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How to Sell B2C Products with Content Marketing

Guess what B2C marketers? Content marketing is for you, too. And no I’m not just talking about dreating content. Marketing with content and Content Marketing are NOT the same thing!

Most of the time, the industry sticks to talking about B2B content marketing; however, a buyer is a buyer. Today’s consumer is savvy, discerning, and cares about a brand’s story just as much as the product.

In response, many B2C brands are launching content marketing strategies as traditional outbound marketing tactics become less attractive. If you want to learn how to sell B2C products with content marketing, then you’ll want to keep reading!

Quick Takeaways

  • Today’s consumers digitally research products before they buy them, making the need for content even greater.
  • B2C brands can leverage content marketing to build brand awareness, educate customers, and foster trust.
  • Challenges remain in B2C content marketing, namely, developing an effective concrete strategy.
  • With the right strategies, B2C brands can leverage content marketing to drive revenue and growth.

B2C Marketers Find Success with Content Marketing

If you haven’t adopted content marketing or are only experimenting with it, you probably have concerns about its viability. Content marketing is a long game, and results aren’t necessarily instant. However, according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI)’s B2C Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, B2C brands are succeeding. In rating their success compared to the year prior, 84% say it’s more successful.

2022 Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends | Study

The same study shows the maturation of the discipline as well.

  • 10% rate it as sophisticated.
  • 29% rate it as mature.

Challenges and Opportunities for B2C Brands

B2C marketers meet challenges and opportunities in all facets of marketing. So, what are they?

Lack of a Content Strategy

One significant gap in B2C brands’ content marketing is a content strategy. The CMI study found that only 33 percent documented it. A larger chunk—38%—say they have one, but it’s not official.

This is a major miss for organizations. A content strategy is your blueprint for how efforts will translate to profits. Without a documented plan, lots of challenges can arise. It’s like baking a cake with no recipe. You know you want a moist, delicious cake but have no clear vision to get there. If you want to take one step right now to sell B2C products with content marketing, then define a strategy!

Content Marketing Works When You Know Your Customer

B2C companies often have a diverse buyer pool, but customers likely have similarities. Understanding your customer’s problems and needs translates to trust. Content marketing offers you a vehicle to tap into this with emotional marketing. You already know that customers make buying decisions more with their heart than their head, so leverage that in the content you produce.

Driving authentic connections translates to loyal customers. A basic premise to keep in mind to be customer-focused in content is thinking in a problem-solution model. Your customers have a problem; your product is the solution.

Framing this in content, whether it’s videos, social media posts, email, or blogs, matters to the concept of “getting” your customers. However, not all companies are embracing this, as only 60% said they prioritize audience needs over sales and promotional messaging.

This data point shows there’s room to grow in putting customer needs first. If you do that, you don’t have to use salesy language or tactics to hook them. It’s also a way to further differentiate your brand from competitors that may continue to lean on traditional advertising methods to attract customers.

B2C Buyers Are Changing

A consumer base is always evolving. There are many areas to consider, and these changes will impact your content.

Generational Considerations

As the population ages, so does your buyer demographic. There are lots of differences between Baby Boomers and millennials. If your product targets women under 40, most of those buyers are millennials now. They grew up online and have different opinions and experiences than older generations. You should always keep this in mind in creating content to influence buyers.

COVID-19’s Impact on Buyer Behavior

The pandemic affected every type of buyer. McKinsey looked at consumer sentiment in the COVID economy with surprising insights. Their study revealed that 40 percent of consumers intend to keep spending more online post-COVID. This aligns with the “homebody” economy, as 64 percent of U.S. consumers are not yet resuming their normal out-of-home activities.

Image: McKinsey

Your business has no doubt experienced eCommerce spikes. You’ve likely also made curbside pickup or BOPIS (buy online pick up in-store) easier and more accessible to fit changing buyer needs. This sentiment study affirms that buyer behaviors are going to remain after the pandemic ends.

