What is content marketing? It’s the art of creating a content-ecosystem inhabited by both your audience and your product.

Content marketing turns old-school marketing on its head: no more one-way promotion or one-way relationships. Content marketing looks at your customers and what is happening in their world. What are their lives like? What are their pain-points? What content will help them, fascinate them, save them, or entertain them?

Giving them valuable content is how you stay in their lives as an ally and a protector. It is how you forge a trusting, long-term relationship. Content marketing is how you thrive through tough economies and a crowded digital arena. (And we do mean very crowded. The Internet now has more than one and a half billion websites. Where are you?)

Search Engine Optimization is the science behind getting eyeballs to your website. It is about how much Big-Brother-Google thinks you matter. If it is impressed, it sends you more people by letting your website climb the search rankings. For a while there the volume of keywords on your site really made a difference. So, your SEO magicians loaded every nook and cranny with all the industry keywords you can think of…

But Google is no longer simply impressed by tons of keywords. Technology is becoming more intuitive. It looks at how people are actually searching. Google has started to read between the lines in the search box. Google is looking at search intent, and so should you.

Using old keyword strategies means people who land on your website are often not viable customers. They could simply be students researching your industry, or curious competitors instead of future clients. Content that is uniquely created for your buying audience will side-step this problem.

More importantly, your SEO strategy should think beyond keywords to net the right online market. What if your audience is not looking for you in the way that you expect? What if they are not using the obvious industry keywords? What if they don’t even know they need you, yet? An incisive, deeply intuitive content strategy will go further than your competitors’ content efforts. It will locate your desired audience and interpret their real needs. Then you can woo them with impossible-to-ignore content. 

What is the best strategy to buy your family gifts that they will love?

Do you picture them in your mind’s eye and imagine what they would like? Do you recall everything they have been talking about for the last few months? Was there something they were struggling with that you might fix with a thoughtful gift? Do you think about all the things with which they surround themselves in their house?

Creating content that speaks to your audience works in the same way. You wouldn’t give your 92-year-old granny a six-month subscription to a hot yoga class you were hoping to go to yourself. You also wouldn’t give your toddler that set of handmade Japanese kitchen knives that caught your eye during the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Why then would you create content that appeals to you first?

Try this instead:

1. Understand what makes your audience tick; what makes them laugh, and cry.
2. Remember that the Internet is a busy, busy place at the moment. ‘Good, quality content’ is just not good enough anymore. Up your game exponentially.
3. Create magical, marvellous, must-see articles, videos, infographics, case studies, podcasts… (the list goes on… and on… it really does… and on.)
4. Parade it in online places where your audience actually hang out, pop it in your newsletter, or give it a (paid) nudge or two.
5. Watch the likes, shares, web visits, and sales roll in…

Digital marketing seems to spawn another channel every day. It is exhausting to try and be everywhere, all the time. Are you doing the right things? Are you in the right places?

Not knowing is very expensive.

Fascinating, meaningful and relevant content will always be the right thing. And the right people will consume it for much longer than a paid campaign or a short-sighted social media plan.

Content marketing also helps you drive your overall digital marketing in a smarter way. At the heart of a phenomenal digital marketing strategy lies your persona: a realistic, fleshed-out picture of your audience. Unfortunately, this is a step business owners and agencies often overlook. They hastily add their credit cards to their AdWords and social media accounts and wait for results… and wait.

Luckily for you, exceptional content strategists love creating the right persona for your business. They do this right at the start, and they do it well. This foundation makes your future digital marketing easier and saves you money.

People don’t want to buy a car. They want to buy a car they can trust. They don’t want to call an electrician. They want to call an electrician they can trust. How do they tell the difference? The word of a trusted salesman and Nigel from next door used to point us in the right direction. Today, the answer is content. People search for content that inspires their trust and gives them the answers. Then they make the decision to buy.

47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of the company’s content before talking with a sales representative. In the crowded digital world, it is necessary for your future customers to interact with you and your brand 6-8 times before they make a purchase decision. And that is where legendary content is priceless. People return to great content over and over again, building trust in your brand every time they see it.

Mojo and Flint is about the journey we take with our clients. Our goal is to establish a consistent pattern of quality content for your business.