Content marketing involves creating and sharing media to build an audience and engage users. It can inform, educate, and entertain readers while also promoting a brand's messages and calls to action. Effective content marketing requires planning an editorial calendar, publishing different types of multi-format content regularly, and promoting content through social media, search optimization, and other channels to attract prospective customers and track results. Creating useful, high-quality content that addresses audiences' needs and questions can help build traffic and conversions over time when supported by the right tools and strategies.

1. Content Marketing 101
Building an audience & growing your business

2. About me
Jon Norris (not Robin or Ashley)
@Jn_Norris
http://jonnorris.work

3. What is content marketing?
• It’s a way of building traffic to your website
• It’s building engagement with your users
• It’s the creation and sharing of media
• It’s the centre of your social media, SEO and paid
advertising strategies

4. Old media

5. With content marketing...
You own the magazine AND the advertising

6. To build an audience...
Channel your inner BBC
• Inform
• Educate
• Entertain

7. Inform
GE Reports
• Stories from
around GE
• Highly visual
• 300k visitors

8. Educate
Simply Business
• Educational
microsites
• Step-by-step
• Videos

9. Entertain
Red Bull
• Colossal budgets
• Amazing content
• Logos
everywhere!

10. Different purpose / different traffic
Entertaining (viral)
Informative
Educational (evergreen)

11. It’s not about you...
It’s about your audience

12. But where to get ideas?
What will bring prospective customers to your site?
• Frequently asked questions
• Free resources & tools
• Engaging content
• Something that addresses a specific need

13. But how to publish them?
Think multi-format. Just text is boring (but is important for
search).
• Images / video
• Social hooks / interviews
• Topical content

14. But how to plan it?
• Get an editorial calendar
• Stick to it
• Post regularly (not necessarily often)

15. But how to promote it?
• Engage relevant audiences
• Social channels
• Internal linking
• Search optimisation (more on that later)
• Publishing is the halfway point!

16. But how to win business?
• Include brand messages
• Include calls to action (“Sign up now” etc.)
• Encourage readers to share / comment
• Collect personal details in a clever way

17. Example: Copyblogger

18. How do you know it’s working?
• Google Analytics
• Set up goals and track conversion rates by post
• Use successful posts as inspiration for more content
• Track lead quality by source (to determine where the
right audience is)

19. An example
Invoice templates
• Great “gateway
drug”
• High search traffic
• Useful!
• Dedicated ongoing
promotion

20. An example

21. It works!

22. Search optimisation
• Important keywords in title, URL and body
• Internal links with exact-match anchor text (e.g. invoice
templates)
• External links (either earned or owned)
• Rule of thumb: Great content promotes itself

23. Useful tools - research
• Keyword Planner - search volumes
• Internal site search - what are people looking for?
• Forums - what do people struggle with?
• Social media - ask people!

24. Useful tools - production
• Wordpress - other CMS are available
• GIMP (free) / Photoshop (£9pm) - image editing
• YouTube / Instagram - social network of choice for your
content
• Twitter - @AP_Planner for topical content, Buzzsumo to
find influencers

25. Useful tools - promotion
• Yoast - search optimisation (Wordpress plugin)
• Hootsuite - social promotion
• Reddit / Quora
• Paid options - Outbrain / Taboola

26. Useful tools - lead gen
• Marketo / Pardot - lead nurturing
• MailChimp - email signup
• SumoMe - conversion optimisation

27. Content Strategy is these things working
together
• Ideation
• Creation
• Publication
• Promotion
• Audience attraction
• Conversion

28. At scale...
• Planning is key
• Get processes in place
• Involve everyone
• Every month:
• Measure
• Report
• Optimise

29. Never ever
• Try to mislead your audience
• Try to cheat Google
• Make your content “me, me, me!”
• Announce blog posts with a press release
(apparently people still do this)

30. Thank you!
Hire me - http://jonnorris.work