Discover the ins and outs of content marketing, from its integral role in improving brand loyalty to the diverse careers it encompasses. Learn about the various options available for you to acquire content marketing skills and how these can propel your career forward.
Content marketing uses high-quality content to engage an audience, drive traffic to a website, and increase sales. It’s a great way to build trust in your brand and create a community of loyal customers. If you’ve always wanted to learn content marketing but can’t figure out how to get started, this guide is for you. Here, you’ll learn more about the various ways to learn content marketing, free resources to take advantage of, and the types of careers that commonly use content marketing.
Content marketing relies on content created with a specific audience in mind and designed to appeal to the interests or problems of that audience. This could be blog posts, articles, reports, ebooks, videos, podcasts, or other media. The content builds and supports a relationship with the audience through social media, email, or websites.
Content doesn’t push a product, service, or brand. It focuses on what the audience is interested in, and Content Marketers learn that through data analytics. The content is relevant and valuable to the audience and rarely mentions the brand or product. Relevant content tells consumers a relatable story and gives them a sense of belonging to a group.
Read more about what content marketing is and why you should learn it.
Content marketing helps you connect with your audience, improve brand loyalty, generate leads, and increase sales. Unlike traditional marketing, which makes a direct pitch for products, content marketing is based on storytelling and rarely mentions a brand or sales. The content appeals to readers by helping them with a problem or issue.
The first step in content marketing is to determine your audience and what they care about using Google Analytics and social media analytics tools. Once you know your audience’s interests, you can begin to draft content that addresses those needs. This helps build a relationship with your readers, which is crucial to improving brand loyalty.
Although content rarely mentions the brand or product, relevant content tells a story that consumers relate to best. It gives them a sense of belonging to a group. Content marketing creates more customers than traditional marketing, and these customers are also more loyal. They feel connected to the company or brand and are more likely to buy again. This connection develops through storytelling that resonates with followers.
Content marketing also generates more leads than traditional marketing. Consumers prefer to learn about companies and products through articles and blog posts rather than advertising. Finally, content marketing costs less than traditional marketing and leads to higher conversion rates.
If you love writing, photography, or video production, you could turn that into a career in content marketing. Companies are looking for people with excellent communication skills, writing or editing experience, data analytics skills, and SEO knowledge. Agencies and large companies employ some Content Marketers, but many work as freelancers. Content Marketers fall into the advertising and marketing category, and according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, these occupations will grow by 22% in the next ten years.
Copywriters work with the marketing team to create content for social media, email, and web pages. They earn an average yearly base salary of $50,000, ranging between $40,000 to $65,000.
After the Copywriter finishes the content, it goes to a Copy Editor who reviews the piece and corrects errors in mechanics, like punctuation and spacing, grammar, and spelling. Copy Editors also check the text against the company’s chosen style guide. Copy Editors sometimes fact-check material if the company doesn’t employ Factcheckers. Copy Editors earn an average annual base salary of around $40,000.
Photographers use cameras to produce images to illustrate articles in magazines and newspapers. They also work for marketing agencies and companies that use digital marketing and take photographs for social media posts on platforms like Instagram or Pinterest. Photographer salaries vary, but the average annual base salary is $50,000.
Illustrators and Graphic Designers create digital art and infographics. These can be added to blog posts as illustrations or stand on their own as posts. The average yearly base salary for Graphic Designers is $45,000, ranging from $38,000 to $60,000.
Videographers shoot and edit videos for company websites and social media channels. Many also work as freelancers. Videographers' average yearly base salary is $50,000, ranging from $40,000 to $60,000.
Content Marketers may be creators, too, but whether they make the content or get it from someone else, they set a schedule for publishing the content, track performance using data analytics tools, and plan future content strategy. Salaries for Content Marketers in the US range between $40,000 and $100,000 a year, with an average of $65,000.
After working as a Content Marketer for a while, some people move up to Senior Content Marketer or Content Manager. These positions come with more responsibility and sometimes involve managing personnel. Content Managers earn higher salaries than Content Marketers, with an average yearly salary of $70,000.
If you have a small business, learning content marketing can help you build a relationship with your customers, leading to brand loyalty and higher sales. This depends upon creating and promoting high-quality content your audience can relate to and get something from. This is because a correctly targeted audience will generate more sales than a broader, more general audience for a much lower cost. Broadcast and print advertising are much more expensive than pay-per-click ads, and organic or earned advertising through content marketing is essentially free.
You can also learn content marketing to change to a new career. If you have strong communication and writing skills, good organization abilities, an understanding of meeting deadlines, and the talent to create content of different types that maintains a brand message, you have a good chance of establishing a successful content marketing career.
Read more about why you should learn content marketing.
When you are exploring the possibility of learning content marketing to switch careers, you can try to learn it on your own or sign up for a class. If you choose to take a class, you can take a traditional in-person class with an experienced instructor. These sessions meet according to a set schedule in a classroom setting. You can also choose live online training. These sessions are often held concurrently with in-person classes, but you attend through a video conferencing platform. Many people prefer an interactive classroom setting when learning a new subject, but with a live online class, you don’t have to commute. You can sign on from your home, office, or any other location with a stable internet connection.
