Do you have a content marketing plan? What goes into content marketing? Is it simply creating content? What’s the difference between digital marketing vs. content marketing? Can a freelance writer for digital marketing or blogs help me reach my content goals?
I’ll answer each of these questions for you, along with helping you decide if you need an all-encompassing strategy or if a freelance writer for creative content would be the right path.
Okay…
Read to get started?
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is your overall online marketing plan. This includes each phase of the customer journey, along with content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing.
The purpose of creative content is to draw a potential customer’s attention, lead them through a helpful and engaging process, which ends in them buying your product or service.
The end goal is a happy and satisfied client. This means repeat business is possible, or that they’ll refer future business via word-of-mouth.
In the marketing phase, your content such as useful articles, tools, videos, infographics, and podcasts help your customer understand that you’re the solution to the problem they’re going through. By offering solid resources such as answering important questions, you build trust and authority in their eyes.
Social media marketing allows you better reach, by keeping a consistent message across multiple channels. Email marketing is the way to nurture your potential customers while moving them through the buyer’s journey, with the purpose of selling a product or service.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is one aspect of digital marketing. Content (or creative content) can come in multiple forms such as: blog articles, videos, podcasts, email, guides, or a lead magnet such as a worksheet or checklist.
For example, I’m a creative content writer. That means that I write articles or blog posts for businesses looking to grow their customer base through awareness and engaging resources.
Well-written content is important for your website in many ways. First, you want Google to see your site as an authority in your industry or niche. By providing well-researched content, they’ll consider your site an authority and recommend it when searches seek out help.
Secondly, when you offer helpful resources, you build trust in your consumer’s eyes. Trust builds relationships. Relationships grow businesses.
Now that you know the basic idea of what content marketing is, do you have a strategy?
*Crickets*
Yeah, see…that’s a problem.
Let’s take a closer look:
What’s a content marketing strategy?
Your content marketing strategy is your plan or path that helps move somebody along a guided path in the buyer’s journey. You’ll set goals based on previous benchmarks, then determine what’s working and what isn’t.
With that in mind, you’ll create short-term goals and long-term goals with multiple assets.
This strategy means you’ll create a calendar that looks at the overall picture of what content you need to produce, how you’ll do it, and what its purpose is. (Hint: it’s usually based on moving the potential customer beyond awareness, so they’ll take the next step toward purchasing your product or service.)
How do you create enough content?
If you don’t have a team in place, consider hiring a freelancer. If you already have a writing team on staff, but haven’t created a content marketing plan, it might be time to sit down with the marketing team and get one in order.
What can a freelance writer do for me?
They can take the burden from you and help you create well-defined articles that build on what you already have. You generally make a contract with a freelance writer and set terms based on the amount of content you need, a price, and when you need the content by. The turnaround time and length usually dictate what the price will be.
How can a freelancer make my life easier?
- Save time and frustration
- Keep an avenue of content coming through the pipelines
- Free up your staff for other projects
- Not an employee, no need to worry about benefits or other expenses
Now that you know what a freelance writer can add to the process, you’ll want to take a good look at where you spend and save when it comes to content.
Will it save you time and frustration to hire out your writing? Or, do you have somebody on staff that can take on the added task? Are you a small staff? Would having the opportunity to off-load work save you energy for more important business matters?
Each of these are questions that only you can answer. If it makes sense to hire out your writing, feel free to drop me a line and see if I can help you fill your writing needs. Or, if you’d rather, check with content writing agencies, or freelance job sites. There’s bound to be somebody perfect that can help lessen your content creation burden. This way, you still get the benefits of added content, without the hassle of doing it yourself.
