Content marketing
What is content marketing?
The job of content marketers is to create relatable, accurate and authoritative content.
The desired outcome of content marketing is high brand visibility, and to be considered a first preference service or product by a community of prospective clients or customers.
How successful is content marketing in 2022?
We know content marketing is successful because we use it to build our own success here at Textshop. Over the past two years, we’ve reaped the rewards of creating and publishing fully optimised content across multiple channels.
But let’s look further. The following 2022 statistics from the Content Marketing Institute in the United States demonstrate the global success of content marketing.
Across 20 industries in 40 countries, they found that a whopping 92% of respondents said that content marketing was an important part of their overall marketing strategy in 2021.
What tools do successful content marketers use?
- 55% focused on improving the quality of their content
- 46% made search engine optimisation a priority
- 41% focused on making more video and visual content.
Clearly, content marketing is here to stay.
Why do we love content marketing so much at Textshop? Because we’re using authentic, real-life experience to build a community of clients who trust and love our work.
What's wrong with traditional marketing?
Traditional marketing uses formulas and interrupts people with messages to win them over – which has become the least effective way to sell services and products.
Content marketing creates, distributes, shares and publishes content with the aim of reaching a target audience. It informs, educates, entertains, builds loyalty and creates a community. The best type of writing to use for content marketing is conversational writing.
This marketing method is used by world-leading companies such as IBM, L’Oreal, Random House, LinkedIn, Xerox, Goldman Sachs, Rolex, Nike and IKEA. They use it because it works.
How do you content market? You develop a strategy and then use online methods such as blogs on your website, social media, podcasts and videos to reach your existing customers and attract new ones.
The key to good content marketing is a clever strategy, awesome content, (delivered in conversational writing where possible), clever and tested distribution methods and an insightful way to measure its success.
Four steps to your content marketing success
1. Develop a content marketing strategy
A strategy includes your business plan for content marketing; that is, your goal and aims, and any hurdles or opportunities you might encounter.
You also need a comprehensive description of the audience you’re going to create content for.
A strategy includes your business plan for content marketing; that is, your goal and aims, and any hurdles or opportunities you might encounter.
You also need a comprehensive description of the audience you’re going to create content for. What are their needs and expectations? In addition, you analyse your own brand and decide what concepts and messages you want to talk about. Lastly, you include the platforms you want to use and your objectives and processes for each one.
2. Create your content
There are two essential components of content development: topic research and finding the best long-tail keyword to optimise your content for Google.
Then there’s a third – the magic sauce. This is the unique storytelling that enthrals and
entertains your readers, and keeps them coming back. Solid research and keywords are vital, but you also need to be a competent conversational writer who understands what readers are looking for.
Don’t make the mistake of delivering only the content you want them to read.
3. Distribute your content to your target market
Content marketing is distributed via the client’s own media channels (website, email, newsletters, podcasts, webinars), their social media accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube) and paid promotion via the web.
There’s a strong argument for having a planned approach to distribution, rather than a ‘spray-and pray’ approach.
Match your content to the best distribution channel by working out who the content is for, and what you want it to achieve. The current most popular strategies are through videos, blog posts, success stories and case studies.
4. Analyse and measure your results
How do you know if your content marketing is working?
It’s straightforward. You create a measurement process that tracks, analyses and reports on your content marketing performance.
It’s important not to get too caught up in vanity metrics, such as the number of followers or website traffic.
While this data can be informative, also focus on conversions to email subscription, comments that inform you about readers’ expectations and the number of readers who contact your business.
Your certified content marketing partner
We’re certified in content marketing by the world-leading software company, HubSpot.
This means we’re qualified in best practice, long-term content planning, content creation, promotion and analysis. We create exceptional content that is fully optimised for search engines, and that will be read and shared by your readers.
Storytelling has been used to promote artisans, businesses and organisations for hundreds of years. Textshop, on the other hand, has been around for just a few years, but we’re 100% onboard.
I provide an insider’s grasp of content creation. The conversational writing I deliver is crafted with a wordsmith’s expertise, the research skills of an academic and an expert’s understanding of SEO.
Talk to us about developing content for your website and blog and we’ll show you Textshop’s own personal stamp of creativity – the high-ranking blog posts we write for Textshop.
In the meantime, you might like to read more about content marketing in our blog post Is content marketing worth it?
Or, if you’re thinking about creating a blog, read Does my business need a blog?
Already have an established blog for your business? Great! Check out How to write a smashing blog post.
The content we create for you
Click on the photos to learn more.
Full of written goodness and laser-targeted copy, our SEO blog posts bedazzle readers.
Sharp, smart conversational writing for content marketing that perfectionists love.
After years writing for medical colleges, I’m fired up, clued in and ready to start.
Our speechwriter has spun gold for leading politicians, CEOs and business leaders.
Let me wrangle your sentences until they’re smooth, shiny and perfect.