content marketing
TRANSCRIPT
Content Marketing
“All You Need to Drive Consistent Demand to Your
Company is Good Content”
Content marketers conduct research and provide intelligent information
concerning a problem and its solution. Smart managers depend on this
information to capture and preserve attention to their company’s products and
services.
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
Traditional Marketing vs. Content Marketing
When a person knocks at your door to explain why you
need his company’s new product, or when you receive an
email offering a service you have never imagined of
needing, you are in fact being a victim of traditional
marketing strategies. While these strategies were
lucrative 30 years ago (or might still be in part effective
for some start-up companies), they are no longer valuable
for a professional demand-generative business plan. The
reason is clear: with the advent of a digital age, people no
longer depend solely on vendors to tell them they can
solve their problems by purchasing some product. They
surf the web and refer to many sources before tumbling in
your website or your store.
Content Marketing:
―Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.‖ – Content Marketing Institute
Content marketing is responsible for turning the doubtful by-passers into high-
scoring leads for sales departments.
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
An efficient marketing strategy, in contrast, would identify how
their clearly defined prospects begin searching a solution for
their problems, how they run into a brand, and how they are
convinced that brand is able to solve their problems. People
look for solutions and marketers nail their company’s solutions
where they are clearly visible.
Marketing departments should know that feeding their
prospective customers with valuable information is the core of
their marketing activities. Once the prospects trust the brand for
the value of its content, they are hooked to consistently inquire
more concerning the services or products it offers. Content
marketing is responsible for turning the doubtful by-passers
into high-scoring leads for sales departments.
Blog Posts, Promotional Emails, White Papers, E-books, etc.
There are various channels for an effective implementation of content marketing. Yet my
personal view is that each of them should be used for multiple purposes. An e-book could
be written with the aim of engaging prospects by educating them, nurturing prospects by
providing case studies, or closing a sale by providing a great deal of technical
information. Similarly, a white paper might consist of some blog posts, a few case studies
and a purchase offer at the end.
A prerequisite for actively engaging, promoting and converting prospective customers is
having a clear picture of them in mind. By defining the persona of your prospective
People look for solutions and marketers nail their company’s solutions where they
are clearly visible.
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
buyer(s) you can desist wasting your company’s revenue on unsuitable content. Surely
content written for a teenage prospect is different from the one written for the CFO of a
B2B company.
B2B Content Marketing:
Producing business-to-business marketing content is quite different because companies
often have technical reps responsible for providing materials and services. This might
explain why only 30 percent of marketers see their B2B marketing activities effective
(see the original report here).
B2B marketing demands devising an overall plan for lead engagement and management.
A well-documented program for managing your company’s leads based on their latest
demographic (age, gender, job, etc.) and behavioral (e.g. frequency of visiting the
website) information, and holding meetings to inform your marketing and sales personnel
are the necessary steps for an effective implementation of content marketing strategies.
Not all the people who visit your website and download a white paper should be
considered a valuable lead – and sent to the sales department for additional sales
activities. Marketers should be smart enough to nurture their target prospects by
perfectly-timed promotional emails and other content assets. Content provision is a
consistent activity in accordance with the prospect’s sales stage.
Content provision is a consistent activity in accordance with the prospect’s sales
stage.
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
Relevant and Valuable Content
If we choose to divide sales activities into steps, we will come up with 3 general stages:
engaging, promoting (processing or nurturing), and converting. Each of the three sales
stages demand a slightly different approach to content provision.
A prospect in the engagement stage need not be drilled with your company’s brand, or
products or services you offer; a general informative content on your field of expertise
would suffice to ensure that the prospect will revisit your website. After the signs of
engagement with your content were noticed, you could say that the person is a low-
prospective lead.
The second stage consists of providing information about your products or services
through white papers, e-books, emails containing links to your blog contents, etc.
Needless to say that a one-time downloading of a content asset from your website or
responding to your emails will not turn a low-prospective lead into a highly-valuable one.
At this stage, more personal information should be gradually gathered in exchange for
valuable content assets such as videos, demographics, e-books, templates, etc. Asking a
visitor to fill in a long list of personal and professional information in exchange for your
Engagement
Promotion
Conversion
Sales Stages
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
content is preposterous from my perspective. Most often the visitor would give up or fill
in with false information.
The conversion stage is where a high-quality lead is sent to the sale department for the
final closing activities. Yet even after you made sure that a prospect is a customer of your
products or services, the need for relevant content remains.
Due to the fact that the positive effects of content marketing on the overall ROI of the
company are only understood when the conversion rates increase, there is a need for
consistent and interactive efforts by the marketers. The whole individual and team work
during the awareness, promotion and conversion of prospective customers will go to
waste if the consistent provision of valuable and relevant content is distracted.
Companies should define and evaluate what it means to generate demand for people.
Following a structured marketing program based on a consistent provision of valuable
and relevant content makes chief executives appreciate the merits of marketing
departments.
Content Marketing ……………………………………………………… Mostafa Dastras
Hi,
I’m wondering if I could provide engaging
content for my own content marketing career.
This content will most probably be published
as a blog post. It could also be trimmed and
sent as a promotional email with flashy
headings and links to the relevant products of
a marketing company. I can expand the scope
of my argument and publish it as a gated free
e-book (by gated I mean you have to fill in a
list of questions before my automation system
sends a copy to your email).
If you’re convinced that I can provide suitable
content for your products or services, feel free
to contact me through email. Also count me in
if you needed someone to do copywriting and
editing. I will receive my M.A in English
literature next summer.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Mostafa Dastras
To inquire more of my content
marketing services contact me at