As more people move to digital channels, there are many opportunities to deliver digital content that delights, informs, and persuades. Let’s look at some brands doing it well for inspiration.

B2C Content Marketing Examples

NerdWallet

NerdWallet is a consumer financial website that features lots of great content that’s friendly and not intimidating. Economic issues are very personal to consumers, and many struggle with understanding concepts. NerdWallet breaks down that barrier with sections on top picks, guides and tips, and calculators. It makes a scary topic more consumable and conversational.

Image: NerdWallet

Dove

Consumer products often take the road of producing product-centric content. The spotlight is there, rather than on the customer. Dove began using content marketing years ago to change that paradigm. They have consistently produced content about women loving and owning their skin and bodies, which is a challenge in this society.

The change in campaign direction came from their own research, illustrating that only 2 percent of women considered themselves beautiful. Dove wanted to reshape the idea of beauty, focusing content on real women and their challenges. Their real beauty campaign won over many new customers, resulting in a jump from $2.5 to $4 billion in sales in 10 years.

Lowe’s

Home improvement stores are embracing content marketing, primarily through video. Lowe’s does cater to businesses that need materials and tools; however, much of the time, their target is homeowners and those that love to DIY.

Their YouTube channel has over one million subscribers and boasts an impressive compilation. From room transformations to organization ideas to how-to guides on tiling and more, this content is rich in education and inspiration. They often partner with home improvement influencers or personalities, which gives their videos more character. Check out an example from their channel below:

Fundamental Best Practices to Sell B2C Products with Content Marketing

The tactics B2C brands use to create meaningful content are similar to B2B brands. These best practices apply across the board:

  • Make your customer the star of the content, not your brand.
  • Avoid trying to sell to everybody. Your buyer base may be broad, but it’s important to personalize as much as possible in your content.
  • Lead with education in your content, not sales. An educated consumer is a better customer that will appreciate learning.
  • Publish content consistently and often to build authority and keep your brand top of mind.
  • Engage as much as possible on social media channels. Consumers look to these platforms for recommendations and help, so make sure you have a strong presence and build a community. It’s the number one distribution channel and type of content produced by B2C brands. Doing this well, however, isn’t always easy.
  • Deliver value to inboxes, not spam. Email marketing is a key channel for B2C content marketers, with 74 percent using newsletters. Inboxes are noisy and crowded. If you want to leverage this channel, you must be creative and offer something meaningful. Otherwise, they’ll just ignore it.
  • Seek out user-generated content (UGC). If your real customers share their stories of how your product changed their life, it will be incredibly impactful. You can request this from your audience on social media, via email, or on your website. Their words and testimony will enrich your content’s credibility.
  • Leverage SEO strategies to win the ranking game. Most consumers start with a search when they have a problem. That means you need your content to rank well organically on Google. To do this, optimize your content for relevant keywords. Optimization includes on-page and off-page tactics.
  • Link new content with content already performing well. This strategy is all about keeping customers engaged. At the end of one video or post, you can insert recommendations (e.g., if you like this, then check out this).

Sell B2C Products with Content Marketing and Get a Little Help from Experts

B2C companies, large and small, are investing in content marketing. By creating a strong strategy, understanding your customers, and navigating challenges, you can find success. Your main concern may be how to do it at scale. Outsourcing to a content strategy agency is a favorable model, with 55% of B2C organizations using this approach, mostly for the creation aspect.

We can help! If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.

Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post How to Sell B2C Products with Content Marketing appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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9 New and Awesome Content Marketing Tools to Try in 2023

9 New and Awesome Content Marketing Tools to Try in 2023

Content marketing is changing, but, luckily, there are smart tools that support the innovation and allow content marketers to stay up-to-date with new technology.

In this roundup, I am going to stay off the beaten path and suggest some tools that are not being featured in every other article for you to try something new and discover new ways to look at your data.

