Rand Fishkin, founder and former CEO of Moz, explains this problem in The Great Misconception in—in my opinion, one of the best pieces he had ever published on the subject:
People think that the reason you’re putting out content is so that someone Content Marketing Beginners will consume that content and be inspired from it germany whatsapp number data to go and make a purchase.
What really does happen is that people come many, many times. They essentially grow this memory about your brand, about what you do, and they build up kind of what I’d call a positive bank account with you. But that bank account, there are not coins and money in there. There are experiences and touches with your brand. Those content touches, and those social media touches, and those touches that come through performing a search and seeing you listed there, those build up the capital in the account.
How to make content work for you Content Marketing Beginners
What Rand is saying is that you shouldn’t expect people to read a piece of content and buy your $399-a-month SaaS subscription. This is the kind of misconception that leads people, like my friend, to say that “content marketing is bullshit.“
If you are one of these people, I can understand why you’d say that. Don’t blame content, however. Content must fulfill a larger purpose; it must communicate your focus on a specific project or company’s mission and values while solving your customer’s problems.
First, by having a clear idea of what’s your mission and values your company stands for. Then, you need to know who your target audience is and what challenges they have, so you can then provide them with the solutions they so desperately need.
Find how much you should spend on content
While some people don’t get content marketing, some other people do get it, yet they implement it mediocrely. The reason why this happens is simple: they don’t invest enough in it.
I’m not going to tell you need to spend thousands of dollars per article because you can spend $1,000 on an article written with perfect prose and unique insights, yet if it’s badly formatted or poorly promoted, it won’t bring the desired return on your investment.
Question #1: What is your goal?
I’m not going to get philosophical in here. I just want you to be clear on what you expect content to do for you.
There are many goals you can aspire to achieve with the help of content. If you want to find the value of content, you must first know what you want to get from it.
The conclusions from the survey don’t mean you can only get better results in relation to these goals. It only means most B2B content marketers find those goals the most important for their companies.
Your goals can be different. But whatever liechtenstein number they are, you must start by defining what’s the goal of your content.
Personally, I’d not focus excessively on the money you get from content marketing, as it tends to help assist a conversion rather than generate one.
That doesn’t mean you can’t make money from your content. On the contrary, you just need to change the way in which content impacts your bottom line.