We didn’t do any content marketing from 2018 to mid-2020 for Pixelmattic. But in that period, we continued to generate leads every month. This was possible because the website had accumulated SEO value from the content marketing assets created between 2015 and 2017.
This was the first time I truly understood the power of content marketing. Our website had turned into a 24X7 sales and marketing asset for us. Once you had built a well-optimized website, it could run like a self-driving Tesla car.
It wasn’t just about generating leads, but the leads were qualified. There wasn’t much selling or negotiating to be done because our website did a lot of that for us.
Of course, the value of positioning our brand as WordPress experts helped immensely. Our processes and communication have consistently improved in providing transparent information to clients, and that helps too.
Content marketing assets
In 2020, we renewed our efforts and published an epic content marketing asset, our WordPress Guide for Marketers. 30,000 words and 20 chapters of in-depth and comprehensive content that covers every aspect of WordPress that a marketer would be concerned about.
But creating these kinds of content marketing assets is not always possible or sustainable. It took us 6 months to plan, write, edit and publish. And the work doesn’t end there as we continue to promote it through various channels for better distribution and organic growth.
It’s an asset that will serve us for the next 3-5 years in many ways. It was created with that intention. An investment to build our credibility, answer a lot of questions potential clients might ask, educate our market and build a pipeline of leads from an engaged audience.
Very soon this content will be repurposed as podcasts and maybe even videos. That’s the great benefit of content marketing, once you create content, you can repurpose it in many ways with minimal effort.
However, creating “epic content” is not sustainable, unless you have a large content team that can produce this kind of content often. Instead, build a content calendar and create SEO-optimized content consistently.
A non-salesy way of generating leads
So much of the business communication is focused on sales and promotion. The maxim “show, don’t tell” holds true. And content marketing gives you the platform to do just that.
You can use content marketing to demonstrate thought leadership and show how your product or service can impact the lives of people (Ahrefs is a great example of this).
Content marketing lets you build an audience of people in your industry who want relevant but curated information and points of view. There is no shortage of information out there, but what people value is someone making sense of that information.
Content marketing builds your credibility and authority with the audience. Talk is easy, but to be able to think, write and publish original and authentic content takes skill, experience and effort. People value that.
If you said the same thing over a phone call it has less value and reach of 1, versus putting your views, thoughts, and opinions on the internet. And doing it consistently brings attention to an audience.
Consistency with content marketing
Content marketing rewards those who are consistent. The same could be said of marketing as well.
A lot of attention and media space is given to growth hacks, ad spends and quick impact tactics. But solid marketing that produces consistent results over a long period is a result of consistent, well-thought-out daily effort.
To do content marketing consistently, you need 3 things
- Someone to drive it for you – a marketing manager, VP of marketing, or an agency with access to senior partners you can collaborate with (not outsource, more on this later)
- A documented strategy of who you till target, what will you create and how will you reach them
- A team, in-house or outsourced (more on this again later), to produce consistent quality content
A documented content marketing strategy can be the difference between consistent high-quality content marketing and haphazard tactics-driven marketing. The latter also popularly known as growth hacking can produce stunning results in the short term.
The question for any smart business owner is how long can you sustain it? And when it starts to taper off, do you have any value that was built from all that marketing work that you can repurpose and sustain your lead generation?
Social media (paid) marketing is often the first refuge for those looking for instant results.
But as with so many short-lived marketing efforts, these are very rarely sustained. And the business jumps from one agency to another trying to find the next “creative” person who can do something to get you quick results.
Social media is ideal for creating brand awareness, audience engagement, and customer retention. There are some exceptions where it could be used to generate leads with reasonable consistency.
Create content marketing assets on your own platform
This requires the business owner or the CEO to create a personal content strategy for Twitter or LinkedIn, and then build an audience for themselves on either or both of these platforms. There are many successful examples of this approach.
The content strategy document is what you often refer to give you direction and stay “on brand.” The tactics wrapped in a project plan ensure you execute it. Quarterly or weekly reviews ensure it is always relevant. And to do this, you need someone to drive it. Internally and externally when needed.
So that brings us to the question of whether content marketing can be outsourced.
Outsourcing content marketing
You can choose to build your product and focus only on that while you outsource all of the marketing to an external agency. But with how the nature of products has evolved over the years, product and marketing are intertwined much closer than before. So it is not so simple to just outsource all of the marketing to someone else.
If you have the funds you might consider hiring a senior marketing professional to be the head of marketing. The marketing head can then build internal resources to do the core marketing strategy work and outsource low-end marketing work to an agency, like creating/printing marketing collateral, content production, etc.
This however takes time. It takes time to hire a head of marketing and then fill up a team of good marketers. It also can be cost prohibitive for many companies.
The third option is to co-create the marketing strategy with an external expert who can help you manage and execute the marketing strategy. With this approach, there is better collaboration between the product team and marketing teams compared to outsourcing all of the marketing. While you may not hire anyone in-house, it is still important to have a project coordinator or driver of this from within the company. This is true for any engagement with an external agency.
A well thought out content marketing plan has a strategy and a set of tactics. The strategy is based on understanding of the customer and insights about the business/industry.
The marketing expert can tell you what are the key elements needed to create the strategy, structure the process and manage it. It could also include doing market research and customer interviews to gain these insights.
But most importantly, what the marketer should do is facilitate the process of mining your first-hand knowledge of the industry and customer to extract insights that are an important ingredient in building the marketing strategy.
It’s easier once you have a strategy in place to outsource the execution. And convenient to have one point of contact to create strategy and execution, so the agency generally takes the responsibility of doing it.
However, one must be wary of the fact that an agency will not have the skills or capabilities to create all types of content in-house. Skills like video animation, voiceovers, photography, memes, and content writing are best outsourced to experts in each of these areas. Managing all of them can become problematic for a company, so the agency usually ends up fronting this.
You can’t outsource content strategy, you can co-create it. If you do it in-house, either hire an experienced marketer. Or build a content strategy document with templates, and hire a junior to execute.
Content marketing = Content strategy + tactics
Content strategy = Insights (customer + business + industry)
Content tactics = Execution (content + channels) + Optimization
Document the insights, build your strategy, and then hire someone to execute the tactics. You can outsource if you know the strategy and have a specific set of tactics that you know will work.
Co-creation of content marketing strategy and execution > outsourcing content marketing.
An old post on early mistakes we did with content marketing when starting out.
