Content is rapidly becoming the digital community”™s answer to a must-have commodity. It is increasingly important and seemingly everywhere with even the latest iterations of search engines (foremost, Google) basing their search formulas largely on the quality of content and the number and ranking of people who read and share it.
Content marketing is the distribution and accompanying analytics of online content to your target audience. It can be in the form of a blog, email, webinar, newsletter, social media or any other means. If you have a website or blog, you”™re probably already utilizing content marketing by including keywords and directing it towards your targeted audience. When you write an article, for example, and try to make the title appealing, you”™re utilizing one aspect of content marketing.
So, for all you people who think you know content marketing or want to test your knowledge of content marketing, I created an 11-question content marketing quiz. I suggest you try answering all the questions before looking at the answers (with explanations) that follow the questions.
My 11 Question Content Marketing Quiz
(So you think you know content marketing.)
1. What are the three cornerstones of content marketing?
2. How many goals should your call to action (CTA) have?
3. What is the most persuasive copy word?
4. How long should you stick with your content strategy?
5. Should your content include additional links?
6. Do you need an editorial calendar? (An editorial calendar is used to control publication across multiple platforms and media.) If yes, how far out should it go?
7. Do you need a blog for content marketing?
8. What is the best medium for content marketing?
9. Name at least four goals of content marketing.
10. What drives discovery of your content?
11. How do you research your target market?
The Marketing Quiz Answers
1. Research, great copy, keywords. All three are necessary.
2. One. Never dilute your offer. Never ever.
3. You. The audience feels that you (the author) are talking to them.
4. At least a few months or until you have enough data to determine what is working and is not. Not allowing sufficient time for results is a frequent error of many marketers and can skew or hide important data.
5. It depends on the content and its intent but in general, yes. The more information you provide to your customers, the more likely they are to take action. This assumes that your information is useful, highly relevant and easy to access. You can also use these links to determine and segment areas of interest.
6. Yes. This is really important and should include keywords, topics and media platform. At least two to three months. (Three to six months is better.) That”™s the amount of time you need to see how a campaign is working. It”™s also not too far out if it requires modification because of your results or the rapidly changing online environment.
7. No. You can do content marketing across different mediums without a blog. However ”“ and this is a big however ”“ if you don”™t have a blog (and post regularly), you”™re shooting yourself in the foot. For one thing, you will really miss out on SEO and probably landing page possibilities.
8. Actually, there”™s no single answer to this question. It really depends on your content and your target audience and the best way to reach them. The medium for providing content on tax strategies, for example, would be very different than on ways to beat the game Grand Theft Auto V.
9. Brand awareness, lead generation, lead conversion, testimonials and case studies, customer service, upsells, customer loyalty/retention, building a passionate customer/subscriber base and improved pay per click (ppc) performance.
10. Content distribution. The cornerstone of your discovery combines multiple distribution channels and useful content (that hopefully is widely shared by your target audience) that is also relevant and compelling.
11. There are several ways to do this including interviewing current customers, checking your analytics, testing, reviewing the case studies of your competitors, attending online and in-person events, and conversing with your target market on social media.
Bruce Newman is the president of wwWebevents.com, a division of The Productivity Institute of L.L.C., and the creator of The Complete Webinar Training Course, an online course that helps companies create and promote highly successful webinars. He can be reached at bnewman@prodinst.com.
