Content Marketing - Q&A with Ed Smelser

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to sell. It costs 62% less than traditional marketing programs and generates 3x the leads (Demand Metric). Yet only about 1% of LinkedIn users are creating content despite the fact there are nine billion impressions a week. If you are a small business or an individual consultant, you may already know that you should be engaging in content marketing but not know where to start. 

I sat down with one of the most successful content marketers I know to talk about using content marketing to drive sales. Ed Smelser, Sr. Marketing Director at WithoutWire, has been working in marketing communications for decades and knows how critical content marketing is to any successful marketing strategy. I asked Ed some of the most common questions about content marketing. 

First, let’s start with the basics. What is content marketing? 

Content with intent. In the simplest of terms, “content marketing” takes what you say, where you say it, who you’re saying it to, and why you’re saying something in the first place and seeks to connect each one into a single strategy.

What should the goal of content marketing be? 

I always work backward when considering this question. Imagine what you consider “success” (a subscriber goal, a sales goal, increased engagement in a campaign, etc.) and pretend it’s the day after you accomplished your goal. Why are you patting yourself on the back? What just happened that you consider worthy of celebrating? That’s the target you are working toward and everything that precedes it should have a clear and intentional influence in making it happen. When you are focused on your goal, the intent of your content is to drive your audience in the direction of your goal.

How does content marketing help your business? 

A holistic content strategy feels natural. The messages you experience in an advertisement feel complimentary to what you read on a website, and so on. The goal of content marketing is to provide valuable information to a target market, speak to their reality and offer insights that are meaningful to them. Your advertisements target pain points they’re experiencing or present solutions they need, your newsletters expand on these topics through relevant stories, your website expands on this through page content and media. In the end, your audience will see your content, regardless of what channel you distribute it on, as relevant to them. Once you connect with an audience, it becomes considerably easier to convert them into new business.

For people who aren’t currently creating content, where should they start?

A good place to start is where you are comfortable. What are you the subject matter expert in? Provide that value to your audience and position your business, or you as an individual expert, as relevant to your purchasers.

How do you manage/plan your content? 

This is the tricky part for most businesses. We can talk about the strategy of what we say and why we say it, but executing on a plan is an entirely different conversation. This is where a good partner, project manager, or solid system of managing and scheduling becomes critical. Each business will tackle this challenge differently. Some will outsource it, some will hire for it, others will find a strategic partner to assist them. Most importantly, don’t overlook the importance of how you execute your plan and the resources required to stay focused.

What do you do to get your content in front of your audience? 

Knowing your audience is an often overlooked precursor to this question; in many cases, it can be the toughest question to answer. Assuming you know who you want to target, getting your message in front of them becomes almost procedural at that point. If you’re advertising on social media, audience targeting tools are robust and allow you to be as narrow or broad as you need to be in who you target. A more technical answer to this question could be to list off the channels where content can live like websites, social media, paid search, paid social, email, and so on. The answer I prefer to focus on is the exercise of identifying which of the options available to you are A) appropriate for your business and brand and B) are where your target audience actually “hang out.” Not every company’s target market is on TikTok or Instagram. Some businesses see more success in Facebook while others are more relevant on LinkedIn. Some industries see the most value in more traditional channels like industry associations and in-person connections like trade shows and networking. It’s about identifying what will work for you and committing to the plan.

What are the trends in 2021 for content?

I always find this question a unique one. There are a lot of trends happening in technology and communication - social media is an ever-evolving entity with trends of its own. How to position your website content in a way that converts visitors to leads is a topic that could drive an entire weekend of breakout sessions and lectures. In that regard, the biggest trend I see in 2021 is the increase in mid to small-sized companies committing to the development of a content marketing strategy in the first place.