get some help with that.
That blog post or email you wrote must now compete for attention with Facebook and text messages.
Here’s how to compete more effectively, and why you’re not doing it already.
Click here for the top 10 writing tips (and the psychology behind them). There’s a free info-graphic in there, too!
62. Do you know of any great content marketing tools?
As a matter of fact, I do. I found a list of 35 of them! We use quite a few of them here at Your Perfect Sales Funnel -> and plan to try out more that are on this list.
You see, content marketing lies at the core of all online marketing strategies as it improves brand awareness, fosters strong customer relationships and increases revenue (indirectly).
Let’s take a quick look at a few statistics that reveal the potential of content marketing, when done correctly:
- Marketers who leveraged content marketing saw 7.8 times more website traffic than those who didn’t, according to Aberdeen
- Content marketing costs 62 percent lesser than outbound marketing, but generates three times more leads
If you want to take your marketing strategy to the next level, create high-quality content and distribute it across the right channels to ensure maximum visibility. The tactics are several, but you need to know and apply the right ones along with the right tools to ensure success.
Here is the list of the top 35 tools that will help you stay ahead of the competition.
63. I’m out of ideas – How do you come up with content marketing ideas?
You sit and stare at your computer screen, willing yourself to come up with a great idea for your next blog post or newsletter.
You don’t have much time before your next meeting, so you need that stroke of genius NOW!
What do you do when no ideas come to you?
Everyone should have a list of ‘go to’ sources of inspiration for new content ideas.
Never be without ideas again!
If you want ideas, you’ll love this article on how to come up with 50 content Ideas in 30 minutes or less.
64. I have a lot of content, but I’m not getting traffic. How do I reach my audience?
If you want to see the benefits of content marketing, then you need to embrace two things.
The first is creating great content. You know this. It’s why 77% of marketers increased their content marketing budget between 2014 and 2015.
The second thing you need to do is something that most people overlook.
It’s the act of distribution.
Content distribution is an important piece of the content marketing puzzle but one that is often overlooked. Too many marketers press publish and expect that that magically the content will take off. It doesn’t work that way.
Unless you’ve built a following that is engaged and waiting for your next piece – you have to put in a bit of elbow grease and spread your content.
If you need to get eyes on your content, here’s more than 80 different tactics that you can use to make your content spread.
65. How can I turn my content into free, organic traffic?
Ordinary content marketers just don’t get it…
There was a time when having a blog was enough, but today (if you actually want to generate free, targeted traffic) you need to do more.
So how do you do it?
How do you do you build a “machine” that turns content into free, targeted traffic?
Fortunately, that’s exactly what you’re about to learn in this step-by-step plan for turning content into Free, Organic Traffic (hint: It looks something like the image above)
66. Are there any out dated content marketing strategies that I should ditch?
Content marketing is an ever-evolving industry, which requires constant updating, refining and modification.
While some pillars of content marketing are fundamental and unchanging, there are many others which zone in and out of relevance.
Chances are, if your content marketing has become stagnant, you might be adopting at least one of the following five out-dated strategies discussed here, regularly.
67. Are there certain emotions to focus on in my content marketing?
Do you know what makes people share content? Have you ever wondered why some images, articles, videos or graphics get so many shares, while others seem to never have a chance?
Most of the time the trigger is emotions. We all know from our private life how powerful emotions can be. And this power can be used in Content Marketing.
Fractl analyzed images from Reddit that went viral. And what all these images had in common were emotions.
And emotions do not just influence what we share – they also influence what we buy and how we make a buying decision. Contrary to what many of us may believe, buying decisions are 80% emotional and only 20% based on logic.
If you want to learn which emotions trigger the “sharing behavior,” you’ll want to see this analysis.
68. How do I start a content marketing campaign?
Any content marketing campaign requires a solid foundation of knowledge, preparation, and execution in order to succeed.
Failure to lay this foundation can lead to misguided efforts, disinterested readership, and a waste of company and human resources.
If you are just beginning to develop your content marketing campaign, or you are looking for a fresh start, the process of building from scratch is actually not so complicated.
By understanding the aims of content marketing, developing your corporate identity, building your platform, and establishing a process of content creation that’s optimized, your team can count themselves among the growing number of marketers who feel confident and effective.
Click here to learn how to start a successful content marketing campaign from scratch
69. I’m an agency, how do I sell a content marketing strategy to my clients?
Ugh! The pain of submitting proposals, RFPs and vying for new clients.
It’s both time-consuming and often ineffective, especially when the resulting contracts do not lead to long-term business relationships. Selling content marketing strategy to your clients is one of the best ways to foster a long-term, equitable relationship.
