An Introduction to

content Marketing
By Hafsa Ahmed
We will talk about…
 What content marketing is and what’s
not?
 Why content marketing is important in
today’s world?
 How to make a basic content marketing
plan upon your objectives?
 Create an editorial colander that you’ll use
as a guide line so you can share the
content in all those platform where you
have presence.
 Finally you will measure the success from
the initial plan that you’ll put together.
 This class is for those who want to start
content marketing or who has a small or
medium organization and thought to
change its marketing strategy.
Defining Content Marketing
 Definition of Marketing define by
American Marketing Association
 “Marketing is the activity, set of
institutions and process for creating,
delivering and exchanging offering that
have value for customers, clients,
partners, and society at large”.
 Alternate marketing definition shared by
Marketing Professor several years ago…
Definition…
 “Marketing is turning a want into a need”.
 Now let’s understand how this definition
relates to content marketing
 “Any piece of communication that connects
consumers, who have a specific need, with
a solution”.
 Through your content you can provide the
solution to the consumers that they might
want.
Definition …
 Content is typically shared through online
venues such as social media (facebook,
twitter, instagram, youtube or your website /
blog.
 Content could be anything from a simple
photo with a caption to a 1,500 word blog
post.
 The ultimate goal of content marketing is to
attract new potential customers, retain them
and turn them in to brand ambassadors and
it will leads to additional sells.
Definition…
 Our society has changed and we came
across thousands of messages everyday
like when you’re driving you see billboard
adds, when you turn on radio you listen
radio adds. We are bombarded with
millions of advertises everyday that’s why
traditional marketing won’t work anymore.
 You can be successful by breaking all the
noise and reach your customer and turn
them into your brand ambassadors.
Benefits of content marketing
 Brand awareness and trust.
 Brand awareness: Consumers are looking
for information and by creating your
content you create awareness about your
brand.
 Trust: The content that you create
overtime you build a relationship with
consumers. When they are ready for any
purchase they will think of you first.
What should content be like…
 When developing your brand’s content
marketing plan which we’ll discuss shortly
your message should provide
 Valuable information (you’re providing a
solution to specific problem or need)
 Have an emotional connection (if you’re
write any emotional message for
customers it will be memorable and easy
for them to remember)
 Be relatable
Establishing your goals
 Spend some time to thing how you’ll
measure the success of your plan.
 What do you want to get out of your
content marketing plan?(increase share of
engagement, lead generation, increase
revenue) Discuss it with your team..
 Establish a budget to stay on track with
ROI (return on investment)
 Goals have to be S.M.A.R.T( Specific,
measurable, achievable, relevant and time
bound.
Initial Audit
 Important to better understand and
assess your organization’s current state.
 Run an audit on your website or social
media platform. If you have a website
you can utilize Google analytics to
measure the following things
 What is the increase and decrease in
traffic?
 Where is the traffic coming from?
 Is it organic? Is through referrals? Is it
through social media platforms ?
 What is the bounce time? How much time
do they spend on your website? What are
the content that they are visiting.
 Downloads (tracks and measure to your
mailing list)
 For social media Platforms: Look the
following things (number of followers,
shares, engagement, reactions and clicks
to your platforms)
 Once you know the current state of your
organization
 You can start establishing your goals but
they have to be measureable, and time
bound are they have to be quarterly based
or annual one. Do you want to reach 2000
subscribers by end of the year. Is traffic
going to be 50% by the end of the year or
in 6 months. These are the important
things that you need to discuss and agree
upon with your marketing team.
 In the end you’ll create spreadsheet to
measure you’re goals.
Creating a buyer persona
 Brand voice. What is it and why it’s
important?
 You want to make sure that your content
is consistent across the media and stands
out from your competitors. In order to do
that first you have to create a buyers
persona.
 Who is your ideal client: write down the
description of your ideal client
 Mike
 34 years old
 Entrepreneur
 Newportn Beach, CA
 Likes to surf and travel
 Shops at Trader Joe’s
 But before creating a buyer’s description
make a reaserch on who you’re ideal client
is is it male, female, age, job, their likes,
annual household income,where they go out
to eat.
 The more detailed buyer persona is the
more will be the chances to develop
valuable content.
Developing and promoting content
 Before creating content think
 What are your organization’s priorities for
this year.
 Do you have different buyer personas that
means you have to make different content
for those different buyer personas.
 Look at the bigger picture..Is your
organization launching a product or
service down the road. So creating a
roadmap and looking a bigger picture will
help you to create a valuable content.
Developing and promoting content
 Brainstorm for creating content for those
lunches in the long run.
 What type of content is good fit for your
strategy,
 Would it be blog post 500 to 700 words
updated on your company blog or website,
sharing relevant information,
 Cheat sheets, tips or best practices that
would be practical for your practical clients
 E-books: indepth information, appealing
 Infographics: you can provide statistics in
an official way.
 Videos: promoted on youtube, vimeo
 Graphics/ Photos
 Podcasts
 Slide presentations
 Add all these into your editorial calendar in
order to create more engaging content to
make different types of content for different
people.
Types of Content
 While doing this think…
 Where would you publish the content
 What will be the optimal channels to
promote it.
 Check your roadmap and refer to as much
as it needed to establish your editorial
calander. For editorial you can use
spreadsheet (simple) but I recommend
google calaner also other paid platforms
like coschedule..
 Email list is also important
Content marketing matrices
 Refer back to your goals
 Measuring the success of your plan
 Brand awareness
 Lead generation
 Engagement
 Website traffic
 Social sharing
 Loyalty
 sales