The content doesn’t push a specific product—it’s a soft-sell
technique that most often serves a long-term brand personality or positioning strategy.
Content Marketing is an effort to establish alternate brand journeys, and offer
more value to an end-consumer.
When done well, it can diversify audience segments, help
you be present in the moment, build equity and increase opportunity for
valuable brand engagement.
It’s antique—is
that why it’s trendy?
Content Marketing as an advertising method isn’t new. In
fact, it's one of the oldest forms of mass marketing.
Back then, smart people working for big companies knew it
was more effective to create content that their audiences love to consume, than
to advertise alongside content they didn’t produce.
In the past five years, digital marketing, with the
obvious aid of social networking, has taken a greater share of marketing and advertising budgets. The competitive rush to digital means that brands—and
agencies—are pushing themselves to be more creative, reach more people and
leave stronger, more memorable impressions.
And the most cost-effective and purposeful way to do it
online? Content Marketing: queue the resurgence.
1895 - John Deere
John Deere
published their first edition of The Furrow, a magazine distributed to farmers
and ranchers to educate the industry about innovation, technology and business entrepreneurship.
1904 - Jell-O
In 1904, Jell-O
hired salesmen to go door-to-door distributing a free recipe book packed full
of practical Jell-O inspired dishes.
1947 - Kraft
In 1904, Jell-O
hired salesmen to go door-to-door distributing a free recipe book packed full
of practical Jell-O inspired dishes.
In 1947, Kraft
first broadcasted Kraft Television Theatre, a regularly scheduled live drama
series that adapted popular New York plays. Each
week, the series were “intermissioned” with product advertisements that celebrated
different Kraft recipes.
WHAT ARE SOME BENEFITS OF
CONTENT MARKETING?
Content
Marketing creates additional brand experiences outside a product’s primary use.
The more times and the more
ways audiences engage with a brand, the further along they are down the
conversion funnel. 1,2,3 impressions can turn into vocal brand recall, website
traffic or best yet, purchase.
Think about Nike’s fitness
apps. The content they offer is free, incredibly well-shot, technical, and easy
to use. The tools are on-brand by promoting physical health and reputable by
leveraging their athlete sponsorship contracts to offer additional influencer
merits.
A casual Nike fitness app user
needs a new pair of runners—which brand do you think they’re likely to try on
first?

Effective Content Marketing enhances your SEO.
You’ve heard it, we’ve heard
it, you know, we know: SEO isn’t about page links and keywords. Now, SEO is
about a complete digital presence online. The more relevant and consistent
content your brand has on each digital platform,
the better your page will rank on Google, Bing or Yahoo. Not just that, but
depending on their age demographic, users are just as likely to use social
search to find your business than traditional search engines.
Investing in content marketing
and ensuring your social pages always reflect what your company has to offer is
sure to increase your conversion traffic through Facebook, Instagram,
Pinterest, Twitter, etc.
Content Marketing gives your internal team more to work with.
The more articles you write,
videos you share or podcasts you record, the bigger your content bank will be.
Every piece of quality content can be reused in various ways across each
digital or traditional platform. The more content you create, the greater the
likelihood you are found. And with impressions comes domain authority – a key
in Google’s ranking algorithm.
Content Marketing increases the equity for your brand.
Don’t just visit West Elm to
buy a trendy coffee table, head to their Instagram page for decorating inspiration,
their blog for videos of interior designers arranging a guest bedroom, or
listen to their podcast about how house plants serve to brighten up your space
AND purify your air. The more content you have, the more ways audiences can
interact with your brand. The more ways they use your brand, the more likely
they are to refer products or finish their trip down the sales funnel.
HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
We know the overall benefits of Content Marketing. But how do you start?
01. Think: Quality, Consistency and Relevancy
Before anything, write quality, consistency, and relevancy on a piece of paper, then tape it to your planner, computer monitor or the wall beside your working space. Never forget that your
content marketing efforts are only successful if you consider each of
these attributes every step of the creative process.
02. Identify Goals and Target Audiences
Define success, measure it,
compare to the past, try to learn what purchase intent behavior looks like, tie
your social analytics to web analytics and learn what to look for.
03. Determine the Story You’re Trying to Tell
With your team or agency,
brainstorm and solidify the types of content you’d like toshare—tips or
educational tools, opinion articles or videos, funny meme’s, etc.
04. Choose your Platforms – The Content Matrix
Not
every brand should use every tool in the toolbox.
Too often we see brands
creating beautiful content, but copy and pasting it across each platform. A
fine example of quantity over quality. There is tremendous value in identifying
where your audience is, and investing in platforms that highlight the merits of
your content.
• Telling a lengthy story to men between
25-35? Podcast.
• Filming a comedic web series
targeted towards teens? SnapChat or website.
After spending hours creating
content and assets, you owe it to your brand to be smart about publishing. Do
some research, dig around on your competitors’ pages, and run some quick and
dirty A/B testing.
05. Build a Content Matrix
In addition to traditional
research and experimentation,
Sherpa always kicks off a content marketing strategy by playing with a content matrix. It’s
a quick and adaptable tool that evaluates which platforms are most cost-effective and
on-brand for a specific client.
Follow this
template or add your own evaluation categories like in-house experience, already existing assets, previous performance, etc.
I. Write down each platform or publishing tool that
you’re considering. Beside each platform create three columns titled, Cost,
Time, Audience Relevance.

