How I reinvented myself as a Content Marketing Expert

This is a follow up to my previous blog post where I had shared some key changes in my blogging practices and a gradual transition to becoming a marketer.

“Blogging without a good readership is like being lost in the sea with no sign of land anywhere…”

I would not lie to anyone but most of my earlier attempts at becoming a blogger was triggered by the promise of instant popularity and visibility. I am a great story teller (at least that’s what my friends used to tell me) and a very good reader myself. I spent most of my childhood either in our school library or in my own room snuggled with a good book. When most kids were playing out there in the scorching sun (it gets really hot during summer in Chennai) I was busy reading about stars and distant planets in the encyclopedia. I was not a 100% book worm as I did have other interests like music and drama. My favorite subjects were physics and biology. I hated mathematics and found it very abstract and difficult to comprehend. Never failed any class — on the contrary I was the school topper every year and also became the state wide champion in the final year exams. As usual I got good grades in science subjects. Naturally, it led me on the path to becoming a doctor and eventually a cancer research scientist. But I have always wanted to be a rocket scientist which never happened.

One day I was reading an article on how to drive traffic to your website / blog — and that’s how it all started

My journey into the world of digital marketing started with Google’s paid advertising service — Google Adwords — It was totally new to me and it opened a world of technology I have never experienced before. Suddenly it became clear where all those targeted, highly relevant advertisements seem to be coming from. It was no longer magic — but an accomplishment of sheer technology. Compared to other platforms that were offering PPC campaigns at that time, Google had a competitive edge because it was easy to sign up if you were already a Gmail user and it was free to get started as they gave plenty of bonus credits to run your very first marketing campaign. So I got hooked from day one — it was both a scary adventure (because you could waste money and not see any ROI at all) as well as a learning experience for getting my foothold into the world of digital marketing.

Fast forward 10 years and things are totally different now. I always thought that Google Adwords will reign supreme forever as Google is becoming bigger and bigger everyday. But that is not true as is clear from this recent marketing report.

Over the past 10 to 12 years a lot has happened with the rise and fall of several ad networks but today Google has established its monopoly on PPC and SEM services. This is where it gets really interesting. If you see the graph above, you will notice that content marketing is in fact the bigger chunk of all strategies whereas Google PPC is hardly 3% followed by Display networks which only contribute roughly 1.5% which is even lower than we expect for paid advertising strategies.

So the bottom-line — stop wasting your money on PPC campaigns if it doesn’t fit your brand strategy

What is the best way forward. Content marketing is the new kid in the block. We have all been using some kind of content in our marketing efforts — short text, long text, flyers, brochures, product sheets, technical specs, FAQ etc.

It’s the good old “content is king” strategy that is bringing in the results even today.

Why ?

Because — Content is everywhere…

Content could be anything that is tied with your product or service. As long as it is relevant you can use it. Armed with this info, I started to implement content based strategies for my previous employer and the results were amazing. We went from negative trends to 300X ROI within two weeks of campaign launch — and that too in a dry subject like ‘in vitro diagnostics’. My boss called me one day and asked me if I needed more ad spending budget. I told him that we haven’t spent a dime and he couldn’t believe it. Before my involvement, the team had been accustomed to spending huge amounts of money on PPC campaigns and other paid forms of advertising. I pulled the plug on all these activities and started doing things differently.

I literally saved thousands of dollars for my company — and the best part was I could replicate my content strategy in a totally new company with a new product and found that it still works — in fact way better than anyone’s expectation

You may be tempted t0 ask me ‘what’s your secret recipe’ — there is no secret. It is plain and simple common sense strategy applying the scientific principles of logic and reasoning.

If you were wondering — no it is not trial and error — people have wrong notion about science that everything is trial and error. The better way of saying it is actually hypothesis testing.

Scientists propose an hypothesis and then either prove or disprove it. I found it easy to adapt these fundamental concepts into a content marketing strategy.

You create great content and then put it out there for folks to see. What do you expect in return — what dothe analytics captured from your landing page or CTA (call to action, like ‘sign up’ buttons) say about the success or failure of your campaign. There is a lot of science involved in this process and a lot of math too — luckily we have some really great tools for that so you don’t have to remember your math from high school.

Data driven marketing strategy is always the winner

This is a totally huge topic for another day.

I will stop for now as the article has become too long.

In the next few weeks I will continue writing on this topic. So please follow me if you want to be updated when new content is posted here.