The following content marketing tools deserve all the spotlight they can get as they are new, fresh and bring innovation into our marketing:

Keyword Research & Content Ideation Tools

1. WebCEO

WebCEO is a comprehensive all-in-one SEO platform that deserves a lot more attention than it is currently getting. It has quite a few unique features one of which is its keyword research tool allowing you to pull keyword suggestions from multiple sources. It shows search trends for each keyword it suggests and allows you to easily estimate how competitive it is in organic search.

WebCEO has quite a unique approach to identifying keywords with high demand (i.e. search volume) and “doable” competition (i.e. those search queries that are easier to generate traffic from). The metric is referred to as The Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). It is calculated based on the search volume and the number of search results returned by Google search.

A keyword with a relatively higher KEI is supposed to have a higher demand and lower supply, so it should be easier to compete for.

WebCEO for content marketing

You can also easily group those keywords by using tags and filter your keyword suggestions to target a specific location (e.g. a state or a city your business is focused on)

WebCEO has many more features your whole team may find useful which include competitor tracking, website speed optimization and more.

2. Also Asked

A new tool by @thetafferboy, Also Asked, allows you to analyze Google’s “People Also Ask” results and how they relate to one another.

Also Asked for content marketing

You may know that Google will generate more answers based on which question you chose to click. Also Asked will explore this connection by showing you visually how each level of questions is topically grouped with the next.

The tool offers a nice insight into intent-based search journeys your target audience is likely to take when researching any topic.

3. Glimpse

Glimpse is a freemium Google Chrome extension that makes Google Trends reports much more useful by adding lots of useful SEO insights to it. As you are checking Google Trends for your target term, Glimpse will add more data which includes:

  • Search volume for that search query 
  • “People Also Search for” (these keywords are extracted from Google) that is related to that query
  • Popularity of that term on social media channels (Channels that score high indicate that your keyword’s usage on that channel is higher than average)
  • Related trending queries
  • Topic map showing related topics for you to keep researching the topic

Glimpse for content marketing

Content Collaboration and Creation

4. Narrato

Content creation is no longer a straightforward process as it was traditionally perceived. Content writers should incorporate a lot of data into the copy for it to be in-depth, search-intent driven and properly optimized.

Narrato is the AI-driven tool that can put many of those pieces together by allowing you to put together detailed content briefs and content workflows and even find content writers with the right expertise.

For every piece you are working on, create a new project inside Narrato and start by generating a content brief using AI-driven tools it offers. The tool helps you by generating relevant keywords and questions, assists in structuring your future article subheadings and allows you to create a style guide for your writers to follow. You can also use the AI-powered image generator to locate related images to use in your content (with attribution).

narrato for content marketing

You can write the article right inside the editor and publish it directly to your WordPress site right away. Or you can assign your writers to complete it based on your brief using the workflow feature. The platform also gives you access to AI content marketplace in case you need to find expert articles to write for you.

The platform can enhance your content creation productivity by connecting different teams, giving you access to templates and letting you use AI tools to manage all steps in the content production process:

Narrato AI tools for content marketing

Semantic Research Tools

5. Text Optimizer

Text Optimizer is not a new tool (I’ve mentioned it a few times already), but there is still no alternative to it as I know of.

One of its features, called “sentence builder”, allows you to explore connections between your chosen concepts and build sentences that would use your important terms in close proximity. It is a great way to understand your topic better and create better optimized content.

Text Optimizer for content marketing

6. Inlinks

Inlinks is the new semantic analysis tool that uses Google’s API to help you optimize your content for “things, not strings”. It helps in the following three key areas:

  • Optimize your content around semantic search
  • Auto-generate content briefs based on your target topic using semantic analysis
  • Semantic keyword research that is based on meaningful clustering and an innovative approach to satisfying user intent. This is their newer feature that will make your content and intent optimization process much more effective.

The tool generates not only keyword suggestions that relate to your target audience’s search intent, it also finds related questions that add context to your seed keyword and let you structure your future content more effectively.

