Marketing is now a data science. Companies that blog and create more content generate 67% more leads per month than those who don’t. Those metrics make it clear that you need to be producing quality content consistently. Without investing in the right types of content, the right types of prospects won't know you exist. Many businesses, however, view marketing as an expense. It’s not, however. It’s an investment that pays dividends daily. 

Marketing in 2013 is a Different Beast

If your content isn't available online or doesn't exist, this will be a huge benefit to your competitors that DO have that type of content available. You need to create content assets that can help drive the right eyeballs to your business. Regardless of whether you are global or local, your prospects are social and mobile, so you need to be where they can find you.  

Build Out Your Personas

First things first, to whom are you marketing? You want to get inside of the mind of your ideal client and understand what makes them buy. Persona development is thus a critical tool for your marketing arsenal. Without this golden nugget of awesomeness, there is no way to actually market to them effectively.  

The personas that you create should include identifying characteristics like a name, description, hobbies and a photo representation of this particular user.  Case in point, if you are marketing a piece of software to developers, maybe you name the persona, “Dev Dave”, who is a coder that prefers the Linux operating system. On his free time, he builds stuff in Minecraft.  You want to get inside the mind and begin to understand how Dev Dave makes decisions. Here is a killer persona development worksheet that will walk you through the process further. 

Amplify your Content 

Once a foundational piece of content has been created for your business that is relevant to their biggest targeted marketing persona.  So, say for example, if you are a local residential plumber, then you know that single-family homeowners are your prime target that you're going after. Appeal to those homeowners by speaking to their biggest perceived pain and offering a solution.

 Why not take that piece of content and target only single-family homeowners who live in your local service area on Facebook? It's cheap and it's highly effective, once you have a piece of content that is relevant to them. Amplify it. If you learn how to interpret Facebook data, you can sell like a boss with Facebook advertising.

Identify Influential Publications and Connect with Them 

It's great to have amazing content, but some people make the mistake of ONLY putting that content on their own site.  You need to branch out a bit. Do some research to see which publications most resonate with your personas and start forging relationships with those publications.  Get your name out there. A few articles in some key niche publications could be the secret sauce. There are a couple of tools that you can use to help facilitate these new relationships with influential blogs. Consider Buzzstream and Grouphigh.  

9 Tools to Help Inspire Content

1. Scoop.it – Follow experts in your field
2. Storify – Create or Find Stories
3. List.ly – Find or curate your perfect list
4. Newsle – Emails you when connections are in the news
5. Bundlepost – Bundles up your best content
6. Inbound.org – A place where the top content marketers share
7. Curata – Curate Your Own Blog and Share content
8. Skyword – Content creation tool for midsize & enterprise businesses.

So, Is Content Marketing REALLY an expense? 

Maybe your competitor is working on a content marketing manifesto right now. What happens when they dominate the market with great content and start usurping all of your prospects?  From that viewpoint, marketing is not an expense, it's a critical investment in the vitality of your business.

Learn some more shocking small business B2B and B2C marketing statistics. 

 Download the ebook below to get started on creating engaging content.