What is Content Marketing? Step-By-Step Guide in 2024

Content marketing is a strategic approach in which businesses create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content to provide value to their audience.

The goal of content marketing is not just to build authority, but to attract and grow your own community.

From building a personal brand to retaining your existing followers, you need content marketing.

Your content can be in the form of:

And they'll be distributed across different channels online.

When you share valuable insights and lessons with your target audience consistently, people will remember you as the “Go-To Person”.  

This is where you'll attract potential customers.

When you share your work through content marketing, you're not just promoting your business. 

You're also educating your audiences and impacting their lives directly or indirectly, making them feel valued and important.

People are grateful to you because your videos, blog posts, or podcasts impact their decisions.

Building better relationships through content marketing translates to better likability and trust. 

This trust and credibility will make your audience feel secure and confident in their decisions, improving your sales and conversions overall.

One strategy for keeping and retaining your target audience is consistently sharing updates, like what's new and what's going on behind the scenes. 

Businesses do this mostly through email newsletters, AMA (Ask Me Anything) webinars, events, and conferences.

From an SEO perspective, the more people-content-oriented you can provide to users, the better you'll rank on Search Engines.

Google calls it "People First Content".

Search Engines like Google, YouTube, Bing, and Yahoo love content that helps their users.

This is also the core of how Search Engine works - to help users find helpful content online.

When you’re scrolling social media, you’re technically consuming content.

For example, when you create short video content, the algorithm will push it out to see if your target audience watches and engages with it.

If it happens, they will continue to push your content to more people, reaching out to non-followers and allowing your brand to reach a wider audience.

ToFu content aims to generate organic reach, attracting a broad audience and increasing traffic and views to your content. This stage focuses on building brand awareness and introducing your brand to potential customers who may not yet be familiar with your offerings.

Examples:

• Educational content: Blog posts, how-to guides, infographics that provide valuable information to your audience.
• Meme content: Light-hearted and entertaining posts that engage and amuse your audience.
• Thought Leadership Content: Articles, opinion pieces, or interviews that establish your brand as an authority in your industry.

MoFu content is designed to engage and educate your audience further, nurturing those who have shown interest in your brand. This stage focuses on building relationships and providing more in-depth information to help potential customers understand how your products or services can solve their problems.

Examples:

• Educational content: E-books, webinars that delve deeper into topics of interest to your audience.
• Case studies: Detailed examples of how your product or service has helped other customers.
• Product Demonstrations: Videos or articles showing how your product works and its benefits.

BoFu content is focused on converting your engaged audience into customers. This stage includes call-to-action-oriented content that encourages potential customers to make a purchase or take the next step towards becoming a client.

Examples:

• Promotional Offers: Announcements of special deals, discounts, or limited-time offers.
• Calls to Action: Direct requests for the audience to take a specific action, such as signing up for a free trial or contacting sales.
• Testimonials & Reviews: Customer feedback and success stories that build trust and credibility.

• Results and Track Records: Showcasing metrics, certifications, and proven outcomes to demonstrate the effectiveness of your products or services.

So, be sure to test and mix them around to optimise your content funnels.

Here’s The Summary Of The Steps For Effective Content Marketing Planning:

• Step 1: Content Research, Planning And Ideation
  
• Step 2: Content Creation
  
• Step 3: Content Scheduling And Publishing
  
• Step 4: Content Management
  
• Step 5: Measuring Your Content

Most people look for competitor accounts and check out what they do. I want to share more options here to broaden your perspective so you could unleash your creativity.

Start creating a list with these prompts:

How to…
“X” steps to…
Guide to…

In this example, I will use “How To” as a guide to dump all the ideas inside.

Focus on quantity first, then only quality. Let your creativity flow.

Use AI Tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft's Co-Pilot, Claude.ai or Google's Gemini to get a variety of ideas with the following elements.

Try these 10 prompts to help yourself get started on getting content ideas.

Prompt 1:

I'm a [Designation]. Give me top 10 content topic ideas about [product] for [demographic]. Put them in a table format.

Prompt 2:

Act as a [famous person, expert, key opinion leader/career title].
Give me [number] content ideas that focus on helping [demographic] achieve their [desired goal].

Prompt 3:

Can you give me five great ideas for blog posts about [Topic] that could rank well on Google?

Prompt 4:

Play the role of a [Designation]. Give me [Number] of Instagram reel ideas for a product with the following details [Product Details]. Please put this in a table format.

Prompt 5:

What are the top 10 most popular myths about [topic]? 

Include the title, description, and content format in a table format.

Prompt 6:

You're an expert in creating viral content for people in this [Topic].

Can you give me [Number] of the best ideas for social media posts about [Topic] that people would find interesting and want to re-share our products on their social media accounts?

Prompt 7:

Please suggest [number] ways to improve our social media content during [holiday/festive season].

This festive season is stagnant, and we want the community to continue engaging with us and improving our overall sales.

Prompt 8:

As an expert in [Industry], what questions would you ask me so I can create viral and engaging content for the next 30 days?

