If you’ve ever been with a company and experienced push back from the higher ups or sales when you’ve tried to implement a content marketing plan, you know that it’s a tremendous obstacle to overcome. But when a whole company adopts a content marketing mindset, amazing things can happen.
Before he became known as “The Sales Lion,” Marcus Sheridan was the owner of a swimming pool company that was on the brink of going out of business. His last ditch effort to ramp up the company’s website with some helpful articles not only helped the company stay afloat, but began generating sales that made quite the splash.
Today, Sheridan is a content consultant who shares his knowledge and stories -- and those of many other businesses his firm helps with content marketing – to make the point that all types of companies in all industries can benefit from content marketing if it’s done the right way. Whether it’s B2B or B2C, the core of all great content strategy is simple: “they ask, you answer.”
Sheridan recently shared his philosophy of simplicity in a webinar co-hosted by NewsCred. We’ve compiled some of his best tips here:
Most companies are thinking too hard when it comes to content, says Sheridan, and as a result, they are overshooting. Simplicity is key, and it comes down to answering the questions and providing the solutions that your customers crave. Here are the five main topic types to get you started:
Customers will always want to know how much your product or service costs, and they will search for that information online. Five years ago, the question, “how much does a swimming pool cost?” was simply not addressed on any website, says Sheridan. The reason companies don’t like to disclose pricing is that they’re afraid of competitors finding out their prices, and are afraid of scaring people away. You don’t have to divulge every single price that you have, but by offering the consumer a range and an idea of what different price points they should expect, you are being honest and helpful.
The number one keyword phrase that potential pool customers were searching was “fiberglass pool problems.” By creating some content that explained potential problems, pros and cons (and offered solutions), Sheridan’s company was able to generate $500,000 in sales based on leads that came from those articles alone. “You need to be transparent and you will win,” he says.
If you’ve ever been asked by your customers to compare products, you should be addressing that on your website. "Stop leaving good content to third party sites," says Sheridan.
The same goes for reviews and best-of type content (which round out Sheridan’s “Big 5”). Become the authority in your industry, and people will find your content and come to you for answers.
Now that you know what type of content to write, the real challenge is learning how to implement it. Sheridan shares his eight critical steps for creating a culture of content marketing in your company.
The CEO and management need to be all in because you’ll need their support, assistance, and some budget. If you’re constantly having to battle with the higher ups about the value of content, then your content implementation will always be fighting an uphill battle - which can affect consistency.
That allows for in-sourcing your content, or curating from the inside, so you can use the intellectual property you have on staff already. It’s essential that if you’re going to develop a culture of content marketing in your company that everyone understands what it is, how to do it effectively, and why. If you can explain what’s in it for each person in the company, all of the employees can help you produce content.
Where will all of your content come from? Have a brainstorming session with your staff and write down all of the questions they get all the time from clients, customers, or sales calls. You’ll be amazed at how many content ideas you’ll have right from the start.
Call him or her what you will, but you need a chief content officer or some sort of central catalyst who organizes all content efforts and motivates the staff. This role is completely necessary to content marketing success.
A day is coming when it’s going to be on almost everyone’s job description to create content, says Sheridan. A content marketing platform like NewsCred can manage and streamline the process, especially with many team members involved.
Employees should not be responsible for things like titles, subheads, links, photos, etc. You can get the core of a topic from them, but as a marketer, you add the rest and work with your teams to make things pretty.
Creating a content culture requires an ongoing effort. You can try using a company newsletter to keep the team motivated with details such as, “Jeffrey in sales wrote an article that generated three new leads.” Sales and marketing teams will feel united as one, working toward the same goals.
For more of Sheridan’s tips listen to the full webinar here.