Another option for learning content marketing is to enroll in on-demand video classes. These are pre-recorded sessions that you can watch at your convenience wherever and whenever you decide. On-demand classes are available on different learning platforms, like Coursera, Udemy, or LinkedIn Learning. Although you have to pay for these classes, they tend to be less expensive than in-person or live online offerings, and many platforms offer a free trial before you need to pay for a subscription.
If you haven’t decided whether content marketing is for you, Noble Desktop has a free seminar called The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success. This course not only covers content marketing but many other aspects of digital marketing. You will learn the basics of SEO, data analytics, social media marketing, and website optimization, so you can decide if you want to move on to Noble’s Digital Marketing Certificate. You can also find useful free resources on Noble’s Tech Blog.
Read the full guide on how to learn content marketing.
Maybe you aren’t sure what content marketing is all about or if it is for you. You can take some free courses and tutorials to find out. Check out Noble Desktop’s free seminar, The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success, to learn about content marketing and other digital marketing topics.
There are many free video courses to give you an idea of how content marketing works. Udemy offers Content Marketing 101: A Free Guide for Beginners and Pros. Hubspot has the Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing in 2022, and many free tutorials are available on YouTube to get you started.
Read about more free content marketing videos and online tutorials.
The level of difficulty of any subject depends on your experience and abilities. This is true of content marketing also. Whether you will have difficulty learning content marketing depends on your level of interest, the time you have to devote to study, and your motivation. Then it probably wouldn’t be hard for you to learn content marketing and change careers, especially if you sign up for a certificate course.
There are no formal prerequisites for learning content marketing, but a few skills can make the experience easier. Do you love to write? Are you a good storyteller? If you are comfortable with technology and like working with numbers, learning to use content marketing tools will be easier. Beyond that, creativity, persistence, and the ability to multitask will make learning content marketing smoother.
You can learn content marketing for free, but most people find classes more efficient. The costs of classes vary, with on-demand video courses costing less than in-person or live online sessions. As far as tools go, some of the most widely used tools, like Google Analytics, are free, and others, like Moz, have a free version to get you started. SEMRush is another useful content marketing tool, and while it can be expensive, you get a seven-day free trial to try it out first.
Read about how difficult it is to learn content marketing.
A comparable field to content marketing might be social media marketing. Social Media Marketers use content to connect with followers and form a relationship. The eventual goal is to convince the target audience to go to the company website and take action. Social Media Marketers interact with followers on different platforms. They need to know which platforms fit their audience best and monitor audience reaction. Storytelling ability is just as important for social media marketing as content marketing because it helps build and maintain a community audience. Social Media Marketers also need to develop and implement a publishing schedule using data to decide the best for publishing posts for audience engagement.
Another field similar to content marketing is search engine optimization. Content Marketers use search engine optimization (SEO) to improve content performance, and help websites rank higher in organic results. Web Optimization Specialists also need to choose the right keywords, keep tabs on how a website performs, and develop improvement strategies. To become a Web Optimization Specialist, you will need to learn to use data analysis tools, create marketing strategies, and keep on top of the constantly changing world of SEO.
What is the best way to learn content marketing? That is your decision. You can take an in-person class or a live-online option. Choose a convenient schedule with classes that meet during the week, on the weekends, or in the evenings. Start where you are comfortable, either at the beginning or if you have some experience, take a class that builds on that knowledge.
If you are completely new to content marketing, you can get started with a general overview of the basic features of how content marketing works, how to do it, and the tools available. A free introductory seminar, like The Pillars of Digital Marketing Success, from Noble Desktop, provides an overview of digital marketing, including content marketing, for beginners.
Once you understand what content marketing is, you might want to learn more about how to do it. You can sign up for a bootcamp course that covers content marketing in more depth, like Noble Desktop’s Content Marketing Bootcamp. Learn about content marketing strategy, content creation, promotion, and common tools.
If you want to master content marketing to change careers, you may want to take a full digital marketing certificate course. Noble Desktop’s Digital Marketing Certificate covers all aspects of digital marketing, including SEO, analytics, website optimization, and social media marketing. This multi-section course includes 1-on-1 mentoring and a class to help design and assemble your professional portfolio.
You can learn content marketing with hands-on classes at Noble Desktop. Taught by expert instructors, class sizes are small and give you ample opportunity to interact with the instructor and the other students. If you want to learn more about content marketing, sign up for Noble's Content Marketing Bootcamp. This course covers an introduction to content marketing and techniques for content creation and promotion, including how to measure the success of your content marketing.
If you want to go a step further, try Noble's Digital Marketing Certificate course. It covers email marketing, SEO, Google Analytics and Google Ads, and all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn Marketing. You also get a Streaming for Social Media course and a portfolio class. If you want, you can retake any class for free for up to a year. To find out more about content marketing and change careers, visit Noble Desktop's digital marketing page.
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