Prompt 9:

Act as an [Industry] expert.

Can you help me brainstorm [Number] unique ways to advertise [Product] through content marketing for both online and offline channels?

This product is [Product Description].

Provide me with ideas I may have yet to consider: low cost and high ROI.

Prompt 10:

Can you give me ten content ideas for short videos, about 20-30 seconds long, about [Topic] that will improve my reach impressions and generate leads for my business?

Put them in a table format.

Tip: Remember to mention “Put it in a Table Format” when getting ideas from the AI tools.

Try typing these in Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page):

A. Top 10 questions about [Insert your product/services keyword]

B. Most commonly asked questions about  [Insert your product/services keyword]

C. Top 10 challenges about [Insert your product/services keyword]

You can use this tool to get alphabetical content from A to Z with ideas for your content.

Tip 1: Use 1-2 words for best results.

Tip 2: Download and save content ideas image (Sign in required)

Tip 3: You can use up to 3 searches per day (For free accounts)

Sign up for a free account, and you can use it immediately.

You can see different shades of orange here. The darker the color is, the more popular the topic or question.

When creating social media content, prioritize short videos, stories, carousels, and text-based content. Users tend to spend more time watching short videos and stories. Single images, on the other hand, should come afterward. 

(Insert Mosseri update/relevant statistics)

Here are the tools we’ve been using to create different types of content for our clients:

For short videos:

For graphic assets:

AI tools for social media content, we use:

If you’re creating blog content, there are a few powerful tools which allow you to create SEO-friendly and optimised articles; below are the examples:

You can use tools such as:

Plan and schedule your content post in advance.

Consider two key areas when scheduling and publishing your online content.

1. Batching and preparing your content in advance can help you avoid burnout, reduce overall production time, and plan your posts ahead of time.

2. Approval processes: Establish a proper workflow among the team, detailing how content should be created according to the company's brand identity and direction, and how drafts will be reviewed and approved before scheduling and posting.

Here are some of our top favourite productive tools that could ease, automate and make your content creation flow and process much more productive:

Your workflow should include all the details and elements needed to track and label your content so you can efficiently organise your content assets.

Here are some of the elements you should consider adding to your content management flow:

There’s no one-size-fits-all content management workflow, as you would have different skill sets, capabilities, staffing, etc.

Adjust your workflow and test it for a few weeks until it works.

To measure whether your content marketing efforts are worthwhile,
you must first identify which metrics are essential to track.

In this step, we’ll divide the content into two formats: articles and social media.

For social media channels, here are ten content marketing metrics to pay attention to:

The number of users who have seen your content.

Number of times your content appeared on their screen.

These include reactions such as likes, comments, shares and saved.

Total number of times the video has been played, watched or viewed.

Numbers and the percentage of the total number of followers growth after posting the content.

How many people have visited your account's profile after posting content.

Calculate by percentage the number of people who clicked on your post, call-to-action button, or website after seeing your content.

How many non-followers your account and content have reached.

How many conversions happened after the post. 

Conversions include enquiries, lead generation, the number of DMs, and even sales.

How many people unfollowed or unsubscribed after posting content.

These metrics indicate whether your content is appealing to your community and reveal the behavior of those consuming the content you've shared.

As for articles or blog posts, here are six metrics to keep an eye on:

Total number of times the article has been viewed. 

This metric gives a straightforward indication of how much traffic your content is attracting.

Unlike page views, which can include multiple visits by the same users, unique visitors measure how many different individuals have viewed your content or visited your page.

The average duration that visitors spend on your article page.

A longer time on the page indicates that readers are engaged and find your content valuable and relevant to them.

The number of times your articles are shared or liked on social media platforms.

The shares and likes from your article reflect how relatable or helpful your audience finds your content.

The percentage of readers who take a desired action (such as subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a resource, or making a purchase) after reading your content.

This metric is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your content in achieving marketing goals and driving business success.

The amount and nature of comments or direct interactions with your content.

Comments can provide insights into how your audience perceives your content and what topics generate the most discussion.

Content marketing is one of the best ways to build your personal and business brand through education, and education is the best way to sell.

Instead of posting commercial content constantly, 70% of your content should be informational, with 30% discussing your products, offers, and promotions.

Search engines seek "People-First" content and social media to engage audiences with entertaining content with intellectual and emotional value.

This means as long as you focus on providing value to your community, the platform will reward you with more traffic, reach, and lead and sales conversion.

The final verdict is that you start slow, stay consistent, and be willing to try out which type of content works best for you and resonates with your audience.

Remember to measure the effectiveness and impact of your content marketing effort too!

Alex is the CEO of media funnel.co, a digital advertising company specializing in Google marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. He has also trained, coached, and consulted CEOs, executives, and business owners on how to improve their online marketing results and performance since 2020, after the pandemic.

AI Digital Marketing Insights and Tools That Will Drive More Traffic, Leads and Conversion To Grow Your Business.

Main Menu

Our Policies

© Copyright 2024 By Media Funnel Sdn Bhd All Rights Reserved