Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies

Book description

Drive your content marketing campaign toward success

Blogs and social platforms are all the rage right now—especially for strategists looking to cultivate influence among target audience members through content marketing. Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies explains how you can use content marketing to gain an edge over your competition, even in the most crowded of marketplaces. This timely text introduces you to the Five C Cycle: Company Focus, Customer Experience, Content Creation, Channel Promotion, and Closed-Loop Analysis. The Five C Cycle drives the creation and documentation of a targeted content marketing strategy, and allows you to approach your content marketing campaign with confidence. By helping you determine your company's focus, uncover your customers' experience with data, develop channel promotions across social platforms, create actionable online content, and use closed-loop analysis to build on previous success, this will become your go-to content marketing guide.

Content marketing entails creating and curating content online via blog posts, social media platforms, and more. The goal is to acquire and retain customers by creating content that brings value to their lives, and that encourages them to engage with your brand. This easy-to-understand guide will help you do just that.

  • Analyze customer data to better understand your target audience's journey
  • Leverage social platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to develop channel promotions
  • Create and curate intelligent, engaging content that leads to action
  • Build upon your previous success with closed-loop analysis

Whether you work for a large corporation, are part of a small business, are a solo thought leader, or are an educator, Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies tells you how to gain a critical, competitive advantage through targeted content marketing strategies.

Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Foreword
    3. Introduction
      1. About This Book
      2. Foolish Assumptions
      3. Icons Used in This Book
      4. Beyond the Book
      5. Where to Go from Here
    4. Part I: Getting Started with Content Marketing Strategies
      1. Chapter 1: Establishing Your Content Marketing Strategy
        1. Understanding the Components of a Content Marketing Strategy
        2. Communicating Your Mission
        3. Establishing Your Goals
        4. Expanding Your Corporate Mindset
        5. Dipping into User Design and Habits
      2. Chapter 2: Capturing Your Customer’s Attention
        1. Focusing on Attention
        2. Making Your Content Easy to Consume
        3. Deploying Interactive Content
      3. Chapter 3: Understanding Your Business Model and Brand
        1. Separating Your Business Model from Your Brand
        2. Analyzing Your Business Model
        3. Discovering Your Brand
        4. Solidifying the Look of the Brand
        5. Developing Success Measures for Your Brand
        6. Producing Engaging Branded Content
      4. Chapter 4: Facilitating Buy-In from Your Team
        1. Presenting the Big Picture
        2. Engaging the Leadership Team and Identifying Roles
        3. Communicating the Essentials to Everyone
      5. Chapter 5: Putting Your Content Marketing Plan and Presentation Together
        1. Reorganizing for Success
        2. Identifying the Components of Your Content Marketing Plan
        3. Presenting Your Plan
    5. Part II: Uncovering the Customer Experience
      1. Chapter 6: Dipping into Customer Data
        1. Understanding Big Data
        2. Uncovering the Role Big Data Plays in Content Marketing
        3. Discovering the Internet of Things
        4. Visualizing Big Data
      2. Chapter 7: Discovering Buyer Personas
        1. Reviewing Persona Development
        2. Collecting Information
        3. Avoiding Common Mistakes
        4. Looking at How Generations Differ
        5. Identifying a Prospect’s Emotions
        6. Keeping Up with Trends
      3. Chapter 8: Taking the Buyer’s Journey
        1. Harnessing the Customer Experience
        2. Uncovering Commercial Intent
        3. Defending Against Competitors
        4. Identifying the Stages of the Buyer’s Journey
        5. Personalizing Your Content
      4. Chapter 9: Embracing Sales Enablement
        1. Discovering Sales Enablement
        2. Training Your Salesforce
        3. Coaching Your Reps to Become Winners
        4. Checking Out Sales Enablement Blogs
    6. Part III: Creating Actionable Content
      1. Chapter 10: Examining Your Content Plan
        1. Evaluating Your Content
        2. Assessing Your Content
        3. Visualizing Your Sites
        4. Creating Your Plan
        5. Focusing on Specialized Content
      2. Chapter 11: Exploring Content Types
        1. Dipping into Content Categories
        2. Working with Original Short- and Long-Form Content
        3. Using Curation
        4. Making Use of User-Generated Content
        5. Repurposing Content to Add Value
        6. Viewing Aggregated Visual Content
        7. Dealing with Live Video Content
        8. Extending Business News
        9. Offering Online Courses
        10. Managing Content Formats
      3. Chapter 12: Storytelling for Content Marketers
        1. Storytelling to Engage Your Audience
        2. Structuring Your Content Using Stories
      4. Chapter 13: Creating Processes and Systems for Your Content
        1. Organizing the Content Process
        2. Determining Roles and Responsibilities
        3. Managing the Workflow
        4. Documenting Your Policies and Procedures
    7. Part IV: Developing Channel Promotions
      1. Chapter 14: Examining Channel Plans
        1. Getting Started with Your Channel Plan
        2. Preparing for a Channel Audit
        3. Dipping into Some Major Channel Examples
      2. Chapter 15: Sharing Your Content
        1. Embracing Shareability As a Strategy
        2. Uncovering the Five Ws and One H of Online Sharing
        3. Adding Social Bookmarking
        4. Making SEO a Priority
        5. Deploying Hashtags to Encourage Sharing
      3. Chapter 16: Looking at Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned Media
        1. Understanding Types of Media
        2. Utilizing Paid Media
        3. Championing Earned Media
        4. Enhancing Shared Media
        5. Amplifying Owned Media
        6. Creating a Framework for Achieving the Right Mix
        7. Section 1: Owned Channels
        8. Section 2: Shared Media
        9. Section 3: Paid Ads
        10. Section 4: Earned Media
        11. Section 5: Evaluate and Revise
      4. Chapter 17: Delving into Syndication and Guest Posting
        1. Understanding Syndication
        2. Looking at Online Syndicators
        3. Establishing Your Syndication Plan
        4. Discovering Guest Posting
      5. Chapter 18: Working with Influencers
        1. Discovering the Evolving Role of Influencers
        2. Recognizing Influencer Types
        3. Finding the Right Influencers
        4. Uncovering New Influencers
        5. Influencing with Customer Advocacy
        6. Enhancing Word of Mouth (WOM) with Advertising
    8. Part V: Using Check-Back Analysis
      1. Chapter 19: Reassessing Your Business Model and Brand Value
        1. Validating Business Models
        2. Reviewing Your Brand Status
      2. Chapter 20: Reviewing Your Content Marketing Strategy
        1. Allowing for Failed Experiments
        2. Looking Back at Your Content Marketing Strategy
        3. Reevaluating Your Ecosystem
    9. Part VI: The Part of Tens
      1. Chapter 21: Ten Problems Content Marketers Face
        1. Company Focus
        2. Customer Experience
        3. Content Promotion
        4. Content Creation
        5. Check-back Analysis
      2. Chapter 22: Top Ten Blogs on Content Marketing
        1. Buffer
        2. Content Marketing Institute
        3. Convince & Convert
        4. Copyblogger
        5. Oracle (Eloqua) Content Marketing Blog
        6. HubSpot Marketing Blog
        7. Marketo Content Marketing Guides
        8. QuickSprout
        9. Social Media Examiner
        10. Social Triggers
        11. Seth Godin
      3. Chapter 23: Ten Free Tools for Content Marketing
        1. BuzzSumo
        2. Dropbox
        3. Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer
        4. Evernote
        5. Google Webmaster Tools
        6. Grammarly
        7. Piktochart
        8. Screenpresso
        9. SEO SiteCheckup
        10. WordPress Calendar
    10. About the Author
    11. Cheat Sheet
    12. Advertisement Page
    13. Connect with Dummies
    14. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Content Marketing Strategies For Dummies
  • Author(s): Stephanie Diamond
  • Release date: January 2016
  • Publisher(s): For Dummies
  • ISBN: 9781119154549