Content Marketing and Conversion

How to Create a Content Strategy that Drives Sales

Fernando A. LabastidaSmall World Labs

Fernando Labastidahttp://www.linkedin.com/in/flabastida

@flabastida

• Customer Success Manager Small World Labs www.smallworldlabs.com

• Founder Latin IT Marketing www.latinitmarketing.com

• Organized first Latin America Track at South by Southwest Interactive http://www.sxsw.com/interactive

• Helped organize debut edition of Americas IT Forum www.americasitforum.com

• Speaker at upcoming conference Engage Mexico www.engagemexico.com

What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.

Source: Copyblogger

The problem

The web has fundamentally changed the dynamic for customer communications

Is this a problem…or an opportunity?

The problem – and the opportunity

Source: worlwidewebsize.com

The media monopoly is gone

The playing field has leveled

The 5 Steps to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

• Provide overwhelming value

• Focus on your customer– not your product

• Become the media

• Use your content as market research

• Get them to subscribe

Provide Overwhelming Value

Entreproducer:

“If you feel like you’re giving away too much, you’re on the right track…”

The Potlach

“The status of any given family is raised not by who has the most resources, but by who distributes the most resources. ”

Source: Wikipedia

Law of Reciprocity – Robert Cialdini

As humans, we prefer to return favors or debts, because we generally feel uncomfortable feeling indebted to somebody

Copyblogger

Content Marketing Institute

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream: Jeni’s at Home

Focus on your customer, not your product

More than just a persona

Persona + Unmet need = content marketing success

Rock’N’Realty: Content for Vegans and Music Lovers in Austin http://rocknrealty.net

Become the media

Source: The Promo Blog

Produce media on a regular schedule – become an addictive habit

“The more content I can put out, the more luck I have,”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Source: Forbes

The First Soap Opera

P&G’s As The World Turns

Source: Forbes

Being the Media

• A regular schedule (editorial calendar)

• Content types for your personas

• Guest appearances

Share content through 3rd party sources

Guest appearances was one of Lil Wayne’s “secrets to success.” Guest blogging will be one of your secrets to success too

Sharing content through social media

“it’s not good enough to just produce long form content; you have to put out micro-content to drive awareness to it,”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Use your content as a market research tool

Minimum Viable Audience

“I learn more from serving an online audience than any other approach I’ve taken to truly understanding a market.”

Brian Clark, Entreproducer

Content Research

• Analytics

• Comments section

• Social media feedback

James Altucher shares posts through Facebook first before posting to his blog

Get them to subscribe

Content Marketing Institute Email Marketing study – the average CMI subscriber:

• Was more likely to attend our events and purchase our products

• Was more likely to share our content with their networks

• Closed three times faster than a non-subscriber, once he or she had entered our sales process (for our consulting service).

- Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute

Thank you very much!