II. Next, rank each on a scale of 1-4—one being the
cheapest, timeliest and most relevant. If you’re struggling with identifying costs,
think about hours it will take to create content (in-house or freelance?) —this
includes employee hours, production tools, research requirements, etc. *Let’s
use below as an example of a small retail boutique with a limited budget. They
plan on featuring style trends, tips on how to accessorize for specific events
and employee personality profiles.

What does our matrix tell us? If the boutique has a
limited budget, they’re best to invest in creating content that lives on
Facebook and SnapChat.
III. Organize: Stretch your Content Marketing
Budget with Editorial Calendars & Content Repurposing.
*Editorial Calendars
After you’ve figured out what
content you’re publishing and where, the best thing you can do to save money
and publish consistently is to stay organized. You’ll save hours of management
with an active and malleable editorial calendar. Whether it’s a master Google
Calendar, physical white board or Excel sheet—find a way to organize your brand’s
outgoing content. These calendars can track the following content marketing
filters:
• Intended Target Audience:
Who
are we speaking to?
• Publishing Date:
When
is this being created, when
is this being published?
• Hashtags:
What’s
trending, what are our
audiences using?
• Image Names:
Where
can someone find the images in
existing file management systems?
• Content Category:
Educational,
industry trend critique,
inspiration.
• Platform:
Facebook,
podcast, blog.
• Owner:
Who
is responsible for this content?
• Paid or not Paid:
Is
this content good enough to
put money behind?
*Repurposing Content
Sharing the same content
word-for-word on each platform: no.
Adapting and modifying the same
ideas, images and themes across each platform: yes.
After spending time creating a
series of do-it-yourself tips for your blog, it’s important to share your
efforts on your active channels to increase views, conversions and reap the
full benefits of your content investment. The best way to do so is by saving
time and filling your editorial calendar with repurposed content.
Spending four hours writing a
blog post and securing quality images may seem like a wasted effort. But think
past the “share” button, and see the potential your theme has reused in other
ways.
• Long-form to short from.
You’ve already shared the link
to your blog on your Facebook page. But two, three, six weeks after initial
publish, there’s nothing wrong with
adapting your 10 paragraph article into a 10-sentence summary on your Facebook page. Highlight the key points,
share one of the back-up images, and you’re good-to-go.
• From podcast to video. Easier
than you think.
Do this two ways: record your
podcast over Google Hangouts or using a basic tripod, then republish on your
YouTube Channel or website. Added bonus: apply subtitles, so users can read
your commentary even when they forget their headphones at home.
• Blog photoshoot to Instagram
Album
Nobody gets their winning shot
first try, right? Compile all the images you took while building assets for a
blog post and create an album on
Instagram. Link this back to the original article or add an anecdote about your
creative process.
06. Measure, Report, Refine
Establishing a cohesive and
robust content marketing arm of your marketing department takes time. We never
promise clients significant ROI for at least 3-6 months after implementing a
custom strategy. Why?
Audiences
already have habits. They consume content on a regular basis and it takes a
significant disruption or value-add for them to introduce new content into
their consumption patterns.
The more insightful and
engaging content you create and publish on a consistent (Quality, Consistency,
Relevancy) basis, the better chance you
have at penetrating patterns. But, quality isn’t exclusive to what you’re creating, writing, filming, or sponsoring; it’s also taking time to evaluate how consumers are engaging with your
content using data analytics to drive business intelligence.
LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
Sherpa is known for going
beyond what we call “surface level metrics” to use a combination of software
devices and analytics tools that show us what content elements or platforms
perform well, to which audiences.
DON'T SHOOT BLIND
We track conversions and user
behaviors while on-site and rely on A/B testing on various publishing tools to
track data that can inform how we adjust our content going forward. This
process allows us to see holes and opportunities. Each comes together to build actionable
insights that better equip your content marketing efforts.
All-in-all, any content efforts
you create on a regular basis will serve your marketing department—even if the
value comes after your team may have thought that your initial ideas didn’t
resonate.
Still not convinced in the
value of storytelling? Drop a line—we’re marketers, and also great debaters.
______________________________________________________________
Thanks for reading!
Enjoyed this article? Sign up for The Summit - our monthly Newsletter.
Say Hello On: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube