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Content is the heart of the online world.

Without words on a page, voices on .mp3s and faces on video, there’s not much going on online.  Even the biggest CPA affiliates have content developed for landing pages.

How d’you learn how to market with content then?

Well, that’s where we can learn a few things from Neil Patel.  Neil’s a big noise in the online world, you may already know that, but he’s put out a rather cool guide on how content marketing works.

“The nuts and bolts of content marketing

Great content marketing does one thing very well… it attracts attention. Unless you’ve been online for ten years and are a minor social media celebrity, your main problem is that nobody knows who you are.

Good content delivered over time will change that. It will give you repeated, regular exposure that builds trust with your audience.

What kind of content marketing am I talking about? They include:

• Blogs – Probably the best known way to share content, blogs are really easy to operate these days. However, competition is stiff and you need to learn how to be unconventional when it comes to blogging.
• Podcast – If you like to talk, then why not start a podcast on a topic that you like and are really good at? And when you continually churn out great podcasts week-after-week, it won’t be long until you have the type of success podcasters like Duct Tape Marketing or Six Pixels of Separation have.
• Video – Gary Vaynerchuk wasn’t the first, but he was definitely the best, growing his offline business with his successful Wine Library TV. Besides, YouTube is the second biggest search engine behind Google. It’s a great way to grow your business.

Great content marketing can build your business to mythic proportions. When BlendTech founder Tom Dickinson dropped an iPhone into one of his blenders and put it online, the video became famous on YouTube.

That single video started an entire series of now famous episodes of Tom dropping all sorts of items into his blenders. Customers quickly learned how much stronger Blendtech blenders were than competitors.

What this taught his customers was how much more powerful his blender was than his competitors. And he did it in a simple way that didn’t cost a lot of money.”

Creating content can be in many formats then, written word, video, infographics, audio and podcasts…pretty much anything that can be a form of interaction between you, and the person you’re communicating with.

But why put so much into you content?  Let’s see what Neil goes on to say…

Building Trust Through Content Marketing

“You have to have this before you can sell

How often do you buy from someone you don’t know…whether it’s a stranger at your door or the salesperson at a car lot?
If you’re like me, then probably not very often… if at all!

See, people will only buy from people they trust, know and like. And content marketing will help you build that relationship with your readers so when it comes time to sell, it will be easy because people know, like and trust you.

The way you do that is to create really clear and compelling content. You can break this content down into three pieces:

• Cornerstone content – This is the content that will make up most of what you give your readers… it’s what defines you. If you’re a SEO, then you’ll write about SEO. If you’re a graphic designer, you’ll give content based on graphic design.
• Personal content – Most of your readers will be around to learn what you have to say about your area of expertise. However, you should not neglect to share personal information whether separately or as part of your content. This is a great method to building relationships with readers.
• Spicy content – Finally, you should occasionally write posts that are controversial and link bait worthy. Write about a high-profile figure that you disagree with or create a list of 53 resources first-time SEOs need like I did.

What you don’t want your content to turn into is a high-pressured sales pitch. Nothing drives readers away faster! The techniques of content marketing won’t work for you if you don’t build trust. Only when you provide high-quality content that trains your audience to pay attention to what you have to say can you expect to have success when it comes time to sell.”

Ah, so we’re building trust here.  Our content is like our voice then yeah?  It’s giving people a chance to suss us out, to decide what kind of a dude/dudette we are, and it moves them to form an opinion of us.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

“How to make selling WAY easier

Listen, you’re not trying to land that deal the moment you meet your reader. You’re not some sleazy, snake-oil salesman who won’t be satisfied unless you buy today. Like Gary Vaynerchuk said, put a ring on it and stop looking for immediate monetization.

See, you’re building a net with your content… a net built out of trust and permission that will support future sales. For example, your net will:

• Answer objections – Your content can be designed to answer possible objections readers may raise about your service or product. This way you are removing purchase obstacles out of the way early.
• Tell stories – People love stories and will read a story faster than they’ll read an explanation of your product or service. This is a safe way to build a relationship. Also, you share stories about how customers have had great success using your product. These includetestimonials and reviews.
• Solve problems – Any time you can help a reader fix a problem that he or she is struggling with you will build trust. How do you find out what problems they are struggling with? Ask them.

Before anyone will buy from you, they need to know you, like you and trust you. Effective content marketing will do just that. Great content is what you are giving your readers and prospects in exchange for their attention and trust so they’ll eventually give you their money for your product.”

Source

You’re getting the idea now I reckon, that your content wants to be fairly dynamic, not just in form, but also in it’s message and style.  You might have just had a killer day making a ton of sales, your amped, why not jump on the blog and tell people what led to this, how you got to nailing that big one…tell the story.

Some of your customers may be asking questions about your products and services, sounds like you need to model Marcus Sheridan, he took his pool business from the back of a beat-up truck to one of the one pool firms in the US.  How did he do it?  He built a blog answering peoples questions.

However you plan your content marketing strategies, bare in mind some of Neil’s words above, and remember that people don’t want to know about you, they want to know about themselves, how it will help them.

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Tagged as: content, copywriting, marketing