The phone rings. I grab the handset and walk across the room to my favorite beanbag chair, stretching the coiled telephone cord behind me. My foxy lady, Mary Jane, is on the other end of the phone.
“Thanks for the hot date last night, Mike. Speaking of things going up in smoke, how are things going at your store? Has Mike’s Magic Munchies been selling a lot of your new fondue pots?”
“No – people just aren’t digging the idea of in dipping hunks of bread into a communal pot of molten cheese.”
“Well, Mike, maybe they just don’t know good burning the inside of your mouth with dairy lava can feel. It sounds like you need content marketing to help your startup business take hold.”
“Oh, I don’t know – content marketing is not my bag. I take more of a laidback approach to advertising.”
“And by ‘a laidback approach,’ you mean crashing out in a hammock in front of the store? I thought adding the hand-painted cardboard advertising a special on celery-flavored Jell-O was a nice touch, though. I’m surprised nobody was beating down the store of your business to get their hands on some of that,” Mary Jane giggles. “Dude, you need a serious content marketing strategy.”
“I can dig it, Mary Jane, but I really don’t understand what content marketing is, or how it can help me increase my customer base. And I happen to like savory gelatin, especially with carrot shavings in it.”
“That’s easy, Mike. Content marketing helps you send out good vibes to people interested in your groovy snack foods. I don’t think anything will get me to eat celery Jell-O, though.”
“But why is content marketing a groovier advertising strategy than what I am already doing?”
She Said, “Here are Some Far Out Content Marketing Statistics that will Blow Your Mind”
My beanbag chair squeaks as I settle in, waiting for her reply. Struggling with cottonmouth after my date with Mary Jane the night before, I chug a big glass of Ovaltine.
“The Content Marketing Institute says that content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing, such as TV commercials, newspaper ads, and hanging around in a tied-died t-shirt in front of your store.”
Spitting out a mouthful of that sweet, sweet brown liquid, I gasp, “Three times as many leads?”
“Yep. And content marketing costs 62 percent less than those old-fashioned approaches to marketing.”
“Well, it’s not cheaper than the hammock – my mom paid me $5 to take that out of her basement,” I proclaim proudly.
“I’d say she got a good deal. Content marketing is a good deal too – content marketing has six times higher conversion rates than other approaches to marketing, which means Mike’s Magic Munchies can make more bread.”
“If content marketing is such a great idea, why isn’t everyone doing it?”
“They are, Mike. In fact, Small Business Trends says that 53 percent of all businesses use content marketing. That means more than half of your competitors are probably stealing your customers simply by posting blogs, white papers, social media posts, videos and audio files on the internet. Consumers are eating it up too – about half of 18- to 49-year-olds get their news and information from the internet rather than from television or other sources. About 77 percent of internet users read blogs, and small businesses with blogs get 126 percent more lead growth than those without blogs. Hey, I’d love to rap with you a little longer, Mike, but I have to go get a new pair of psychedelic go-go boots. I’ll see you tonight.”
I jump out of the beanbag chair and – I don’t know if it was all the newfound knowledge about content marketing or just the usual mind-blowing effects of Mary Jane – I get a total head rush. I sit back down and started thinking about all the heavy things I’d learned about content marketing.
To get the most mind-blowing benefits from my content marketing strategy, I’ve decided to contact the far out people at WriterAccess. They have the talented writers and content marketing professionals I can count on to build my brand, my customer base and my profits. Can you dig it?
Lynn H has been a professional writer, providing exceptional content online and offline, for 20 years. In that time, she has penned thousands of articles for doctors, universities, researchers, small businesses, nursing organizations, sole proprietors and more. Lynn writes everything from blogs to white papers; her specialty is putting complex scientific concepts in simple terms. She specializes in medical writing, creating informative and engaging content for professionals in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, medical manufacturing, chiropractics, optometry, emergency care, plastic surgery and others.
