Content Marketing Basics: 10 Lessons from Joe Pulizzi, Part I

Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi breaks down the basics to launching a content marketing strategy that engages your prospects and converts more leads.

Tis the season for giving, and this year we’re sharing 10 essential lessons from the Father Christmas of content marketing, himself — author, speaker, and strategist Joe Pulizzi. In the first post in this two-part series, he’ll walk you through the fundamentals of developing your own content marketing strategy, from understanding and locating your audience to creating content specific to progressing them through each stage of the buying process.

What Is Content Marketing?

From the Content Marketing Institute’s website:

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

What exactly does that mean? Essentially, it’s marketing that focuses on engaging with and informing potential customers, not pitching a product or service.

Today’s customers have a buying process that centers around searching for quality information from trusted resources. Content marketing can ensure your company is one of those trusted resources, but in order to do so you need to develop an in-depth understanding of your customers and their needs.

First Steps

As Pulizzi explains in this short video, getting started with a content marketing strategy is essentially a two-step process. First, you have to determine exactly what it is your customers need from an informational standpoint. What are their pain points? What knowledge do they need to move forward?

At the same time, you also need to be conscious of the effect you want that information to have — how does your content effectively move buyers down the path to purchase?

“It always starts with — ‘What’s keeping my customers up at night?'” Pulizzi explains. “If you can answer that questions and deliver content on top of that you’ve done something pretty special.”

Once you’ve mapped out a cohesive strategy, it’s time to dive right in and start the conversation with your customers.

Locating Your Audience

There is an incredible number of content marketing channels out there. In fact, the number is growing every day. Before you set out to create content for each and every one of them, stop and think about which ones will actually reach your audience.

If your customers are far more active on LinkedIn rather than Twitter, that should tell you where to direct your resources. If they don’t typically watch videos on YouTube, a robust YouTube strategy probably shouldn’t be your first priority.

“Think about what online portals, sections, and bookmarking sites [you] should be on from a marketing standpoint,” says Pulizzi. “Just think about where [your} customers are hanging out.”

Part of figuring out where your customers are entails listening. As a marketer, you already know the importance of customer feedback when it comes to tailoring your approach. As long as you’re diligent in your research, you’ll be honed in on your online audience in no time.

Choosing the Right Content

Unfortunately, there really isn’t a blanket approach to content creation that will work for every company. It obviously depends on the specific needs of each customer group, and therefore the best approach is to stay focused and start out small. Trying to do too much too soon is a big mistake that often causes companies adopting content marketing for the first time to crash and burn.

“You think you have to be everywhere. You think you have to be doing every type of content,” Pulizzi says. “You don’t have to, and frankly, you can’t.”

Instead, companies should focus on a few core initiatives that cast a wide net and deliver the most bang for their buck. Starting off with relatively simple offerings such as a corporate blog, a company newsletter, and white papers, for example, can allow you to test various approaches, determine what sticks, and make adjustments before extending into more time and resource-intensive projects.

Content for Early-Stages of the Buying Process

At the outset of the buying process the majority of customers aren’t looking for comprehensive information and in-depth details about your product. Think about it — you wouldn’t stand out on the street and expect random people to stop, pick up a copy of your latest white paper, and sign up for your service then and there would you?

In the early stages of the buying process, it’s more about delivering content that captures your audience’s attention and encourages them to engage to find out more. That means making it stand out visually and keeping it short.

“In the early stages of buying…[customers] are trying to make a decision between, let’s say, three or four or five different sets of products and services,” Pulizzi explains. “The way you, as a brand, can get out in front of that is by creating short, impactful content.”

Focus on delivering visual, engaging content that stands apart from your competitors’ and make sure to provide a clear call to action that tells your audience what to do next.

Come back tomorrow for more insights breaking down the content marketing basics Part II.