The world of content marketing can simultaneously be daunting and exhilarating for the budding digital marketer. With the industry rapidly evolving, keeping up with the emerging platforms and marketing trends can be quite challenging. To commemorate surviving the first couple weeks at Bubblebox, I’ve outlined 5 things an aspiring content marketer can anticipate—
1. Learn NEW VOCAB
Industry outsiders, be prepared to jump through a series of hurdles. The first hurdle in question is understanding the jargon, and later incorporating these terms in your own marketing and content strategies. Drip campaigns, lead nurturing, landing pages, marketing automation are commonly used in industry blogs, and frankly these words sound foreign to the layman. I found the Content Marketing Dictionary quite helpful in aiding me in my marketing endeavours.
After successfully bypassing the first hurdle comes the challenge of understanding all things B2B. Writing for a business audience is no easy feat. Personally, my struggle laid with properly deploying technical language and adopting the appropriate tone. Reviewing past publications in addition to studying competing marketing campaigns and industry blogs are excellent starting points.
2. Stay INFORMED & INSPIRED
As the industry evolves, so do best practices. Industry blogs, Whitepapers, and Ebooks are crucial reference and inspiration materials for crafting future campaigns and original pieces. A couple of excellent jump-off points include:
These resources offer bite-sized, easy-to-digest tips for refining your marketing practices and creating content. Moving forward, I’d advise making a habit of updating your reading list to stay on top of current marketing trends and insider tips. Chances are you’ll find something valuable to implement in your own marketing strategies.
3. Immerse yourself in NEW TECH
This point may be circumstantial, as Bubblebox after all is a marketing cloud consultancy with the likes of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Pardot, Fresh Relevance and dotmailer platforms in its arsenal. Businesses leveraging these marketing cloud and email marketing solutions are well on their way to success.
To fully master these platforms would take eons, but for a simplicity’s sake and in a content marketing capacity, I get the pleasure of experiencing Pardot first hand. The team at Bubblebox utilizes Salesforce Pardot internally to execute its campaigns and deploy emails to its clients. Although it may appear complex upon first glance, the B2B marketing automation tool is powerful yet (thankfully) straightforward and easy to use.
4. Get SOCIAL
By now, having social media in your corner is a must. Not only does it build brand’s ethos, establishing its reputation as an industry thought leader, social media platforms also act as an information and engagement conduit. Social channels are an excellent way to supplement your understanding of the brand and for connecting with the brand’s audience and buyer personas. For a business like Bubblebox, it’s a useful way to build brand identity and generate net new leads.
5. Understand the value of (GOOD) CONTENT
Creating content is easy. Creating GOOD content on the other hand…?
An easy way to distinguish good content from the bad is by its potential to provide value to the reader. Once that has been established, it’s time to assess the content’s efficacy. For pieces that may have gone a little stale— but are still relevant and highly valuable—consider re-purposing content. Perhaps more visual elements?
Marketers who are leveraging visual content are seeing significant increases in their blog traffic, social media engagement, visitor to lead conversion rates and inbound customer acquisition result—Hubspot
In the context of Bubblebox, there is a trove of rich content which could easily be converted into a visual format while retaining its informational value and re-promoted through social channels.
About the Author:
Grace is the newest addition to the Content Marketing team at Bubblebox. Grace oversees Bubblebox’s content production and curation. A graduate of University of Calgary with a degree in Communications, she previously worked in the Public Relations and Social Media sector.
About Bubblebox:
Bubblebox® deploy marketing cloud services to leading global brands. We understand the needs of the modern marketer and offer an impartial approach to delivering on-site and email personalization initiatives that drive revenues. We are Marketing Cloud Experts.