Make sure to use “Intent” tab to let the tool suggest actionable insight into how to make your content align with what people need when using your core search term:

Inlinks

All those insights from these three tools can be added to the content brief inside Narrato for your writing team or collaborators to include in the copy.

Content Structuring Tools

8. ChatGPT

ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022 and took the whole world by storm. It is a conversational smart chatbot that can perform just about any basic marketing task out there. Honestly, it can fall into many categories in this list as it can help you with your content strategy on many levels, including keyword classification and ideation.

I wouldn’t recommend using it for writing content though because the produced content lacks style and real expertise/experience with the discussed topic. It is also easily detectable as AI-generated content, so you can easily get penalized by Google if you use it for content creation.

Using the tool to structure your content is a better idea though. You can ask it to structure your existing content, for example, and the tool will break your article into logical sections and even provide an HTML code the newly generated subheadings:

chatgpt example for content marketing

There are many more AI-powered tools, including Jasper, and conversational marketing solutions (like customer support chatbots and IVR) to check to find ways how they can improve your marketing strategy.

Content Outreach Tools

8. Link Hunter

These days, it is hard to imagine a content marketing campaign that wouldn’t include email outreach. The truth is, just a few short years ago, we didn’t have to do that much to get our content seen by key industry media outlets and bloggers.

Now, with content consumption exceeding content demand in many niches, getting your content in front of industry influencers for them to give it wings is the only way to see it spread.

Link Hunter is a valid alternative to a multitude of outreach tools as it is very easy to set up and offers all the outreach features you may need at a very affordable price (for about 500 hundred emails per month, you’ll only need to pay $50).

Link Hunter

From prospect discovery to email status tracking, Link Hunter is a solid outreach solution that is suitable for smaller businesses that want to handle outreach in-house at a reasonable price.

There are also quite a few smart email marketing platforms that can be used for outreach and content outreach purposes.

Competitive Intelligence Tools

9. Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool

On-page content is not the only ranking factor, of course, but it is always useful to look at your successful competitors’ content and compare it to yours. More often than not, that uncovers some new tactics to experiment with and integrate into your content SEO workflow.

This Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool is the only 100% free tool on this list and it allows you to easily compare your page to your competitors. As the name suggests, the tool creates the side-by-side comparison of key content elements that may have some impact on organic search visibility, including:

  • Titles and meta descriptions
  • HTML headings
  • Keyword usage
  • Internal and external links
  • Content length, etc.

Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool

Conclusion

To remain competitive, every brand needs to stay on top of key technologies and innovations that are driving change in the content marketing industry.

The good news is content marketing technology is advancing at a fast speed, meeting the demand for smarter, more integrated and cross-platform marketing software.

These days, content marketers have a wide variety of advanced applications from which to choose, including advanced content ideation and development tools, smart analytics and conversion optimization suites, enhanced outreach and relationship building platforms, and more.

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Is Account-Based Marketing Right for You?

account-based marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy that is especially beneficial for B2B companies. ABM involves identifying, obtaining, and marketing to targeted, high-value accounts and communicating directly with executives and business leaders who have authority in large purchasing or contractual decisions.

This suits the B2B space by targeting specific decision-makers right from the start, filtering out unqualified prospects, and aligning marketing and sales on strategy, content, and engagement for each account. Also, ABM results in a faster turnaround of more qualified sales leads, allows for highly personalized and targeted campaigns, builds trust with B2B decision-makers, and offers additional support for the sales process.

With ABM, your money only goes towards the most qualified leads, which means shorter sales cycles, more personalized approaches to lead nurturing, and goal alignment between sales and marketing. The industries that benefit the most from ABM are:

  • Healthcare & Life Sciences
  • Software & Technology
  • Commercial Business Services
  • Manufacturing
  • Industrial Services

Here are some of the key indicators that your business should experiment with account-based marketing.

Your products or services are suited toward a specific, narrow target.

ABM is a great strategy to put into play if you have or can create a list of companies you’d like to do business with; the narrower your ideal target, the better for utilizing ABM. When you know exactly what companies you want to go after, targeting them—and developing a personalized and successful campaign—will be that much easier.

