Is content marketing a fad? No, and here's why. As an MSP, your number one source of leads is online—through your website, social media, and online advertising. Although you may send out self-promotion campaigns, most of your new customers are finding you, and they are doing it on the web.
In the early 1990s, there were nearly 60,000 commercial printers. Today, that's down to 23,000. Competition is no longer local and regional. It is national and global. With website templates democratizing the quality of website design, the smallest commercial printer can look like the largest. How are MSPs differentiating themselves? With content.
"Your brand image is driven by your content," notes Patrick Whelan, president of Great Reach Communications, which licenses print newsletters, e-newsletters, and other print and digital content to printers. "You are what your content is . . . or what it says you are."
Moreover, Whelan says, the buyer is taking over more and more of the sales process. They determine when they will be marketed to, how they will be marketed to, and what channels marketers will use to do it.
"By conservative estimates, 80 to 90 percent of the buying process is already complete before someone makes contact with you for the first time," said Whelan. "That's conservative. That means 80 to 90 percent of a prospect's perception is based on your content. The print, email and other communications you are sending out (or have posted online) are what you are being judged on."
According to Marketing Sherpa, content marketing is the "single most effective" SEO tactic. DemandMetric reports that, per dollar spent, content marketing generates approximately three times as many leads as traditional marketing.
Three Impacts of Content MarketingWhy is content marketing so effective? Content does three things. It draws people from the seemingly infinite online world into your individual sales funnel, it qualifies leads once people come to your website, and it establishes your credibility.
1. Draws people into the sales funnel.
With it comes to being found online, SEO is king. Content that resides on your website (text, blog posts, videos, downloadable white papers) is searchable. Companies with little content on their websites are not as visible to search engines as those with content-rich sites, especially those with content that is continually being updated.
Think about your content as being like a Japanese beetle trap. Within seconds of attaching the first scented tag to the trap, homeowners can see a thick line of beetles beginning to head toward the trap as they follow the scent. That is what good content does for you online.
Google's Hummingbird changed a lot of the rules for content marketing. SEO is no longer about stacking up your copy with search terms. It's about providing content-rich material. To search engines, good content is like a stream of pheromones.
Printers should not overlook the content on their personal LinkedIn profile either. "Customers don't just want to check out the company," said Whelan. "They want to check out the salesperson they would be working with. Add regular blog posts to your profile that establish your expertise."
2. Qualifies leads.
Not everyone who comes to your company's website is a potential customer, but someone who takes the time to download a white paper on cross-platform color management probably is. Pay attention to who does what. Who watches your plant tour videos? Who takes the time to send comment on your blog post about Every Day Direct Mail? Those are your warm leads, and you need to know who they are.
Gating high-value content (case studies, white papers) behind online forms is one of the most common ways to qualify leads. You've done it yourself. Fill out a form, answer questions about your business and your need for specific services, and then you can download the content. This is a highly effective lead generation tactic.
3. It establishes your credibility.
Content is the way you not only tell your story but to demonstrate your credibility. It's one thing to say "we will boost your marketing results," but it's quite another to offer a downloadable case study of a client who got 300 percent ROI on a multichannel marketing campaign you executed.
"When it comes right down to it, customers will give the job to the printer they feel they trust the most," said Whelan. "To win business, you don't need to have a 10-color press. You need content that your customers and prospects trust."
Track and MeasureWinning at the content marketing game is helped by measuring the success of your efforts and tweaking as you learn what works and what doesn't. According to HubSpot, an online resource for inbound marketing, here are some of the most common measurements used:
There are others, and you should determine which are most appropriate to the types of content you are distributing.
Content marketing is not a fad. It's a response to the buyer-driven marketing world in which we live. It's one of the most critical ways to capture leads, establish your business identity, and differentiate yourself from the thousands of other printers fighting for the same customers you are.
Five Types of Recommended Content1. Company blog.
Establishes you as a thought leader and helps with SEO.
2. White papers and e-books.
Gate high-value content behind a form to collect lead data to support lead gen efforts.
3. "Snackable" video content.
Video-hosting sites like Wistia and Vidyard make it easy to collect lead data and integrate it directly into your CRM. (According to SEOmoz, blog posts with video attract three times more inbound links than plain text posts.)
4. Visual content.
Buyers want content that is easy to absorb and doesn't require a large time commitment.
5. Case studies.
Shows potential customers how others are using and benefitting from your print and marketing services. Case studies carry more weight than generic marketing copy.
Adapted from "The Content Creation Guide" (Salesforce Pardot, 2015)
Source: Content Marketing: Just a Fad?
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