Content Marketing San Diego, CA
Every business has a story about how it got started, what drove it to success and how it maintains its market dominance. Likewise, every product has a story of the same nature. If your company sells branded products that you have created, then you have yet another story to tell. This is content marketing at its core.
How then do you get your story to materialize, to go from some ones memory in your company to an actual page with eloquent words, and a flow that both intrigues your reader while motivating them to make a purchase. This is true storytelling, and this is what content writers do to make your company, brand, products and services sound like beautiful music played by a symphony.
Content marketing is important to your company for several reasons:
- 1.) Content marketing distinguishes your company from your competitors.
- 2.) Content marketing makes your brand unique even if its in a crowded market.
- 3.) Content marketing elevates your products with a relatable story that entices buyers.
Content marketing also builds trust, authority, can be used to drive traffic and is the core of your marketing strategy where all other marketing efforts are derived from.
They say people who don’t talk much, might not have much to say. Not always true, many people just can’t find the right words to express how they are feeling or what they are thinking, even an opinion for some people can be difficult to express. Speaking, much like writing, is a learned trait that takes years to develop and once developed can turn into a real profession. People who write for a living are professional writers, they understand how to formulate words and sentences to make them sound coherent, smart, funny, imaginative or even opinionated. People who write content for a living must possess all the traits of a professional writer, since content writing is used in every aspect of the internet and consumed daily.
Writing content for websites, products, brands, social media posts, videos or blogs is no simple task. We are making a point of explaining this not to add value to the content marketing field, but rather to ensure its value is not diminished. When a client asks us to “just get some content off the internet”, it devalues the content writers, the content and the relationship. To be clear, content marketing, like any other profession, requires labor, experience, equipment and a willingness to get it right.
If your project requires content marketing, Affordable Marketing as a professional marketing agency will use our resources to create your content. We won’t scrape or scavenge the internet for “free” content, and we won’t discuss doing so. We are more than happy to create the highest quality original content that our professional content writers are capable of, and we hope that potential clients reading this can understand and respect our position on this.
If your company is a manufacturer or owner of a brand then content marketing or more specifically brand content is the vehicle that gives your brand authority, builds trust and awareness and helps to acquire new customers. Most brands that we as consumers buy, were first introduced to us through brand content. We may have read an article, watched a video or read a testimonial from a famous spokesperson. The truth is most brands do a great job in promoting their own brand, and this is what smaller or new brands trying to create a space for their own brand should learn.
The idea that random consumers are going to be so enamored by your brand that they start their own personal campaign to promote it through word of mouth, was probably an idea hatched in a brand campaign. Brand content tells your brands story and gives identity to your brand, and with today’s international presence in the US marketplace it is becoming increasingly important to craft and clarify your brand content. Brands without million dollar ad budgets can’t realistically hope that allowing a social media influencer to give their personal opinions will alone suffice, it won’t.
Getting your brand in front of a large audience, more consistently you will require a brand content strategy that includes a lead magnet, an email collection system and a buy now strategy that makes consumers feel like they are getting something of exceptional value. This should be part of a larger long-term marketing strategy. Brand content should be the foundation of your brand strategy, it should be fresh, trending, and original content to be consistently viewed by the largest audience.
Question, is all social media content created equally? Another question, can we pull content from our website, post it to social media and expect positive results? The answer to both questions is a definitive, no. If this is your social media content strategy, then you have already lost the battle. Neither of these are a strategy, and neither will have any impact unless you happen to have a website more popular than NFL.com or TaylorSwift.com, we’re guessing you don’t.
A proper social media content strategy looks at the different aspects of your company, products, brands and customers. Just reading this you should be saying to yourself that a one-size fits all approach won’t work. Like any other marketing you do, the goal should ultimately be to generate sales. You should have other milestones that you want to achieve, but all roads as they say lead to Rome and that’s where the actual transactions occur.
Don’t underestimate your social media presence, its easy to do and we do it all the time. But we don’t have a retail brand that requires constant promotion and constant content. Most of our clients are retailers or brands who need those followers, shares and reviews. These can be a make or break influence in achieving the revenue goals set forth by your company. Sure, its great getting a million followers, but are you feeding them enough content to keep them active on your channels? Are you feeding them the right content to keep them sharing within their own circles? Social media content is both horizontal and vertical in terms of type and frequency, not to mention quality.
Most people, especially those with mass followers, won’t share stale or boring content. They also won’t share blatantly marking dribble, so feed your audience the right content and feed them consistently. This is how you will develop larger audiences willing to take-action when you share new social media content.
While we love our work and we love producing amazing websites and marketing content, we must admit that creating website content is one of our favorite tasks. I guess it could be that direction is always clear, and goals are usually simple to plot and achieve when your creating website content. Sure, you have to know your audience, and yes there is a ton of keyword research that needs to be done to get it right, but it’s the finished product that always makes you feel like a job well done.
Website content can include many different aspects of your company, your products or services and/or your brands. It gives you the chance to tout your own expertise in your field, you can say everything you always wanted to say. It helps to clarify who you are as a company and what your products or services do to help your customers. Giving customers and potential customers a look behind the curtain (so to speak), letting them see how great your business is and how smoothly and efficiently it runs. You can highlight your amazing staff and show off the awards and commendations you have received over the years.
Most importantly, website content (done right) should put your company on an exploration path to better define who you are as a company and why you are better than the competition. Believe it or not, many companies don’t take advantage of the storytelling behind their company. They tend to neglect the about us page, going straight to the products or services sections. Both critically important sections require precise content and salesmanship. But telling the story of who you are and why you exist is what will separate your company from your competitors. Your customers will read these stories to decide if they want to do business with you, if you neglect them, you may lose those customers.
