“Connie?”
“Yes, Willy?”
“You and I have been seeing each other for a while now, and I feel like I can trust you with my life.” Dan rises from his seat at the table and gets down on one knee; all of the restaurant patrons turn to watch the couple. “Connie, I need to ask you a very important question.”
The young woman gasps and wipes a tear from her eye. “Oh Willy, I’ve been waiting for this my whole life!”
“Connie,” the man stammers. “I don’t know what content marketing is. Can you help?” Willy picks up a fork that had fallen to the floor and returns to his chair.
Narrator’s Voice: Will Connie Help Market Willy’s Widgets?
“Well, Willy, we get that question a lot at my company, Connie’s Content Marketing. We always use the same definition of marketing that the Content Marketing Institute and other web gurus use: 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.”
“Honestly, Connie, I have no idea what you just said. It’s like you’re tossing a bunch of important-sounding phrases together to make a word salad, and it all ended up tasting like kale. Would you mind saying it again, but using normal words this time?”
“Sorry about that, Willy, I didn’t mean to get all technical on you. Content marketing is basically just posting interesting, informative stuff on the internet that makes people interested in your product or service.”
“Okay, that makes sense but it raises more questions than it answers. What exactly is content? Where do I get it?”
“Content is usually words, like you see in blogs, white papers and website pages. Content can also be audio files, videos, podcasts, brochures, live broadcasts and just about anything else you can put on the internet. You can write or produce the content yourself, or hire a professional to do it for you. Start by writing blogs and posting them on your Willy’s Widgets website.”
“That sounds easy enough. Just slap a couple of blogs on the ol’ website each year and start raking in the dough? Sounds like you have a pretty easy job there at Connie’s Content Marketing.”
Connie presses a smile onto her lips. “Posting content on your organization’s own website is a good first step, as blogs and other content helps consumers discover your widgets. Make sure you include valuable content that grabs the attention of loyal customers and integrate keywords that help you get to the first page of Google and other search engines. Next, develop a brand voice that attracts like-minded customers to your website. Finally, share the content or links to the content on your favorite social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and others.”
“It seems like content marketing is a lot of work. Why on earth would I want to do all that?”
“Funny you should ask. I was recently talking to your competitor, Donny’s Doohickeys, and Donny said he uses content marketing for three main reasons: to increase sales, to save money and to attract loyal customers. Content marketing has helped Donny sell more doohickeys this year than he did in the previous five years. I hear he gave his girlfriend Debby a big diamond ring this year.”
“Connie?”
“Yes, Willy?”
“I want to ask you a personal question.”
Connie smiles coyly and looks up at Willy. “Yes, dear?”
“Connie, do you personally feel that content marketing is really worth all that effort?”
“Only if you like making buckets more money with less investment. The Content Marketing Institute says that content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing, such as TV commercials and newspaper ads, and that it costs 62 percent less than those old-fashioned approaches to marketing.”
“Connie, I love you more than anything, except maybe for a decent return on investment. Will you be my content marketer?”
“Willy, I thought you’d never ask!”
EPILOGUE: Willy and Connie raised the widget store’s bottom line together and lived happily ever after. For a fairytale ending to your organization’s content marketing efforts, contact a content marketing professional at WriterAccess.
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.
