Lots of people say it’s king. But the truth is Context is king and god when it comes to marketing, but that’s a topic for another post.

This one is about getting your content marketing right, without having to invest huge amounts of time and money.

Working with hundreds of internet brands gives us fresh insight into what works, what doesn’t, and the most common mistakes internet entrepreneurs make.

The single most common mistake we see is……… not building a brand with content marketing.

Why Your Business Must Do Content Marketing If You Want Long-Term Success

• Trust is decreasing. With data scandals, scams and high discount offers available everywhere, consumers are losing confidence in buying from smaller, unknown brands. Competiton from Amazon makes matters worse. Giving your audience value through content first & investing in customer relationships is the only way to rise above this & earn people’s trust

• If you want to build a brand, repeat customer business is the most important metric you should be looking at. It’s what separates a brand from the “money grab” stores. It’s what will allow you to thrive when more & more stores die

• A lot of faceless brands and dropshipping stores die. You must give value beyond your products to keep your audience engaged. Think about GoPro, how cool their content is, and they don’t even create it themselves!

• Content Marketing allows you to communicate your purpose, your mission, your story, and brand values. It allows your audience to identify with your brand, to become fans that spread word of mouth & make your message heard in a world full of marketing messages

• Content Marketing works as a filter. It filters out the people interested in your brand & products so you have stronger audiences to show your ads to

Most business owners want immediate gratification. They don’t want to play the long-term game. Most business owners don’t want to invest in creating content continuously. That’s why most brands aren’t doing it. They don’t realize that content marketing is soft-selling & it’s the foundation of success at scale.

How To Do Content Marketing

We highly recommend you watch Ezra Firestones Free Content Marketing Webinar for this.

It will teach you everything you need to know & the exact process to get started. It’s the best resource we’ve come across & it’s exactly what we see working for our clients too.

In a nutshell, here are the 8 key points:

1: Create content around the experiences of your audience

A common mistake is to have all your page content be about your brand and your offers. The primary reason for a Facebook page isn’t to sell, it’s to keep your audience engaged. Most people who follow a page have done their research into your offer and/or have bought already. That’s why the goal of your page is to stay on top of their mind (to help increase LTV) by serving them with valuable content beyond what you sell. This helps you to become an authority in your space & people are more likely to share that type of content, thus growing your audience

2: Video to turn content into other content formats

It also communicates your messages best while building deeper relationships. This doesn’t mean all your content has to be video. Slideshows/ carousels, banner posts are also highly engaging and let you visually communicate with your audience

3: Create 1 primary longer-form video each week

Break that down into multiple content pieces. If you want to be super-efficient, bulk create these videos 1 or 2 times a year

4: Share your content on every relevant platform (Blog, Medium, FB, IG, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc.)

Take into consideration the type of content & format that people are looking for on each specific platform

5: Publish content consistently

Minimum 2x per day if you can. People build relationships with people they regularly engage with, and it’s the same with brands. Make sure to have visual consistency for brand recognition

6: Quality doesn’t matter too much

It can be very simple. You can get started with just your iPhone camera. What matters is that you do it, learn from it, then improve it!

7: Correct budgeting

About 10% of your budget should go towards content marketing and the amplification of your content to people who have engaged with you in the past or who follow you

8: Clear Call-To-Action content

Make sure every post has a clear purpose, which should be expressed in a clear Call To Action telling your audience exactly what you want them to do, i.e. share the content with a friend, share their opinion in the comments and click the link to learn more

Gary Vaynerchuk follows a similar process and he created a practical way of going about content marketing here: The GaryVEE Content Strategy. We highly recommend reading, then test it, and along with the webinar we shared, you’ve got all the theory you need to nail your content marketing and set your brand up for long-term success.

• Face to camera videos
• Interviews
• Articles
• Top 10 lists
• Powerpoint videos
• Screen Capture videos
• Product demo videos

Type of Content You Can Run

• Your opinion on what’s going on in your community
• Educational videos 
• Behind the scenes content
• Industry Specific
• Tips lists
• Content about current events
• Community Feedback
• Curated Content (Comment of content from others)
• Listener Feedback: About what’s relevant to your audience
• How to/Open box

More powerful insights

Read our post on the “Best Facebook Video Ads in 2020: Powerful Sales Video Ideas That Convert” to get more insight and inspiration on the type of content you can create for your content marketing strategy.