What is content marketing and why is it ever-growing in popularity?
With technology advancing by the day, the opportunities to turn your back on traditional paid for advertising are many. Gone are the days of assigning a huge marketing budget to pay for adverts in the media; you can now take care of your own advertising with content marketing.
So why is it so popular? Well, because it’s generally very low cost or even free to do so, all it needs is the investment of your time.
Put simply, content marketing is producing useful, relevant, and regular content for your target audience.
Say goodbye to icky, uncomfortable, pushy sales tactics and instead put yourself out there; give your audience information that answers their questions, entertains, and shows that you not only understand their pain points but can help solve them.
Sounds great, but how do I create content marketing for my pet business?
Whichever medium, or preferably mediums you choose, consistency will be the thing that makes the biggest difference to your success.
None of these is a quick win, but they are a long win that will pay off in spades.
Let’s explore some of the different types of content marketing you can use for your pet business.
Blogging
Blogs are essentially pages added to your website, which provide a space for you to share helpful, interesting, and valuable information with your clients and prospective clients.
Websites that have a blog have 434% more indexed pages
OptinMonster
That means that websites with a blog have a better chance of increasing their visibility on Google than ones that don’t.
Vlogging
Whether you go live on your social media accounts or set up your own Youtube Channel, vlogs are videos that you use to share interesting, useful and even entertaining content.
If you set up your own YouTube channel, which is free and fairly simple to do, you can then embed your videos onto your website and into your blog. Giving you even more content on your website…. Ding, ding, ding!
Podcast
Podcasts are growing in popularity by the day; they are an excellent way for people to consume content while doing other things, like driving or cooking dinner! This is an ever-growing medium and can be done relatively cheaply and easily.
Webinars
Pre-recorded or live, these are usually mini-training sessions that can be either free or paid for, giving away; you guessed it, useful, relevant, and valuable information! If you don’t have something you can offer yourself, you can always consider hosting a webinar with a guest expert on a topic that interests your audience.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is where you either share your blog on someone else’s platform or website or where you share a blog by someone else on yours. It’s such a super interesting and important topic that it has it’s own blog, what guest blogging is and whether you should do it for free.
Other types of content marketing include your email marketing, infographics, social media posts, and lead magnets. Again this is a topic in its own right, so you can read up on them all here.
Approaching your content marketing with diversity will maximise the potential of how many people you can reach.
Consider your audience when choosing which forms you choose; what is most likely to appeal to them? Content marketing is time-intensive, so make sure you can commit to continuing whichever mediums or platforms you commit to.
Why does content marketing work, and why is it better than paid advertising?
I firmly believe that content marketing is head and shoulders above paying for advertising. It may not deliver you instant gratification, but I promise, that’s overrated.
Content marketing is better than paid advertising because
- It helps you attract better quality clients
- It saves your bottom line
- It will help you reach more people
- It will give you longer lasting benefits
Content Marketing vs. Paid for Advertising
So let’s consider this. You have an online pet boutique selling pet accessories, and you pay for an ad in a national newspaper, in the pet section.
Let’s consider the readership of that paper. How many of those people are going to even look at the advert? How many of them have pets? How many of them are going to remember to look you up later online and buy your products?
Ok, how about you pay a pet influencer on the ‘gram to promote your new line of dog jumpers. They have an engaged audience of people who love dogs and want to buy accessories for their dogs. They may click through and buy a jumper, maybe two if you’re lucky. But do you think they’ll stick? Have they bought into your brand or your influencer’s brand?
When that influencer moves onto promote their next product partnership, where does that leave you?
Ok, now let’s consider the same example using content marketing to promote your products.
You create a catalogue of blogs that you release regularly exploring a host of topics, choosing the perfect dog jumper for your *insert breed*, how to measure your dog to get the perfect fit, where you source your products from, and why, and so on.
You provide a balance of useful information that answers your target audience’s questions, and you tell the story of your products or services.
Now, these people really start to buy into your brand and your expertise; they begin to value you. They are no longer a one-off purchaser or browser, but they believe in what you do, why you do it, and how you do it.
They are starting to become a fan! And they may even start sharing that content which they found so useful with others. They’re now doing your marketing for you!
In addition to all of that, you are giving Google a very good impression now too! Google decides whether to show searchers your stuff based on how much Google knows about you. Are you what the searcher is looking for?
With limited information on your website, Google has a tough job ascertaining if or why you may be preferable to show to the searcher than all the other pet boutiques, dog clothing makers, dog walkers, groomers, and so on.
Give Google more information about you with every new blog post you add, and you will start to show up where it matters, on Google!
To me, it is clear that while not instantaneous, your content marketing is going to win out for you in the long run. If you need an instant boost of sales, then by all means, place that ad. But get started on your content marketing strategy too, so that next time your ad will deliver you some longevity.
If you’d like some help with your content marketing then why not book in with me for a free discovery call or subscribe below for more helpful tips and info!
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