Finding your ideal target starts with looking at your current customers and analyzing data about their spending with you. Look at where your customers are spending, what they’re spending most on, and what your retention rate is. This information will help you paint an accurate picture of your ideal customers and strengths and weaknesses, which will not only help you narrow your target but also help you bolster your business.

Make sure your data is accurate and updated, then connect with the people who are looking for your products and services so you can hopefully add them to your customer roster.

Your revenue mostly comes from the top 20% of your customers.

If the top 20% of your customers provide most of your company’s revenue, then you’ll have a higher return on investment (ROI) by utilizing ABM. The reason for this is simple: if your campaign goes deep into cross-selling and upselling to your existing customers, you’ll save big on your marketing budget. Rather than wasting your resources attempting to sell to prospects and smaller customers, by expanding the accounts of your top clients, you’ll earn more with less work.

In B2B companies, we see this type of account expansion in new product launches, cross-sales after an acquisition, company-wide expansions, updated branding, and renewing existing contracts and sales agreements. The revenue is coming from an existing customer, but you’re making more by offering them newer and bigger products and services.

Keep in mind that you’ll have the greatest ABM success by targeting and selling to fewer, bigger clients as opposed to many smaller clients. Finding and keeping those top, high-value customers is the way to solidify your ABM efforts.

Your product or services requires a long sales cycle.

ABM is best suited to companies with a longer sales cycle. Many B2B products or services have long sales cycles—ranging from several months to a year—because of the complex, long-term nature of the purchases. However, using ABM can help you shorten your sales cycle by not wasting time on leads that won’t convert.

When your product or service has a long sales cycle, utilizing ABM can ensure you’re working as efficiently as possible. You don’t want any guesswork involved as you wait for your marketing leads to pay off, you want to ensure that you’re targeting customers with real potential.

You can reach key decision-makers within your target accounts.

Knowing who you want to target is one thing—being able to actually reach key decision-makers is another. This can be a challenge but partnering with an agency that has the tools to help can be your solution. At Sagefrog for example, we leverage RollWorks, among other ABM tools, to bring our B2B customers an ABM platform that works for their needs.

Your company has the resources to support your ABM efforts.

Before you jump in, make sure you’re prepared to invest in both expert resources and third-party marketing spending. To get the most out of ABM, you’ll want to invest in the experts—their efficiency and expertise will optimize your chance of success. An agency will be able to provide you with digital ABM strategy, content, creative, and project management to ensure your ABM efforts result in results and ROI.

Your marketing and sales teams are aligned on your ABM goals.

To succeed using ABM, your marketing and sales teams need to be on the same page. While marketing is responsible for defining targets and developing messaging and content, your sales team should focus on outreach, executing tactics, and obtaining feedback. If both teams aren’t tightly aligned and working towards the same goals, account-based marketing isn’t going to work.

If you’re launching an account-based marketing program, Sagefrog can help. Read our “6 Ws of Account-Based Marketing Infographic” and contact Sagefrog today.

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4 Types of Content Creation (and How to Decide Which is For You)

Content creation is a core part of every brand’s marketing strategy in 2022 (or at least it should be). But its actual execution can take many forms. There are several types of content creation, and brands definitely don’t have to go it alone when it comes to developing content to engage their audiences and attract new customers.

In fact, the overwhelming majority — 86% — of businesses currently outsource their content creation in some way.

86% of companies outsource content creation.

Image Source: Reverb

But that doesn’t mean in-house content creation is dead (far from it) or that outsourcing has to be an all-or-nothing approach. In the sections that follow, we’ll walk through what content creation entails, why it’s so critical for brands today, the various approaches for executing it on an ongoing basis, and how to know which approach is right for your business.

