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Business Tips from SCORE: Strong content marketing skills key to business success
Marc L. Goldberg
4 min read
BizTips from SCORE – Skill development for Content Marketers
When I received my Bachelor of Science in Marketing in 1967, no one had ever heard of “content marketing.” Back then, there were the “4 P’s” of marketing. Now, marketing students learn about the “7 P’s” and the skills it takes to become an accomplished content marketer.
Some untapped skills for marketing professionals include:
Technical Proficiency: A deep understanding of marketing automation tools, data analytics platforms and emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning for personalized marketing campaigns are all requirements for content marketers today. Some of the marketing automation tools available today include Hubspot (CRM solutions), Constant Contact (email marketing), Pardot (SalesForce’s workflow automation), Marketo ( Adobe digital marketing), Sendinblue (email marketing), MailChimp (email marketing), Omnisend (integrated omnichannel solutions) and Drip (B2C customer connection tool).
In addition to 21st-century digital automation tools, basic technical editing proficiency is critical to content marketing expertise. Effective editing fine-tunes written content. Communication that is clear, concise and delivers the call-to-action is achieved through effective editing.
Content creation by telling a story: Mastering the art of crafting compelling narratives that resonate with the targeted audiences and evoke emotions achieves a call-to-action, such as "buy NOW."
Great storytelling occurs when marketers understand their audience, have specific goals for messaging and stories, and then select the right time and channel to deliver the message. Great stories connect with their audience and leave them with a call to action because they are clear and concise. Content marketing also entails enlisting basic visual skills such as using images and video. Tools such as Canva assist in accomplishing visual communication tasks. They work best when the story is written in the “brand’s voice,” and the story feels and sounds like your brand.
Cultural intelligence: The ability to understand and navigate diverse cultural landscapes helps to create inclusive and culturally relevant marketing strategies.
Data analysis, critical thinking, and problem-solving are important to success. This means thinking like a business owner to identify opportunities, take calculated risks and drive innovation within marketing initiatives. It also means understanding how the brand is performing and how effective it is in getting buyer attention. Using data will tell marketers if the campaigns are working or not.
Planning workflows via cross-functional collaboration: Content creation projects are big, involving lots of people from diverse functions. Strengthening collaboration with functions such as sales, product development and customer service to ensure alignment and a holistic approach to marketing efforts. Content marketing manages the buyer’s timelines, project phases and the quality of the final product — which is the story.
Some marketing automation tools that focus on workflow include Basecamp (team collaboration), Trello (Kanban options for smaller teams), Teamwork (offers customer visibility), Hootsuite (Social media workflow) and Asana (project planning).
Practice ethical marketing: Develop strategies that prioritize transparency, authenticity, and ethical practices to build trust and long-term relationships with customers. Being ethical means telling your story in a relatable way, defining your audiences and addressing their pain points, selecting your marketing channels wisely, being consistent in your brand’s message, and being empathetic to your customer's needs.
Create an agile strategic plan. Since digital competition has increased exponentially over the past few years, it is critical to “plan, manage, and optimize” your strategies to win defined targets over to your brand. In order to plan your marketing campaign a content marketer needs to have a deep understanding of the sales/marketing funnel or buying continuum.
The continuum begins with unawareness of the brand and moves to awareness, then to understanding and to belief in the benefits the brand offers, then evaluating the brand’s value proposition to the decision to purchase and finally to repurchase, recommend or refer.
SmartInsights explains it starts with a plan:
1. That defines the brand content.
2. Defines Reach where marketers publish and promote content, allowing others to share and influence others to explore options.
3. Action that shows a clear customer journey to decide to use, buy or recommend the brand.
4. Converts potential buyers to purchase.
5. Advocates sharing the value of the brand to others.
According to Derek Halpin, content marketers need to follow the 20/80 rule: spend 20% of resources on content development and 80% to promote brand messages. After all, you can have the most effective content but if no one is aware of the brand message, the effort is for naught.
Everyone wants a bigger audience and content marketing has become the vehicle to accomplish this task. Just like almost everything in business the landscape is changing and content marketers need to adopt skills to make their work more impactful and drive their brand message home to targeted prospects and customers.
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