Adding new website content is another example of website maintenance, its more than just updating policies but rather keeping the story updated. Then tying the updates to products or services to give them some more push on Google. Don’t stop creating website content, the minute you do will be the minute your website starts to become part of the past, not what you intended.
The thing to remember about video is that most viewers on the internet do not have the patience to watch a full video. People tend to be like hummingbirds when traversing the internet, moving quickly away from one content source and spending a few seconds at the next. While this may seem like a bad thing for the video content creator, it works in your favor because when people view your content, they are more apt to spend the time to watch the entire video.
Why do people watch videos, and what type of video content best represents your products, services or brands? Like any content creation the first thing you need to know is who are creating your content for, who is the consumer? You also need to have clearly defined goal(s), are you trying to make a sale, get a lead, or educate? These are the main attributes of the video content and should be fully documented before you proceed with the video creation. Keep in mind that Affordable Marketing is a full service marketing agency, and we will do most of the work for you. However, you must be prepared with the information listed in this section, for us to be able to proceed with your project.
Once you have the Who (audience) and Why (goal) of your video content figured out, you are ready to begin the storyboard portion of your video content. While creating your content remember that most people watch videos for specific reasons such as how to replace a kitchen sink, how to apply makeup, or how to organize a closet. How to videos are one of the most popular on Google and can help with your websites organic ranking. Your video content should address specific concerns or needs of your audience, these concerns should directly relate to your products or services which should be used as props (when possible).
Remember that you want your customers to see your products, if you are a service company then your video should show a service being performed. Don’t miss this golden opportunity to showcase the very reason you are creating your video content.
Short recap: when creating video content first decide the Who (audience), the Why (goal) and the How (storyboard). Once these steps are complete you will have the required outline to shoot a professional-level video for your company.
If you have ever gone into a new car dealership and been handed a new car brochure, then you have seen the pinnacle of product description. These brochures are created by writers who should probably be writing poetry or a fictional novel, they are that good. However, they tend to completely distort and skew the perspective of the potential buyer because they say a lot yet answer very little.
When your products require descriptions, you should follow some basic rules that are required by Google and others, if you plan to propagate your data.
- 1.) Write for the potential customer, your descriptions should give life to the products and give sound reasons to the customer why they should purchase.
- 2.) Don’t get caught up in the features, add these in the Specs section. Instead focus on the benefits to the customers, this is your selling point.
- 3.) Don’t use fluff (blah, blah, blah), avoid generic information as it dilutes the value of the content.
- 4.) Add product specifications, even if they are tedious and boring, add them. Customers often need specs to determine if the product is correct.
- 5.) Give the history (story) of your product, don’t date it as you want to ensure the customer they are getting the latest version. But do inform them of the history whenever possible.
- 6.) Give real-life facts about your products. For instance: explaining the technology, research, lab-tests etc. further supports your pitch.
- 7.) When possible, take the customer to another location (in their mind) by adding a fictional example of how they might enjoy using your product.
One caveat should be made here regarding using product content from a different source. We do not condone using another sources product content without the owners written permission, one common case in which this is acceptable is the vendor/merchant relationship. If you are a licensed reseller of a brand (say Adidas footwear) and in your agreement with Adidas it clearly states that you may use their product content from their website, then this is of course an acceptable condition.
However, just to add clarity to this point, Affordable Marketing will not be responsible for collecting any content from another source not owned by the client. We may export your data from a previous ecommerce store (where possible). Also, if you would like to provide product content from a vendor for use on your ecommerce store, you must provide the following:
- 1.) Signed agreement from the source stating permission to use said content.
- 2.) Organized content in spreadsheets and/or Word documents.
- 3.) Screenshots are NOT an acceptable method for sending us your content.
- 4.) Images (not screenshots) named with the product SKU (ex.123456.jpg).
Finally, product descriptions can be an arduous project to complete so patience is necessary to get it right. Keeping in mind that this is one of the prime decision making factors your customers will use when making a decision to purchase.
The thing about blogs is there are no hard and fast rules as to the type of content you can post. Your company might have achievements, awards, employee recognition or milestones that you want to blog about. You might want to use your blog content to tout the reviews you have received on different platforms or list your customer testimonials. You can also use blog content for expanding the descriptions or use-cases of your product or services. Many companies will post text and video to their blogs.
No matter what type of blog content you post, always keep your blog content organized, readable and searchable. Most blogs come standard with built in functions to add categories, search by date, and other helpful tools that can add organization to your blog. Don’t overlook these tools, they can be immensely helpful to both you own customers and Google. Google will use searching and sorting features in your blog to determine the quality and quantity of your blog content, so be sure to use all the helpful functions on your blog.
One way to use blog content to enhance your SEO is by interlinking your blog content to your product descriptions. For instance, let say you sell Adidas footwear and you have just created a blog post about new rubber soles. You would want to link that blog post to any of the products in your ecommerce store that feature these new rubber soles. And likewise, you can add a link in the products to the blog post which enhances the product content while adding valuable internal linking.
Blogs should be creative and informative, they should be a regular part of your content marketing strategy and website optimization efforts. One thing we want to warn you about is this, don’t abandon your blog by letting the content become old and stale. Nothing is worse than a blog that hasn’t been updated in months or years. Keep your blog fresh and up to date with new blog content weekly.