Why Take A Risk – Learn The Secret Of Why HubSpot Is Such A Successful Content Marketer And Sleep Like A Baby…

Never heard of HubSpot? Who are they anyway and why are they important?

If you’ve ever downloaded a nice Marketing Infographic chances are that HubSpot was behind it. If you’ve ever searched for “who has the best (insert whatever software module a small business needs)…” then there’s a good chance that HubSpot’s name will be on that list. They are the quintessential Kings or Queens of content and branding and have perfected the freemium business model. Their free products, for example, their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module are outstanding. DMO still uses the free version as we have not yet grown big enough to warrant the paid one.

Every business, big or small, offline or online, if you want to attract attention generate leads, expand your customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility or simply want to engage an online community of users, why take a risk, learn the secret of why HubSpot is such a successful content marketer, and sleep like a baby.

The world of content marketing changes constantly.

As we continue to be exposed to increasing amounts of promotions and advertisements, it’s up to marketers to break through the clutter.

What’s the best way to do this? Staying ahead of the curve by adapting effective content marketing strategies.

The 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report found that 71% of the users surveyed claimed that they consumed blog content during their purchase process. According to the same report, 40% of respondents shared that they went through 3-5 pieces of content before they engaged with a sales rep.

Attaining success in content marketing is a hard nut to crack. According to the CMI 2019 B2B Content Marketing study, 90% of the best content marketers claimed that they prioritize providing value to customers over brand promotion.

HubSpot states that “Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content to reach your target audience. As a business, this tactic can help you improve brand awareness, boost sales, connect with your target audience members, and engage prospects and customers.”

By providing audience members with useful content to educate them on your products and services — and show them how those products and services effectively solve their pain points and challenges — you can increase conversions, improve brand awareness, boost revenue, and more.

Why is content marketing important?

Today, outbound marketing strategies (or anything that interrupts your audience members) aren’t as effective for reaching audience members and converting leads as they once were. Content marketing has become a popular way for businesses to combat this issue. In addition to expanding your reach, content marketing helps your business:

• Educate your leads and prospects about the products and services you offer
• Boost conversions
• Build relationships between your customers and business
• Connect with your audience to show them how your products and services solve their challenges
• Create a sense of community around your brand

Now that you understand why your business should invest in content marketing, let’s review some examples so you can decide which types of content you want to create.

Content Marketing Examples

Although content marketing is an applicable and useful tactic for almost every company, brainstorming creative and persuasive ways to reach and convert your audience is no simple task. So, how can you succeed at content marketing?

To answer that question, let’s take a look at the various types of content marketing, plus some examples of each. This section will give you a better understanding of how you can incorporate content in your business’s marketing plans.

Types of Content Marketing

There are many types of content marketing your business may decide to leverage. Below are some of the most popular options.

• Social Media Content Marketing
• Infographic Content Marketing
• Blog Content Marketing
• Podcast Content Marketing
• Video Content Marketing
• Paid Ad Content Marketing

What HubSpot identified early is the need to have a Content Strategy.

Whether you’re just starting out with content marketing or you’ve been using the same approach for a while, it never hurts to revisit your content strategy plan — to make sure it’s up-to-date, innovative, and strong.

The first step to getting a leg up on the competition is to have a solid, smart content marketing plan in place.

What Is Content Strategy?

Content strategy refers to the management of pretty much any tangible media that you create and own: written, visual, downloadable … you name it. It is the piece of your marketing plan that continuously demonstrates who you are and the expertise you bring to your industry.

You might’ve heard how important content creation is to the growth of your business, but as you’ll see throughout this post, it needs to have a well-planned purpose. When you develop a content strategy, there are some key things to consider:

Whom You’re Creating Content For

Who’s the target audience for this content? For how many audiences are you creating content? Just as your business might have more than one type of customer, your content strategy can cater to more than one type of reader or viewer.

Using a variety of content types and channels will help you deliver different content to each type of audience you have in mind and engage everyone your company does business with.

The Problem it’s Going to Solve for that Audience

Ideally, your product or service solves a problem you know your audience has. By the same token, your content coaches and educates your audience through this problem as they begin to identify and address it.

A sound content strategy supports people on both sides of your product: those who are still figuring out what their main challenges are, and those who are already using your product to overcome these challenges. Your content reinforces the solution(s) you’re offering and makes your customers more qualified users of your product.

What Makes You Unique

Your competitors likely have a similar product as yours, which means your potential customers need to know what makes yours better — or, at least, different. This is where content comes in. In order to prove why you’re worth buying from, you need to prove why you’re worth listening to.

The Content Formats You’ll Focus On

What forms will your content take? Infographics? Videos? Blog posts? Having identified the topics you want to take a position on, you’ll need to determine which formats to budget for so you can best express that position.

The Channels Where It’ll Be Published

Just as you can create content in different formats, you’ll also have different channels you can publish to. Channels can include owned properties, such as your website and blog; and social media properties, such as Facebook and Twitter. We’ll talk more about social media content strategy in the step-by-step guide later in this article.

How You’ll Manage Creation and Publication

Figuring out how you’ll create and publish all your content can be a daunting task. It’s important for a content strategy to know who’s creating what, where it’s being published, and when it’s going live.

Today’s content strategies prevent clutter by managing content from a topic standpoint. When planning a content calendar around topics, you can easily visualize your company’s message and assert yourself as an authority in your market over time.

In my blog headline, I posed the question “Why take a risk – learn the secret of why HubSpot is such a successful content marketer and sleep like a baby.”?

Most readers are probably well down the road on their company’s content marketing journey. This blog was not meant as a free plug for HubSpot per se, although, having benefited from using their range of free tools, including free training, Learn What Content Marketing is and How to Do It [Course], I can say this – if you have to follow someone, then follow someone who has already found the right path and can lead you to success.

As a bonus for having read this blog to the very end, for the month of November I’m giving away a free E-Book on Email Marketing, which is one of the tools a good content marketing strategy should use.