Online Marketing: Strategy, Tools, and Hands-On Practice

The Human Knowledge Project

Chapter 05 — Content Marketing

Introduction

Content marketing uses useful information, instruction, stories, demonstrations, and other material to attract and serve an audience.

The central idea is simple:

Create something valuable enough that the intended audience has a reason to pay attention.

Content can help people discover an organization, understand what it offers, evaluate whether it is trustworthy, learn from it, and decide whether to take a next step.

Effective content marketing is therefore not simply publishing frequently.

It is the deliberate creation and distribution of useful material for a defined audience and purpose.

1. Content Begins With Audience Needs

A useful content program begins with questions such as:

These questions connect content marketing directly with the audience research from Chapter 02 and the search research from Chapter 04.

The strongest content often exists at the intersection of audience need and genuine organizational knowledge.

2. Content Must Have a Purpose

Every piece of content should have a reason to exist.

Possible purposes include:

A single piece of content does not need to accomplish every marketing objective.

A focused purpose usually produces clearer material.

3. Types of Content

Online content can take many forms.

Examples include:

The best format depends on the audience, subject, available resources, and purpose.

A complex idea may require a detailed tutorial, while a simple reminder may require only a short message.

Format should follow function.

4. Content and the Customer Journey

Different content can serve people at different stages of a relationship.

Someone encountering an organization for the first time may need introductory information.

Someone considering an offering may need:

Someone who has already acted may need instructions, support, advanced material, or continuing education.

Content strategy should therefore consider not only what subject to discuss but also what the audience needs at that particular stage.

5. Educational Content

Teaching can be a powerful form of marketing when education genuinely serves the audience.

Educational content can demonstrate expertise without requiring exaggerated claims.

Examples include:

The educational material itself should have value.

A reader should gain something useful even if that person never becomes a customer, member, or subscriber.

6. Quality Before Quantity

Publishing more content is not automatically better.

Every piece of content requires time to create, review, maintain, distribute, and measure.

A smaller collection of accurate, useful, well-maintained material can be more valuable than a large collection of weak or outdated pages.

Before creating new content, ask:

Content volume is an activity measure.

Audience value is the objective.

7. Accuracy and Credibility

Content marketing depends on trust.

Claims should be supportable, and factual material should be checked before publication.

Credibility can be strengthened by:

A short accurate explanation is more valuable than an impressive-looking article that misleads the reader.

8. Original Value

Content does not need to contain a completely new discovery to provide original value.

Original value may come from:

The question is not simply whether similar information exists elsewhere.

The question is whether this content gives the intended audience a worthwhile reason to use it.

9. Content Planning

A content plan connects audience needs with specific material to create.

For each proposed item, record:

This prevents the content calendar from becoming merely a schedule of things to publish.

Every planned item should have a reason for being created.

10. Content Series and Themes

Related material can be organized into themes or series.

For example, an educational organization might develop a series around:

A series allows one broad subject to be developed through several useful pieces of content.

It can also create natural internal links among related pages.

The objective is coherent coverage of an audience need, not artificial production of additional pages.

11. Repurposing Content

Useful material can often be adapted into additional formats.

A detailed guide might become:

Repurposing should adapt the material to the new context rather than simply copy it everywhere.

One strong piece of source material can support several channels while preserving a consistent underlying message.

12. Content Distribution

Publishing content does not guarantee that the intended audience will find it.

Distribution may involve:

The appropriate channels depend on where the intended audience actually spends attention.

A useful principle is to plan distribution while creating the content rather than after publication.

13. Calls to Action

Content may suggest an appropriate next step.

Examples include:

The call to action should fit the content and the visitor's likely stage in the customer journey.

Not every piece of content requires an aggressive sales request.

Sometimes the most useful next action is simply to continue learning.

14. Measuring Content Performance

Content should be evaluated according to its purpose.

Possible measurements include:

No single measurement proves that content is valuable.

The important question is whether the evidence indicates that the material is helping the intended audience and supporting the objective for which it was created.

15. Improving Existing Content

Content marketing includes maintaining what has already been published.

Existing material may need:

Before creating another page, determine whether improving an existing one would serve the audience better.

Content improvement is part of content creation.

Hands-On Project — Build a Content Marketing Plan

Use the same real organization or project you have used in earlier chapters.

A. Audience Needs

List at least ten genuine questions, problems, or information needs your intended audience has.

Use evidence from your earlier audience and search research whenever possible.

B. Content Opportunities

For each audience need, identify content that could help.

Record:

Do not create content merely to fill a publishing schedule.

C. Prioritize the Ideas

Place each proposed item into one of three groups:

  1. Create first
  2. Create later
  3. Do not create yet

Explain the evidence or reasoning behind the highest-priority items.

D. Distribution Plan

For each high-priority item, identify how the intended audience could discover it.

Consider:

Choose channels because they fit the audience, not simply because the channels are popular.

E. Measurement

For each high-priority item, define at least one measurement connected to its purpose.

State what evidence would indicate that the content is helping.

F. Create One Piece

Produce one complete piece of content from the plan.

Review it for:

Retain both the content plan and the finished piece for later chapters.

Exercises

Content Strategy

1. Define content marketing in your own words.

2. Why should content begin with audience needs?

3. Give five possible purposes for a piece of content.

4. Why is publishing frequently not necessarily an effective content strategy?

5. Give five different forms online content can take.

6. How can content needs change as a person moves through the customer journey?

Quality and Credibility

7. Why can a smaller collection of strong content outperform a large collection of weak content?

8. Identify five practices that can strengthen content credibility.

9. What does original value mean in content marketing?

10. Give three ways existing knowledge can be presented with original value.

11. Why should outdated content be reviewed rather than simply left online?

12. When might improving an existing page be preferable to creating a new one?

Planning and Distribution

13. What information should a useful content plan contain?

14. What is the advantage of organizing related content into a series?

15. Define content repurposing.

16. Why should repurposed material be adapted rather than simply copied everywhere?

17. Name five possible content-distribution channels.

18. Why should distribution be considered before publication?

Measurement and Reflection

19. Why should content measurements be connected to the purpose of the content?

20. Name five possible content-performance measurements.

21. What is the most important audience question your current project could answer with content?

22. What format would best answer that question?

23. How would the intended audience discover the content?

24. What appropriate next action could the content suggest?

25. What evidence would indicate that the content is useful?

26. What existing content on your project should be improved before additional material is created?

Chapter 05 — Answer Key

Answers involving the learner's own project will vary.

Strong conceptual answers should demonstrate these principles:

The content plan and completed content created in this chapter should be retained for use in the social media, email, analytics, and optimization chapters.