According to Agency Spotter, more than 120,000 ad agencies exist in the U.S. today.
Executives throughout the country feel that in the recent past, the industry has become increasingly competitive. If your business model depends solely on one-off projects like web design or branding, your agency won’t be able to compete without a stream of recurring revenue.
Agency revenues continue to increase year after year.
What’s the key to their success?
Recurring revenue and the ability to provide 
ongoing services to existing clients.
Again and again, agencies that provide content marketing strategy to clients survive and thrive in this competitive environment.
Because, as it turns out, becoming a strategic content partner for your clients comes with a number of considerable benefits.
If you want to sell content marketing strategy to your clients, this article is for you.
70. How do I measure content marketing effectiveness?
I’d be lying if I said this question didn’t keep many of our peers and colleagues awake at night.
Despite the explosion of metrics and analytics tools over the past several years, many marketers still think that a data-driven approach to marketing is best left to the nerds.
Here’s a little secret – agile, metrics-focused marketing isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s not too hard for anyone.
You’re going to love this list of 9 ways to measure your content marketing effectiveness.
71. Do you have any resources on how to do content marketing well?
I’m not going to sell you on the importance of content marketing.
If you’re here, you already know it’s an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy, because content marketing:
- Builds authority and credibility…
- Engages and nurtures both prospects and customers by providing ACTUAL value, and most importantly it…
- Enables your message to spread to new audiences organically (i.e. for free!)…
In other words, content marketing delivers traffic, leads and customers: The lifeblood of any business.
So that’s why businesses need content marketers.
There’s just one problem: Most so-called “content marketers” don’t know what they’re doing.
That’s where you come in.Here’s a step-by-step plan for turning content into free, organic traffic.
72. I’m looking to hire a content marketing agency – do you have any tips?
When you Google “con
tent marketing agency,” more than 153 million results appear.
Finding and vetting the best content marketing agency for your needs can seem like a daunting task, but it’s critical to your long-term success.
So, where do you start?
Here’s10 things to look for in an effective content marketing agency.
73. Can content marketing improve my SEO?
If you’re looking for new ways to improve your website’s search engine rankings and overall SEO (or search engine optimization), has it crossed your mind that content marketing might be one possible solution?
You might be wondering if you can improve SEO with content, or if there are any content marketing SEO benefits you should be aware of.
If you want to learn more about how content marketing and SEO can work together to help your site reach more potential customers and leads, click here
74. How does content marketing build trust?
Have you ever stopped to think about what content marketing is really all about?
Sure it is about telling the story of your brand and answering questions that your customers have about your products and services in a “non-salesly” fashion but deep down brands that do content marketing well, do it for something more than those things.
The brands that do content marketing better than their competition are the companies that realize at the end of the day content marketing is about building trust.
Whether you are creating content for new prospects, current customers, industry analysts or someone else entirely, the real purpose behind those efforts should be to build a higher level of trust between the consumer of the content and the brand creating it.
Here is 5 steps to build trust using content marketing.
75. How does content marketing generate leads?
As with most forms of marketing, measuring the ROI on campaigns can be tricky.
It makes it tough for many small and medium-sized businesses to justify the cost.
If you are smart about it, however, we believe that content marketing can generate a tangible return in the form of what matters most, leads.
Read on to discover the benefits and specifically how these benefits drive leads.
76. How do you optimize your content to maximize social media shares?
Creating any old content and expecting it to find success on social media is a fast road to frustration.
In fact, it’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole – it ain’tgonna work.
Nowadays? The content you create can’t just rely on being the Best of the Best of the Best, Sir!
Rather, it needs to cater itself to the strengths and sharing habits of each social platform and the users that frequent them.
We know. It sounds like an overwhelming prospect. Sure, you’ve written the content. But how do you maximize its social media shares?
Here’ the answer to that question with 7 tips that will help you optimize your content to achieve the maximum social shares possible.
77. Do you know the best content marketing practices for getting found?
You have a content calendar.
You have a blog.
You have a social media strategy.
All you’re missing is, well, the big kahuna: audience share that reflects the value of all the fantastic content you’ve created to promote your brand and your services to the big wide world.
When it comes to content marketing, it’s imperative to stay current with SEO best practices to ensure that your content has the best shot of appearing high on search engine results pages. That means getting crazy smart about how search engines view your content, and how they prioritize rankings based on how helpful your content is at answering the question asked in a search.
How should you incorporate the best SEO practices so your content drives users to your site, and ultimately into those precious conversions you’re after?
Here’s a best-practice guide to incorporating today’s SEO principles into your content marketing
78. Do you know how to figure out content marketing ROI?
What is your content marketing ROI?
The truth is—most marketers don’t know.
