7 Types of Content Marketing that Convert to Profits

What’s the point of content marketing?

• Is it just getting some blog posts up?
• Is it creating cool infographics to get tons of shares?
• Is it becoming a podcaster?

Well… those are all examples of content marketing- but what is the point of content marketing?

Professional, enterprise-level content marketing… what we should all aspire to- is organized, measured and automated. Great content marketing drives everything toward sales and repeat sales. Conversion and loyalty. That’s the point.

Content Marketing is NOT getting as many shares as Buzzfeed. Even when you succeed with top-of-funnel awareness-raising supercool content in your niche, it probably won’t have the broad human appeal of bacon or “26 Pictures Will Make You Re-Evaluate Your Entire Existence” or “24 Pictures That Will Make You Feel Better About The World“.

So content marketing is not about viral marketing. And good thing, too, since your chances of pulling that off are slim to none.

Content marketing is about sales.

And you can’t do professional content marketing without marketing automation. Even if it’s just an email autoresponder of follow-ups for people new to your brand.

7 Content Marketing Questions Your Organization Must Answer

You have to answer these questions:

1. What are the buying stages of my prospects?
2. What does that make our funnel look like?
3. What content do we have for each stage of the funnel?
4. What is the conversion rate for each of those pieces of content- what % of content-consumers does it get to the next funnel stage?
5. Where is the bottleneck?
6. What kinds of content are we missing?
7. How can we improve our results?

Until you’ve answered those questions, you don’t have strong content marketing.

The 14 Stages of Organizational Content Marketing Evolution

And if you’ve been focusing on buzz only… well here are the stages of content marketing evolution in an organization, as stated by your very excitable marketing person:

1. “Oh no: We don’t have content!”
2. Yay! We have a blog!
3. Oh, no! Our blog isn’t getting any attention!
4. Oh, no! Our buzzy posts aren’t getting shared!
5. Oh, no! We need more types of content!
6. Oh no! We don’t have enough budget!
7. Yay! We have more budget!
8. Yay! Now we have lots of content!
9. Oh, no! Our content isn’t organized!
10. Yay! We purchased marketing automation!
11. Oh, no! We’ve had marketing automation for 3 months and haven’t set it up!
12. Yay! We are tracking the success of our content!
13. Oh, no! Our content isn’t effective enough!
14. Yay! We have a new comprehensive content marketing plan!
15. Yay! We are coming up with new content for the bottlenecks!
16. Yay! We have content marketing ROI!

Got it? Please feel free and go ahead and skip some of the learning-the-hard-way!

That said…

7 Types of Compelling Content that Convert

…here are some tips on creating content that converts better and gets more sales:

1. Dispel lies & myths about your niche to gain authority and trust.
2. Arouse fear and worry about making the wrong decision to gain trust.
3. List the mistakes customers make in your niche to gain trust.
4. List the problems it will help them overcome and show your offering’s benefits to get into the consideration set.
5. Prove the unique superiority of your offering to beat your competitors.
6. Tell stories of customers’ specific results. Film testimonials from customers to gain trust.
7. Walk prospects through how your offering will change their experience of life or work activate their emotions.

Not sure what channels to use and what content to create? It helps to map out your buyer stages, then what question you need to answer for buyers at each level, then what channels you’ll do it in:

Now I believe you have plenty of work to do? Get to it! :-)