Quick Takeaways

  • Content marketing earns more leads and conversions than traditional marketing methods at a fraction of the cost.
  • In-house content creation gives you total control but comes with heavy ongoing expenses.
  • Content agencies offer comprehensive content services (including content creation).
  • Freelancer outsourcing is a flexible option but requires close management.
  • Many companies employ a combination of the three types of content creation to meet their unique needs.
  • To determine the best approach for your business, you need to evaluate factors like the maturity of your current strategy, makeup of your internal team, and current content marketing budget.

What is content creation and why should you be doing it?

Content creation is the development of high-value assets that power your content marketing strategy and other lead generation and sales efforts. It encompasses many types of content, including but not limited to:

  • Blog articles
  • Videos
  • Ebooks/whitepapers
  • Emails
  • Social media posts
  • Infographics
  • Guides/checklists

Every company needs to be creating content. Today, both B2B and B2C buyers are doing the majority of their brand discovery and research online. Content is what represents your brand and builds an initial connection with potential customers during this time.

When created with SEO in mind, content is also what captures the attention of Google’s web crawlers and gets your website ranked on Google SERPs, significantly increasing your company’s online visibility and brand awareness.

Content marketing has now far and away proven to be the most effective marketing method for brands. It earns 3X the leads and 6X the conversions at a fraction of the cost compared to other types of traditional marketing.

Content marketing earns 3X as many leads and 6X the conversions while costing 62% less than traditional marketing methods.

Image Source: Sectorlink

By 2022, almost all brands know the importance of incorporating content creation and content marketing into their strategies. Executing it, however, is a bit more complicated.

For starters, content creation is time consuming. Writing a single blog article takes 3-4 hours, and the best performing companies publish 16+ articles per month. That’s more than 60 hours of content creation related to blogging alone.

Content creation also requires a wide range of skill sets. SEO expertise is needed to get content ranking on Google SERPs. Certain types of assets require graphic design skills or even video production experience. The writing itself also requires specialized experience depending on the type of content asset being created. And in many cases, the people with the most knowledge (like C-level execs or technical experts) are usually not the best people to do the actual writing.

Companies take varied approaches to getting content created at the frequency, volume, and quality needed to execute an effective content marketing strategy. Some handle it totally in-house while others outsource completely. In many cases, companies use a hybrid approach for more flexibility.

In the next section, we’ll explore the 4 main types of content creation methods.

4 Types of Content Creation

In-house

In-house content creation means all content is created by your own internal marketing team. The obvious advantage to this approach is that you have total control of and visibility into the content creation process. The writers, designers, and marketing strategists working on your content are all intimately familiar with your brand. In-house content creation can also save you money in that it doesn’t require paying external contributors.

But it also comes with some potential pitfalls. If you don’t have the right expertise on your internal team, you risk spending a lot of time, effort, and resources on content that doesn’t earn the ROI you expect.

Hiring and maintaining an in-house team can also get expensive. Full-time employees come with salary, benefits, and equipment expenses. If you don’t already have a team in place to create content, building one will likely be more expensive than outsourcing to an agency or freelance writers, which we’ll cover in the next sections.

Agency outsourcing

Hiring a content marketing agency is the most comprehensive approach to outsourcing and is a great option for businesses that recognize the importance of content creation but don’t have the resources to do it in-house. Content marketing agencies typically offer a managed services model that means they handle content creation as well as things like SEO strategy, site audits, competitive research, and performance reporting (these are just a few examples).

The perceived drawback of working with a content marketing agency is that it’s expensive. And it is true, outsourcing to an agency comes with a significant expense.

But it’s important to look at agency outsourcing with a 360 degree view. In short, you get out of your content strategy what you’re willing to put in. If you don’t have the resources to effectively execute content creation and strategy in-house, you’ll earn higher ROI by investing in an agency to help you do it.

Freelancer outsourcing

Another way to outsource is to hire freelancers to execute projects for you. Today, platforms like Upwork and Fiverr make it easier than ever to find and hire freelancers with the right skills and experience for your projects. You can hire writers, designers, editors, video producers and more with flexible terms and rates.

