Tips on how to tell who is actually a creatable content marketer
You see it everywhere "Get Your Content Marketing Here!" these content marketers are everywhere. Why? Well because to many it's seemingly easy. Think your local photographer who also has a post up about them offering content marketing services, or a local videographer saying there now a content marketer. Sorry to burst your bubble, they're not. Can they get you likes? Oh yeah, but so can your 5-year-old.
Don't get swayed by pretty pictures, smooth talk, or seemingly good "interactions per post" Learn what to know and ask when choosing your content marketer. As well as ask 3 key content-based strategies and their effects.
Are they an agency?
This is extremely important as agencies often have teams they can utilize for needed projects (graphic designers, photographers, videographers, etc). With an agency often comes more experience as well. Experience, that if they're still in business has most likely worked a variety of times.
Ask them to go into depth on a previous content base strategy they executed.
If they say, the last post for our client got 1000 likes. Red Flag! You care about sales and consumers talking about that 1000 like post not the number count behind it.
If they're primarily a photographer/videographer they're most likely not.
Making things look pretty does not make someone a content marketer.
(agencies will have them on call or on staff already, as needed.)
Where did they graduate from and with what focus?
Yes, not all have to go to college to be successful. Yet the fundamentals taught with a business based focus are key to so many aspects of marketing. Think Management, Econ, and Sales. (Marketing knowledge alone won't cut it)
Portfolio
Who have they worked with? Seeing a diverse portfolio is great. This means they've worked with local, trusted, and established names before.
Reviews
What do the reviews say? Are they even listed on Google (if not run!).
3 Content-Based Strategies to Know
Content Marketing
True content marketers come up with a unique visual-based strategy that gets people talking about your business. It's not just pretty pictures, edits, videos, alone. In fact these days that's quite standard. True Content Marketing is much more than that. Because let's face it, do the likes matter if no one's talking about your brand and your seeing sales?
Think Where's the BEEF!? (Wendy's) a slogan that caught attention, came off the tongue easily and is fun to sarcastically ask someone when they serve you a burger at their BBQ. Word of mouth worthy campaigns Colin Kaepernick ad (Nike) is another great example of how content marketing is supposed to work.
The list goes on, and true Content Marketing gets more complex. But when done with an agency like Promotonics, it's a powerful strategy to deploy.
This strategic marketing approach focuses on creating and distributing content to stimulate interest, not in a brand, but their products and services. Since communication is ongoing, content can be tailored to reflect your message in a creative aesthetically pleasing manner. The formatted content is tailormade to appeal to your target audience and comes in the form of infographics, webpages, podcasts, videos, blogs, white papers, webinars, and eBooks. It’s important to note that content marketing is not synonymous with inbound marketing (more on inbound below). Content marketing is an important component of an overall inbound strategy, but it does not integrate other marketing methodologies to maximize content value.
Content Marketing is effective because it:
Draws prospects through the sales funnel
Grows brand visibility, credibility, and desirability
Aligns target markets with relevant information
Fast Fact: 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchase decisions
Inbound Marketing
Inbound is by far the most effective B2B marketing strategy because it leverages the strengths of the majority of the other nine strategies to attract, engage, and delight customers. Unlike traditional marketing methods — or even those of the other strategies listed here — inbound earns the attention of customers and pulls them to a company website by producing meaningful content (Most effective with a modern, visually pleasing, and simplistic website). Because this type of messaging is relevant and appears in the right place at the right time, inbound invites visitors in rather than annoying them with interruptive traditional advertising, like polls, this is what I did today posts, randomly placed videos, etc.
Inbound Marketing is effective because it:
Works for businesses of any size or type
Creates more knowledgeable prospects (target market)
Can be easily integrated and managed using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system
Stat Fact: 80% of corporate decision-makers favor getting brand information through an article or blog series more than ads. Get that blog, presentation, infographic out there!
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing focuses on providing users with content they find valuable and want to share across their social networks, resulting in increased visibility and traffic (organic promotion). Social media shares of content, videos, and images also influence SEO efforts in that they often increase relevancy in search results within social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram as well as search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Social Media Marketing is effective because it:
Budget-friendly while increasing lead generation in an organic manner (when done right)
Provides metrics that give companies additional marketplace insight. (data)
“Humanizes” brands and encourages conversions(gets the people talking, think angry cat)
Stat Fact: 83% of all B2B marketers use at least one of the "Big Four" social media sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube) to distribute content
Understanding some of the fundamentals are key in both finding credible marketing agencies to work with. As well as knowing some content-based strategies that could work for you. To get a more in-depth analysis of what would work for your business contact the experts here at Promotonics Marketing Agency at support@promotonicspromotions.com