Around three quarters struggle to quantify the return on their content marketing, making it a tricky proposition to build the business case.
There are very few benchmarks, research, and examples that have been published on content marketing ROI.
At every company I have worked with, content marketing ROI is much higher than the average marketing ROI, and significantly higher than traditional marketing tactics—in every place we’ve looked.
If you’re trying to figure out the ROI on your content marketing, here are 7 metrics marketers use for measuring content marketing success… and more!
79. Can you help me get a handle on my content marketing KPIs?
Content marketing is an enigma. When it comes to doing it, almost every company on the web is clued-in. But when it comes to measuring it, most are clueless—and the majority is willing to admit it.
Let’s unravel this sucker.
Research reveals the majority of companies plan to continue increasing their content marketing budgets.
The problem is that less than 23% of marketers are successful at tracking the ROI of their content marketing programs.
It turns out that what to measure is the point of confusion.
If you’re confused, you’re not alone.
That’s why you’re going to love this easy-to-understand overview of content marketing KPIs for the analytically challenged
80. Do you know how to make money blogging?
If you want to build your brands authority and nurture prospect/customer relationships the right way, you must deliver value in advance.
Thanks to the Law of Reciprocity, your “value in advance” will turn into traffic, leads, sales, and ultimately… you will make money blogging
Content (i.e. information or entertainment) in the form of blog posts (like this one) is how you do just that.
You need to learn how to craft and execute a content strategy that spreads your brands message to new audiences and existing prospects, alike, by providing genuine value in advance.
Blogs are powerful content marketing vehicles because of their flexibility. They are classified as “Top of Funnel” content and are used to create awareness of your brand, product, or service. There are over 100 different blog post types that you can use to keep your posts fresh.
The type of post you’re reading right now is called a Fish-Bone post.
It’s a list of curated articles that answer various questions about content marketing and blogging. As you’re reading, you notice how valuable the post is, and the truth of the matter is that I barely wrote anything.
There are also strategies to find and manage outside writers so you don’t have to do the writing on original content.
Next you drive traffic to your blog post using the 8 organic (free) and 5 paid traffic channels that spread your content across the social web. Your carefully placed calls to action work for you to convert casual readers into leads and sales – just like the calls-to-action found inside this post!
In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret – I wrote this post hoping you would want to know how you can turn your blog posts into free, organic traffic. Then how to turn that traffic into customers and make money blogging.
If you’re reading this post right now and that sounds like something you’d want to learn how to do, then I’d like to invite you to check out Content Marketing Mastery.
Content Marketing Mastery is where you will receive the most up-to-date content marketing/blogging strategies and methodologies that are actually working TODAY, including:
- How to create your Customer Avatar so you can architect a content strategy that attracts leads and buyers.
- The 8 tools youll need to be an effective content marketer
- The TOFU/MOFU/BOFU content strategy that transforms ice cold prospects at the top of the funnel (TOFU) into loyal buyers of even your most expensive products and services at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU)
- The 6 types of content you need in the Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) to generate targeted leads and prospects
- 5 content types that convert leads into serial, high-ticket buyers
- 12 Goals, 16 Metrics and 21 different types of content to create a content strategy that is laser focused on moving the needle for your organization. (Building this content plan is a snap using our Content Marketing Plan worksheets)
- The 60-Second Editorial Planner document that makes content planning a breeze (Seriously you can plan a week of content in less than a minute)
- 6 simple article tweaks (My favorite is Hiding Easter Eggs) you can make to any piece of content that will get it CONSUMED
- The 4 proven ways to find people that can create blog posts and other content for you (and the two ways you can motivate them to create outstanding content for you)
- 212 blog post ideas that guarantee youll never have writers block again including
- 8 blog post types that hijack the virality and authority of OPC (Other Peoples Content) you wont have to write a single word (just like this blog post!).
- The 11 Point SEO Health Check that uncovers the CATASTROPHIC structural issues that will condemn your website to Google Purgatory (Learning to spot these issues is guaranteed to make you a hero)
- The SEO silo process that has worked since the first blogs went online in the 90s, stopped working when the spammers started keyword stuffing and building shady links, and now is the ONLY thing that works to get free Google traffic.
- The 9 Components of The Perfect Email Newsletter (The Greased Chute opening and Drill Down P.S. are two tactics that drive email traffic through the roof)
- PLUS youll learn the 8 organic (free) and 5 paid traffic channels you can employ to spread your content across the social web (Adding these traffic strategies to great content is liking pouring gasoline on a bonfire)
- And much, much more!
It’s the easiest way I’ve found to learn how to make money blogging. If that’s something you’re interested in, and you’d like to know more, click here to check out Content Marketing Mastery now.