If you have the right team to set and manage your content strategy but need support on execution, freelancing might be the approach for you. That said, it’s important to consider the management requirements that come along with hiring freelancers. It requires active management to help freelancers achieve the right voice, tone, or design aesthetic for your brand (not to mention keeping everyone on deadline).

If you’re going to hire freelancers to help execute content creation and strategy, make sure you have someone (or multiple someones) dedicated to keeping things running smoothly.

Hybrid

Last but not least is a hybrid approach to content creation. This method is just how it sounds: it combines in-house content creation, agency outsourcing, and freelancer outsourcing depending on the business’s current needs.

For example, perhaps blogs are written and published in-house, but ebooks, infographics and other designed assets are handled by an agency. Maybe you hire an agency to help you develop and outline your strategy, then hire freelance writers to handle the actual content creation.

The takeaway is that businesses use hybrid approaches to remain flexible and meet changing needs related to content. The drawback to this method is that it can get a bit messy and hard to manage. It’s also more difficult to track performance metrics and determine content ROI when there are so many separate moving parts.

Which types of content creation are right for you?

There are clear advantages and potential drawbacks to each of the types of content creation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and the biggest determiner of success is typically how well the approach aligns with the resources and needs of the company.

So how do you know which one is best for your business? There are a few key factors to consider:

  • Internal resources – What is the current makeup of your content team? What is the reasonable bandwidth for content creation? Do they have the right knowledge and experience to create content that will perform?
  • Content marketing maturity – Do you already have a content strategy in place? If so, is it working? Do you need support with strategy development or strictly content creation?
  • Strategy – What types of content are included in your current content strategy (i.e. do you mainly publish blogs and social content? Do you create a high volume of downloadable assets like ebooks? Do you plan to publish video content? etc.)
  • Budget – What is your budget for spending on content creation?

When you know where you stand with your current strategy, your future plans and needs, and your spending ability, you’re best able to pursue the type of content creation that will earn you the most ROI.

Over to You

Ready to level up your approach to new content creation? The team of writers and SEO experts at Marketing Insider Group can deliver you optimized, ready-to-publish content every week for one year (or more).

Check out our SEO Blog Writing Service or schedule a quick consultation to learn more!

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The Only Content Calendar Template You’ll Ever Need

content calendar template

We’ve provided a basic content calendar for you to use. While there are a ton of amazing, wonderful content calendaring platforms and tools, we’ve opted for an Excel spreadsheet. That’s because it’s a great starting place, easy to edit and modify, and almost everyone has the ability to open the file.

Download your free content calendar Excel template now >>

Right click and save as

To add your content to the calendar and get the most out of your content:

  1. Start with binge-worthy shows: Add these into your calendar first and make sure to pay attention to any key dates or big events.
  2. Add your one-time specials: Pay attention to how they overlap or complement your binge-worthy shows.
  3. Round it out with regularly scheduled programming: Last, but definitely not least, add in your regularly scheduled programming. These should help fill any gaps in your cadence and keep content consistent.
  4. Add content to the content repository: Don’t have a place right now in the calendar for some great ideas? Add it to the repository. Let this be your storage solution for great ideas and check back on it often.

That’s it! Now you can edit and update it, as needed. The actual calendaring part is pretty quick, once you get your shows established. Now, bring this to your editorial meetings and make sure to keep tabs on how content is performing, so you can adjust your publishing flow and content ideation, as necessary. Happy calendaring!

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Why Every Startup Needs a Professional Blog Writing Service

What exactly does a professional blog writing service do for you, and why do you need one? Here’s why you should be outsourcing your startup’s blog.

Have you thought about hiring a professional blog writing service for your new business? Every startup needs a website, but many business owners overlook the importance of starting a blog.

Thousands of new businesses are founded each year in the US. But only half of those businesses will survive past their first five years. Business success hinges on providing a product or service that the market needs, but if you already have a good idea and a well-thought-out business plan, how can you make your business stand out from the rest?

