Content Marketing

Joseph Njau Kinyanjui
Sep 14, 2016
7 min read

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

"Start content marketing. It works.”

Sure, that’s good advice. And if your advisor is generous or in content marketing nirvana (either will do) she continues with telling you why you should start content marketing now.

More sales (= more money), more traffic to your website, more email subscribers, more leads. And the “more” is endless. Or so it seems.

So you start content marketing. The benefits you’ve been told and keep reading about are “nice-to-haves.”

But could that mean you’re missing out on other benefits of content marketing? Is it always all about more money, more subscribers, more traffic, and more leads?

No. That’s the short answer. The following benefits of content marketing tell you more.

1. Content marketing strengthens public relations

Public relations is a broad term. Or somewhat broad term.

Let me explain.

When we talk about benefits of content marketing, let’s say a part of it like blogging, we can say it makes us money. And that’s acceptable.

But nobody lists the different ways you earn money from blogging as a benefit of blogging.

Nobody says:

Blogging helps you sell books
You can post sponsored content on your blog to make money
You can display advertising to get money…etc.

They all fall under “you can earn money” from blogging.

It’s the same with PR.

So when people say stuff like:

Content marketing helps you build relationships with your customers
Content marketing shows you care about your customers
Content marketing enhances your reputation, helps you become a thought leader.

They’re right. But itemizing it is like itemizing different ways blogging makes you money.

To fully understand why content marketing strengthens public relations, it’s important to remind ourselves what public relations means. Many definitions abound.

But let’s go with Wikipedia’s here:

“Public relations is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) and the public. Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.”

Let’s imagine something bad has happened with your business or company. Maybe you or your staff made a mistake that affected several customers. Maybe your product is faulty. Maybe you’re experiencing financial crisis and its affecting the quality of your products.

How would you handle that?

Have someone whip up a press release for you? Not bad. But think for a moment.

If you keep publishing updates via a press release, your customers will have to browse through hundreds or thousands of press releases to find updates on the situation. Or keep doing a Google search, hoping a media outlet will have updates on the situation. The most optimistic ones would keep typing “(company name) (insert problem) resolved” to check for positive results.

Imagine posting the problem on your blog. And providing updates on the situation as needed. That’s what the guys at Buffer did when Buffer was hacked. Joel (Buffer’s CEO) published a post originally titled: “Buffer has been hacked – here is what’s going on.”

Joel apologized for the inconveniences caused by the security breach. And promised to post updates of the situation—there were ten updates in all.

Wait. Here’s the kicker:

Joel and his co-founder were active in the comments section addressing questions and concerns of customers. Go read the comments to find out how impressed (generally) customers were.

Other examples include Singaporean realty portal, 99.co’s apology for the misdemeanor of an employee.

And Kickstarter’s apology for not cancelling an offensive project even when people wrote in asking them to cancel it.

Research has shown that leaders who are humble enough to admit mistakes will be viewed more favorably by their followers. It’s always better to hear you admit you’re wrong on a medium you control than from third-party sources.

Posting company announcements, arrival of new hires, product updates, apologies when wrong, etc. are all good PR tactics.

You know what’s even better?

Any news outlets reporting any new developments in your company will link back to the original article on your blog. And that’s some white-hat link building there!

Okay. Doesn’t mean you should go out of your way to create problems so you can build links to your site.

But creating content that solves problems your target customers or your customers have shows them you care.

For example, let’s call your product or service “F.” Imagine a prospect searching “how to do P on F product” or “ways to improve F service” and a blog post you wrote, a video you created, or an e-book you published pops up in search results.

When that happens, you’ve not only successfully spread information—part of what a good PR firm does—but you’ve also controlled the tone and narrative of such information.

When you do content marketing well, your reputation and the public’s perception of you improves. It won’t be automatic, but you’ll see positive results.

2. Content marketing helps people put a face on your brand

Sure, content marketing is about creating and distributing relevant content to inform or help you attract customers. So some go ahead with hiring freelancers to help them create content. (Let’s call content blog posts here.) That’s not bad.

But I’ve seen several problems including (but not limited to):

Not working with writers (freelancers) long-term: This may not entirely be your fault. Maybe you hired the wrong writer and you had to end the working relationship sooner.
Not hiring someone (people) solely for content creation: Doesn’t matter what you’ll call them—content marketer, marketing manager, growth hacker, writer—you need a “content person” or “content people” on your team. Heck, your whole team can create content!
Posting with your brand name: Ever seen a brand called “We Hate Beans” having “Wehatebeans.com” as a writer on their blog? Confused?

See what I mean below. Mint.com has a blog updated regularly. Commendable. Apart from having faceless and “bio-less” writers, they also have a writer called “Mint.com”.

Who is “Mint.com? I don’t know. But I know you’d probably be surprised how many business blogs have writers called different variations of their brand name.

People do not visit your blog to see your logo on author pictures. Or your brand name on author names. They want to see the picture and name of a real person, someone they can associate with your brand.

Jay Baer put it best when he said (bold is mine):

“If you want to increase your share of voice, don’t just give your customers something to talk about, give them somebody to talk about.”

In a discussion at Inbound, someone asked Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko what he’d do if he was trying to build an audience from scratch now.

Who is “Mint.com? I don’t know. But I know you’d probably be surprised how many business blogs have writers called different variations of their brand name.

People do not visit your blog to see your logo on author pictures. Or your brand name on author names. They want to see the picture and name of a real person, someone they can associate with your brand.

Jay Baer put it best when he said (bold is mine):

“If you want to increase your share of voice, don’t just give your customers something to talk about, give them somebody to talk about.”

In a discussion at Inbound, someone asked Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko what he’d do if he was trying to build an audience from scratch now.

Or Greg Ciotti’s bio on Fast Company.

Let’s assume you’ve visited the HelpScout and Buffer blogs and you’ve read several posts written by Greg and Kevan respectively. You leave, maybe without subscribing to either blog when you stumble on their guest posts elsewhere. Is it not easier to remember Greg as the “HelpScout guy” and Kevan as the “Buffer guy” from those bios?

I can also add Steli Efti. He’s the face of the Close.io blog. Not just because he’s the co-founder of Close.io, but because he’s at the forefront of content creation on the blog.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention Neil Patel. For years, before Neil left KISSmetrics, his author bio was this:

I know you’re now asking: what if our “chief evangelist” suddenly leaves us?

It’s a valid question. And the answer is simple: “Find someone new or do it yourself.”

You see, before Kevan Lee came to Buffer, their present COO Leo Wildrich was the face of Buffer.

He had written about 150 guest posts (in nine months) that helped get Buffer its first 100,000 customers. He did this while consistently updating the Buffer blog with useful content (over 200 blog posts).

Most of them were written between 2011 and 2013. Kevan was hired in 2014. You know how many posts Leo has written on the Buffer Social blog since then? Just two (at the time of this writing).

What if you want to do content creation yourself? Great! Whatever form of content you’re using, make sure you’re consistent with it. That will help your quest to become the new face of your brand.

Maybe you’re not a good writer and you still want to create the content on your blog and elsewhere? Hire a freelance ghostwriter, or use a content agency, whichever you can afford or whichever one meets your needs best.

Post with your real name. Let your personality shine through. Your audience will become familiar with you over time and love you too.

Do it well, and you’ll become the [insert business name here] guy sooner than later.

Check out the next part of this two part blog on our next post. Regards to Jeffbullas.com For the great insight. Stay tuned for the next part.