Overview of Content Marketing

Establish customer relationships with content marketing

Content marketing establishes goodwill and a relationship with your customer.

Sell, sell, sell! That’s the objective of most marketing nowadays. The truth is, most customers are tired of being sold to. With an endless barrage of promotions and marketing messages with the intent of generating direct sales, customers are becoming more unwilling to respond to such attempts.

There is a great need for relationship building and nurturing as opposed to direct sales efforts. Content marketing is an answer to that call.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and sharing of free, valuable, unique content that is useful to the consumer. Content can include eBooks, blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, webinars, or other creative content materials.

The objective of content marketing is to establish trust, credibility, and goodwill with the consumer. No strings attached.  In stark contrast to traditional marketing aimed at getting direct sales, content marketing does not seek to generate a sale directly, but instead seeks to create a lasting friendship that can turn into a sale sometime in the future.

Why use content marketing?

• Establish Relationships: When you give away free, valuable content that helps your customers overcome their anxieties and answer their questions, you become their hero. They will have warm feelings towards your law firm. If you nurture these relationships with effective content marketing, over time some of these content-receiving customers will become leads and paying clients.
• Differentiate Your Law Firm: If every other law firm is trying to get a direct sale, your efforts to share free, valuable content and establish customer relationships will be a breath of fresh air for customers. They will see your law firm as unique and different from other law firms in your area.

How to execute a content marketing strategy

1. Determine what content to create: Brainstorm the topics, questions, concerns, anxieties, and issues that your customers would be interested in learning about. Make a list of broad topics and then branch out into more narrow topics.
2. Determine what format to create the content: Once you’ve decided what topics to create content on, decide what the best format is for hosting that content. Your content can be elaborate or simple, depending on the resources that you have. Consider creating videos, eBooks, blog posts, website content, infographics, how-to guides, and FAQs.
3. Decide how to share the content: Once you have developed great content, choose the best mediums for promoting that content. You may decide to use PPC, search engine optimization, billboards, radio commercials, Facebook, email newsletters, or other mediums to promote your content. The more people that engage with your content, the better.
4. Create a system for tracking results: How effective are your efforts at content marketing? By measuring reach, engagement, and ROI, you can determine whether or not your content marketing is successful. How many people became aware of your content? How many people read or viewed your content? How long did they spend reading or watching? How many became leads and clients? Using Google Analytics and reports that you create, you can track your content marketing efforts. Data that you gather will help you determine which content to focus on, what content to improve, and what mediums to use to promote your content.