Learning Content Marketing

Learning content marketing is easier if we start with a definition, define some terms, and give some examples. Today, content is king and you have an attainable opportunity to be both a creator and publisher. Your efforts will grow your business.

What is “content?’

Content is many things to different people and situations due to context. I read an interesting blog post by a guy from Minneapolis named Lee Odden. Lee is a smart guy who runs an agency called Top Rank Marketing and he did a survey about people’s definition of content. He published 40 responses, and the three buckets where people placed the content of their responses equals information, experience, and nothing specific? 

Huh? Nothing specific?

That’s weird, but I get what they mean. A lot of people said that the term is so broad that is hard to define. To me, content is anything created to educate, engage, or entertain that leads to building trust and engagement.

What are some examples of content you can think of? Right now. Look around wherever you are. Are you surrounded by books and magazines? Do you have music playing while you are looking at Facebook? All of these are content created purposefully (Or, sometimes not in the case of some funny videos.) to entertain or educate you. This is how you get people to know, like, and trust you.

Think about your website. Is that content? Yes, all of it!

The “about” page is where people go to learn about you. What you put on there is important. If you are a physician, this is a great place to put information that educates people about you, what you stand for, and what is important to you in life.

Be human, that’s what people want to know. What’s this person like and will they take good care of my family and me. 

Content is your simplest way to begin conveying your image. Have pictures of you and your family that take people on a simple story arc of how you got started in your career, why you do what you do, how you spend your free time, and what outcome they may expect by 

Your blog helps people know how you think, what’s important to you, and current events happening in your work and life.

Your services page lets people know about what you offer. Engaging content here is essential for helping people understand what you do. Tell success stories about people you’ve helped and how they are just like them. Be aspirational with stories that inspire, this is content gold!

Successful content focuses on your customer (In this book, I use patient, customer, or client to refer to a person who may purchase a good or service and engage with you and your content.). In the “Old days” of marketing, the product was king and interruption was the strategy.

The thinking went that if you are interrupted enough (Don Draper never said that, but actions speak louder than words for me.), a brand becomes burned into your brain, and when you are in the market for whatever the brand is selling, you’ll buy that one. Today’s different.

Brands today develop engaging content that pulls you in instead of poking you in the eyes. Me, I’d rather be pulled in with content than poked.

What is “content marketing” anyway, and how might I make learning content marketing easy?

Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

In short, instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

Content Marketing is not a speeding, magic bullet. Think of it more like putting your pocket change from the day in a big blue glass vase sitting on the vanity in your bathroom. Is that so specific that you know I have one of those in my bathroom?

When you do that regularly, all of a sudden, before you know it, you have enough change in that jar to create a meaningful experience. That’s content marketing, too!

Another phrase that resonates with content marketing is engagement marketing. When you do the work to define your ideal patient personas, understand and map the patient trek to the outcome they seek, and begin creating content to help them move along the path, it’s super exciting!

It’s a lot like when my second daughter learned how to read. Anne’s sister, Grace is two years older than her. Grace learned to read at a very young age and one of her favorite things to do was read to, and for, her sister.

As a result, we had to work with Anne on reading for herself, and one day, she ran up to me when I came in the door from work and said, “Daddy, I learned how to read today an now I can’t stop reading EVERYTHING!”

That's what it was like for me the first time I purposefully created a piece of content, put it out into the wild, and it drove engagement. It certainly wasn’t the first time I created content, but it was the first time I understood that creating something with intention works.

This site will not teach you everything there is to know about learning content marketing because it is an always growing and evolving discipline. And, yes, you read that right. Discipline is an important part of content creation and content marketing.

On this site, and in my online courses, you will learn simple ideas and actionable strategies for getting started using content marketing to build your platform.

My aim in creating this site and online courses is to help you begin learning content marketing fast. I believe that one of the reasons I enjoy success in business is my willingness to act. Take the first step, move on, and see what happens.

That’s an important belief for content marketing, too. You must study, ACT, measure, evaluate, adjust, iterate, and repeat. Not the same thing over and over, because we all know that is insanity.

• Here’s my philosophy on learning content marketing: If you launch it into the wild and it works, do it more. If it doesn’t, stop doing it. 

It’s a simple idea that’s easy to digest in bites and hard to swallow in chunks.