Content is a loaded topic. Have you thought about it lately? There is so much content out there! Social media content, video content, services content, sales content, web content; I could go on forever. All types of content lead back to the point that content is a form of communicating a topic or idea. We are all creating content almost every single day! Sometimes I find that we forget what the word actually means because we use it so often.

I say it’s time for a refresher course.

Let’s break it all down! Starting with the ambiguous word itself.

Content

What it is: A piece, or a variety of photo, copy, and video that are used in any combination to create some sort of marketing piece.
How it’s used: Content can be a blog, a Facebook post, or a series of photos that will be used for a campaign.
Why it’s important: Content, as mentioned, is the variety of pieces that make up your bigger marketing puzzle. The reason it’s important may be fairly obvious but what’s even MORE important is making sure that every piece of content that you create fairly and accurately represents your brand.

Now that we have content explained, let’s jump into the two main types of content you will use for your business- sales and marketing.

Content Marketing

What it is: Content that is used to specifically create authenticity and charm for your brand’s products or services.
How it’s Used: For your “why” mainly or to serve the purpose of your mission through solution based content. It is also used to explain the what about your product or service can help improve a pain point your customer or client may have that your product or service can be the solution for.
Why it’s important: Clients and consumers want to feel your brand’s lifestyle, what your mission and “why” is. It’s proven that the more connected your brand is to your target audience, the more brand recognition and success it’ll receive. Your audience wants to buy from a brand they know, like and trust.

Sales Content

What it is: Content that is specifically sales driven to convince your target audience to purchase your product or service, especially as it relates to copy.
How it’s used: To drive your customer to a sale. This also includes sales-related initiatives i.e. seasonal promos, holidays, etc. As well as showcasing statistics, testimonials and awards.
Why it’s important: It’s the content that is more of a hard sell rather than educational or informative. It has a very specific use to drive your client to a sale.

Content Strategy

To keep it simple, you’re capturing your audience’s attention and nurturing their brand experience with marketing content, then driving them to a purchase with sales content. Your content marketing should show your brand’s unique proposition to a problem they are experiencing without having to take a megaphone to it. Simple enough, right?

It all comes down to your buyer cycle. What is your buyer’s journey? What are they searching for to get to your brand? When they do, how are you informing and enticing? And lastly, what are the gaps in between? How are you nurturing your audience into purchasing? When these questions are answered, you’re in a much better position to create strategic and effective content that sells.

You are now probably reminded of the million ways you can use content to create more sales. Webinars, YouTube videos, social media, blogs- all the things! Overwhelming right? Well think about this last tidbit- content marketing drives SEO. So naturally, you’re right to be overwhelmed. It takes much longer to create the messaging as well as the creative portions nowadays. Just to write a blog alone takes 65% more time to write than it did in 2014.

That doesn’t mean you have to do all the content bits on your own. It makes sense that 84% of marketers are outsourcing their content creation. At the very least, 69% of marketers have a documented content strategy. Are you one of them? It’s not easy to do, but that’s where I can step in. Let’s chat about it!

For now answer me this, which type of content, sales or marketing, are you creating more of?

Cheers,

Mel

Image source: Studio Magnolia, Social Squares