Content marketing is not just writing blogs
A lot of people ask me what I do. I say, I am a content marketer. They then ask me if I write blogs. And when I reply in the negative and say I do marketing, they wonder what the difference is.
Anyone can write a blog, but only marketers think beyond writing and make a solid strategy with potential of reaching out to millions of people. Eventually getting tons of traffic to website and convert the visitors into customers.
My answer is that I do content promotions. I am not a blogger, I am not qualified writer, but I am a storyteller.
I believe in promoting content without spending money on paid promotions on Facebook and Google. If you have a good story to tell, it will be spread organically by people.
Some people understand what I say, some people still think that content marketing is same as writing article to promote through paid promotions.
It’s difficult to explain content marketing to someone without showing them results.
The terms Content Marketing and Digital Marketing have been so misused that anyone doing paid marketing calls himself a digital marketer. Therefore, it’s good for startup founders to understand the scope of content marketing before hiring a marketing guy or approving a marketing budget.
This is how I explain content marketing in a single sentence -
“Content marketing is spreading the word about your company and product to millions of people - without spending direct money on advertisements.”
You may choose to write articles to spread your story. Or in the same way, video, infographics,slides, memes, gifs, jokes, stories too can be used as content.
All your social media posts are a form of content whether you are writing just text messages, images, links or videos. Similarly, all your sales letters, website landing pages, investor pitches, and even customer-care scripts are your content.
There is scope for content marketing wherever there is content. Fortunately,a company can promote content without spending direct money on promotions.
You may see immediate results with Facebook promotions but you will not get even a single click on your website when you pause the campaign. Cost-per-click for Facebook campaigns will seem cheap. You can get 1,000 clicks by spending Rs 1,000 on Facebook.
In contrast, organic marketing takes time but once it starts yielding results - you will keep getting customers on your website with zero spend on additional marketing. ROI is difficult to predict in advance.
For example, in organic content marketing, if you spend Rs 10,000 rupees on creating content, and spent 40 hours on promotions (man hours worth Rs 20,000) - you may get 1,000 visitors in the first month. Cost-per-click is Rs 300. That is 300x of paid promotions!
But great results happen in long run. You should repeat the process for next few months, spend Rs 30,000 each week, for a period of 20 weeks - costing youRs 6 lakh.
If you know how to do things well, you may get a viral video that may fetch 1 million views in 3-4 days. In the same way, your articles, memes, jokes may get viral.
One of our articles also went viral - that got us 25,000 traffic in three days. Our organic search traffic increased from a few hundreds to 10,000 in just 4 months (and extra 15-20K traffic from social media).
You may get cost-per-click less than 1 paisa if you stay consistent with organic content marketing. It’s a compound effect of virality and search engine optimisation.
All that does not happen overnight.
Here is the actual blueprint of my content marketing strategy for my own startup, if you wish to implement in your startup.
#1. Search engine-friendly content
- Articles on blog
- YouTube videos
- Presentations on Slideshare
#2. Viral content
- Articles on your blog/LinkedIn/Medium/Quora
- Facebook videos
- Memes and Gifs
- Infographics
- Jokes
- Entertainment content (Bollywood, Fasion, Sex, Cricket)
- Controversial content on politics and celebrities
#3. Promotion strategy
- Whitehat SEO
- Social media
- Community participation (groups)
- Guest blogging andinfluencer reachout
- Media andpress releases
- Partnerships with brands
- Paid promotions only for your best content
Honestly, it’s easy to make blueprints but difficult to implement. Pick 2-3 items at a time and experiment to compare the results.
You can do wonders with content marketing if you can get hold of 3-4 types of content media and stick with two promotion channels. That’s what you can do with your limited resources in your startup.