Creating a blog for your new startup is an effective and low-cost way of marketing your company, attracting press and investor attention, and establishing authority in your niche.

There’s nothing to stop you from writing your blog yourself, but this can be a full-time job in itself. And when your business is in the startup phase, every second counts. So, the best way to populate your blog with content when you’re focused on core business tasks is to outsource to a blog writing service.

Quick Takeaways:

  • Every business needs a blog. Publishing to a blog regularly is an effective marketing method that offers many advantages for new startups.
  • Startup Founders or Marketing Heads may not have the time or expertise to get the most out of blogging.
  • Outsourcing your blog writing to a professional service will save you a lot of time, and can prove to be a worthy investment.

There are several ways in which your business can benefit from having a blog:

Attract Visitors to Your Site with SEO

Consistent blogging is one of the best ways to improve the SEO of your website and keep SEO costs low. More relevant content on your site means more keywords and a better chance that your site will show up in search results. This will gradually increase your organic search traffic over time, exposing your startup to a wider audience.

Keep Your Audience Updated

There’s always a lot going on in the startup phase of a business. Keeping your followers updated about news and updates is a great way to build the loyalty and interest of your audience. Your blog is a great channel for getting more exposure for your brand and collecting leads.

Attract Funding

All businesses need financial investment during the startup phase. While cold calling potential investors is one option, having a blog increases the chances that a future investor will stumble across your company. Populating your blog with valuable content related to your brand will also make your business idea more attractive and show that you’re committed to putting in the work to make it a success.

Image source: https://wiki.wfglobal.org/6-ways-to-finance-your-startup/

Gather Customer Ideas and Feedback

The comments section of your blog can be a valuable source of market research. If you’re making decisions about the types of services you’re going to offer or toying with a few different product ideas, write a blog post about it and ask for feedback from your audience. This not only helps you to create a better product and business but also involves your followers in the whole startup process, helping them to feel invested in your business and building an emotional connection with your brand.

Create a Hub for Your Other Marketing Channels

You’ll probably use several kinds of marketing to get the word out about your business. But it’s always a good idea to have a blog to send them back to. For example, you won’t get very far with social media marketing if you don’t have blog content to link to. Email marketing can be another effective way to stay in touch with your customers. But, you’ll make more sales and build a more loyal following if you can direct them back to your website for further information that interests them.

Why Outsource Your Blog to a Professional Service?

If you’re convinced of the benefits of publishing a blog, great! But there’s a lot of work between deciding to create a blog and actually publishing content regularly.

Some bootstrapped startups will choose to write their own blog posts. The main advantages of this approach are that it costs nothing and, obviously, nobody knows your business better than you do.

However, regular blogging is a significant ongoing time commitment. Remember, blogging isn’t just about writing a post and clicking the publish button. You also have to find time to promote your blog, perform SEO on your content, and respond to comments.

For these reasons, many businesses choose to outsource at least a part of their blog marketing. Again, you have a few choices here. You could come up with your own ideas for blog content, outsource the post creation to a freelance writer, and manage the marketing and SEO by yourself.

Or, you could choose to use a professional blog writing service to do all of this for you.

Outsourcing your blog to a content marketing agency may not be the cheapest option. But there’s a good chance it will prove to be a sensible investment in the long term.

Some of the advantages of working with a blog writing service include:

  • Fully scalable – Content agencies and blog writing services have full teams of trained writers at their disposal, so you can publish as much content as you need.
  • All-in-one service – Unlike hiring freelancers, a professional blog writing service will have the skills and experience to produce blog posts that are not only engaging to read but also written with SEO in mind. Many services can also write social media content and promote your blog on different channels.
  • The experience and skills you need – if you’ve never written a blog before, it’s not as easy to be successful as you may think. There’ s a lot more to it than typing a few paragraphs and pressing the publish button. A professional service will have years of experience working with businesses like yours, so they’ll know how exactly to help you to get the most out of your blog.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post Why Every Startup Needs a Professional Blog Writing Service appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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