You’re just getting started in Content Marketing and even this website is getting confusing? I can’t boil down the entire essence of Content Marketing in one blog. That said I thought I would put together this handy cheat sheet of buzz words as you read my blogs.
Table of Contents
Buyer Persona
When you are creating a Content Strategy you need to start by thinking of the audience you are trying to reach. Often Marketers will make up a fictional person who is their ideal customer. They will have all the details of this person from age, occupation, interests and much more. The benefits of creating a Buyer Persona:
- Understanding where your customer is in their Buyer Journey
- Where they will find your content (Social, Email, Search Engine)
- Why they want or need your product/services
Buyers Journey
The Buyers Journey allows you to understand where your Buyer Persona is on their journey to a purchase or sale. There are three stages of the Buyers Journey: Awareness, Interest, and Delight.
Awareness Stage
During the Awareness Stage of the Buyers Journey, your customer is doing their research. They have an idea of what they want but they may not be committed to buying just yet. This is the stage where your customer is most likely to find you on Google Organically.
Interest Stage
At the Interest Stage, your customer is ready to make a purchase. They have done all their research and are narrowing down their options. Your customer may have you and one or two competitors in mind. Here your goal is to get a warm conversation going to convince them one to one why you are the best option.
Consideration/Delight Stage
Once your customer has made a purchase they enter the Delight Stage. The goal is to convert one-time customers into loyal customers. To be successful you need to create a sense of community and personal relationship with your customers. This is possible with content!
Call to Action (CTA)
In terms of Content Marketing, a Call to Action is how you convince someone to do what you want them to do.
- Do you want them to contact you?
- Do you want to guide them to your services page?
- Do you want them to make a purchase?
Your content, especially awareness content, should be informative and useful on its own. You want to avoid being too salesy. Instead encourage your reader, usually at the top or bottom of the blog, to learn more about your business. This is usually as a form for people to fill out or a button taking them to a contact form, information on the business, or a service page.
In this blog I want to encourage learning and communication. The Call to Action that I’ve nestled into all the conclusion paragraphs encourages people to leave comments on the blog. I’m hoping through comments I can adapt my pages and learn new things from others! Every business is going to have a different CTA Strategy.
Subject Matter Expert (SME)
At work, I’m in charge of creating a content strategy for an IT Professional Services company. This means I need to make valuable and interesting content related to IT Services. And while I can take intro courses to Cloud Cost Management my technical knowledge only goes so far. This is where Subject Matter Experts (SME) come in.
If you are a small business owner, you are your own SME. Being an SME who controls the content strategy makes choosing blog topics and writing them a much easier experience. Most likely what you are interested in, your audience is interested in. It makes content creation a truly organic process.
If you are an independent marketer you will need to seek out an SME to help. At the IT company I work at the Developers are the best resource I have for creating meaningful content. While I do plenty of research I rely on SME’s to help approve topics, provide technical reviews, and some of them write for me!
Talk Like a Content Marketer
Many marketers are charismatic chancers that hide behind fancy terminology. There are even marketing terms that mean the same thing but have three different buzzwords. Don’t feel discouraged if you encounter words you don’t understand while on your Marketing Journey. Are there any content marketing terms I missed? Let me know in the comments!