How Content Marketing Helps Businesses Make Money

By now, I'm sure you've heard all about content marketing and how it's a fantastic free marketing channel. But you may find yourself wondering how content marketing helps businesses make money and connect with customers. What is it, and how does it work to grow your business? Free marketing channels are great, but only if they truly help you make money.

How Content Marketing Works 

When you have a good content strategy and create content that answers your ideal customers' questions and provides value, you can become a resource for them.

You create content (website pages, blog posts, social media posts, videos, etc.) that answers the questions your Ideal Customer has or helps point them in the right direction for a solution to their problems.

Your content is part of the like, know, and trust factors you need to build with your audience. SEO is the know - if you're not sure how SEO works, click on the SEO category on the blog. I've got tons of posts to get you started. 

Content Marketing builds your like and trust factors because you become a resource for your potential customers. Your content nurtures visitors and helps turn them into buyers. 

Content Marketing Sales Example 

Let's pretend that you teach a calligraphy course, and your Ideal Customer wants to learn how to use calligraphy to create beautiful wedding invitations.

• You might create a blog post or a video highlighting wedding invitations done in calligraphy or wedding trends for 2023 that include calligraphy place cards and invitations.

• Your Ideal Customer watches the video or reads the blog post and is inspired and wants to be able to do this for their wedding but doesn't know how to start.

• You offer an opt-in or calligraphy starter's guide on your blog post to help them learn how to get started. Your content (blog post or video) brought in a lead when they requested that opt-in.

• Now, let's take it a step further and pretend you have a course on Wedding Invitation Calligraphy; at this point, all you need to do is let your new Ideal Customer know that's an option.

• They've watched your video or read your blog post; they like what they see, and you're becoming an expert.

• They've requested your Calligraphy starter guide opt-in and have learned how to make a few letters or gotten a guide that tells them the best tools to use for Calligraphy. At this point, they're ready. They want to learn more.

• They're excited, and because you've helped them this much, they're more likely to decide to take your course instead of someone else's course.

Your content brought your Ideal Customer into your world because it provided value for them, taught them something, and helped them. Your opt-in got them onto your email list so that you could nurture them and help turn them into leads, and ultimately, your course solved their issue of wanting to learn how to create beautiful Calligraphy wedding invitations.

Content Marketing works by serving, not pressuring your audience

When you focus on content marketing, you serve your audience rather than applying high-pressure sales tactics. Most people don't want to deal with high-pressure sales, nor do most want to sell that way.

Content Marketing allows you to grow your business by focusing on helping your Ideal Customer, guiding them, and giving them the chance to get to know you and your products or services over time.

They choose to come back because they know you, like you, and trust you. When it's time for you to offer them a product or service that solves their problem, they're more likely to buy from you because of the previous interaction. You don't have to push them for a sale but rather let them know that you can help solve their problem.

Do you want even better results from your content?

The best way to use content marketing to grow your business is to pair your content with SEO or search engine optimization.

SEO is your opportunity to tell Google what your content is about and who it can help. SEO is the know to content's like and trust. You need all three together to grow your business. You need SEO and content marketing to boost website traffic and sales for your business. 

You want to use SEO and Content Marketing together

• Start with an SEO Strategy Foundation - Start with SEO keyword research to help determine what content you'll create. You want to look for keywords your Ideal Customer is searching for that your blog or website can rank for; I teach exactly how to do this in my SEO classes. You want to start with a keyword you can rank for and create a great website page, video, or blog post using that keyword as the main topic.

• Write Great Content - Your content is 100% for your Ideal Customer, not the search engine. As discussed earlier, you want to provide value, answer questions, and be helpful.

• Do SEO on your Content—You want to do your SEO work on your website page, blog post, or video. You want to use your keyword in your Title Tag, meta description, photo or video name, copy, header tags, and URL so that Google understands that your page, post, or video is about that keyword. Request my Beginner's SEO Guide—all the information you need to get started is there.

In time, your website will start to rank for the keyword, and as it moves higher in the search results and gets to Page 1, you'll begin to get traffic for your keyword. In time, you'll be able to reach more potential students who want to learn about Wedding Calligraphy or how to create beautiful Wedding Invitations, and that will help you enroll more students.

Pairing SEO and Content Marketing is the best way to grow your business for free. Get started with my free Beginner's SEO Guide today to learn more about using SEO and Content together.

Then, sign up for my free SEO class to get started.