WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING:

The best definition we’ve found is: Content Marketing is “a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” – The Content Marketing Institute

For most B2B marketers this has often meant creating white papers or webinars, but there are so many options that it helps to really know what works for each target. Typical content that you’ll find companies sharing include blog posts and articles, infographics, white papers, research summaries, presentations, tip sheets, press releases, e-books, webinars, videos, podcasts, or bundles of stock images, icons, templates, fonts etc.

Research shows that most prospects in non-scientific sectors would rather see a presentation (a few points with graphics on each slide) than read a document with small text and paragraphs. Infographics have been really popular in the past two years.

We’ll help you figure out what type of content to make and how to optimize it for your audience.

OUR CONTENT MARKETING WORK:

Content Marketing Client Work

Please visit the Explorer Research Learning Center to see a recent example of a learning center we built. (US spelling on center is intentional as the US is their primary market.) Our work for them improved their search visibility by a massive 15X.

WHY DO CONTENT MARKETING:

Here are the reasons why you need to do Content Marketing:

  1. Content marketing increases brand awareness, customer engagement and quality of leads more effectively than traditional marketing.
  2. Content marketing costs less than traditional marketing and is more flexible, because you can test, adapt and optimize much more quickly.
  3. Content marketing enables a brand to establish authority and credibility within its industry and to demonstrate thought-leadership so that the buying conversation is not always about the lowest price.

So why is content marketing effective? Because it helps you win in both the search and discovery methods of how consumers use digital mediums.

Content Marketing in the Search Process:

  1. Most people use search as part of their buying process, to educate themselves, to shortlist options and to find possible solutions.
  2. Good on-page SEO (using keywords in the right places on your website) is not enough to stay well-ranked any more.
  3. You need to generate fresh, original content and then get that content out via email and social media so it can be shared and noticed by search engines and your prospects.

Content Marketing in the Discovery Process:

  1. People’s attention spans are short these days and most people have learned to ignore many forms of traditional media.
  2. Prospective buyers use certain social mediums when they are in a discovery mood, rather than a search mood. They are not looking for anything specifically, but in general are looking to be inspired or to discover interesting things that others like them have found. Pinterest is primarily a discovery engine, rather than a search engine. Others discovery tools include  LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter.
  3. You can’t be found in the discovery process unless you have produced authentic,  original content and syndicated it on the right social media channels so it can be shared and noticed by your prospects.

You may have tried to content creation for social media in-house but you are probably finding that you do it very sporadically, so it’s not really generating a steady stream of quality leads. (Your last blog post was probably 6 months ago!)

If you want a steady stream of leads into your funnel, you need to do this more frequently than you actually do.

So why don’t you generate and publish more content?

The three main reasons are that:

  1. You don’t have staff with the talents, skills or tools to do this because it’s not your core competency.
  2. You don’t have enough time given all the other things you need to do
  3. You’re not disciplined enough to stick to a schedule and be proactive in doing all the parts in the process like idea generation, writing, design, syndication etc.

The best solution for most small firms is to outsource your content marketing and have a talented content marketing agency to do this for you.

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BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY & EXECUTION

The benefits of outsourcing your content marketing to a talented content marketing agency include:

  1. A sustainable flow of quality leads at a lower overall cost vs doing it in-house!
  2. Better quality content: Fresh, clever content that builds your brand, gets found in search & social and generates leads. The content marketing industry is becoming more complex as it grows. There is a content overload on social media, and most of it is very low quality. Experts know how to tell stories authentically, engaging your audience through high quality publishing. We are able to capture your special expertise through interviews and combine that with our external research to produce unique perspectives and compelling content based on industry best practices.
  3. Lower total cost: Content marketing requires several key talent and skillsets that are rarely found in the same person. A small firm would have to hire several experts to cover off all the skills required in the workflow, and this just wouldn’t make sense from a cost perspective. Because we do this for many clients, our experts stay busy and you can have access to them without owning them. You’ll get better content at a lower total cost vs doing it in house.
  4. More consistent content generation: We create an editorial calendar so your content goes out regularly and is timed to key events in your marketing & sales calendar (instead of 1 post a year). This leads to a steadier supply of quality leads.
  5. Improved capacity: Outsourcing frees up your internal staff to focus on other things.
  6. Better alignment with your marketing strategy: Content marketers handle complete and integrated marketing strategies. We work to perfect and align content with your brand’s mission. Internal staff with little marketing training tend to produce random, tactical pieces that are disconnected from an overall brand strategy.
  7. Better measurement and optimization: Measuring the success of content marketing can be a bit tricky. Connecting the analytics to all the content, landing pages, offers and conversion points requires knowledge and technical skills. Many companies do this poorly so they don’t have accurate data which means they can’t optimize their content over time. We make sure you get setup properly and we learn and optimize constantly.

WHY OUTSOURCE YOUR CONTENT MARKETING TO US:

  1. More strategic horsepower. Our chief strategist is an ex P&G Brand Manager who was trained by the best in “insight driven, know your target, distill your message down to a 30sec TV ad” marketing. He’s been working on large, well funded and complex digital initiatives since 1999. He’s learned a lot over the years and is the go-to digital expert for several Toronto agencies.
  2. Our clients say we are clever, trustworthy and genuine experts at what we do. We come up with great ideas based on solid insights into your target prospects.
  3. We are cost effective. We use trusted contract writers and artists to produce great but cost effective content. We find expertise for your market using elance.
  4. You’ll be smarter, better marketers after working with us. We work very collaboratively with you and are transparent about our approaches and thinking.

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