How to make content marketing profitable

Bloggers and small businesses need to be able to generate predictable and sustainable revenue from their content marketing campaigns in order for it to be profitable.

Content marketing refers to any activity that markets a blog, business, or product without resorting to sales and advertising. In other words, content marketing offers readers information of value in return for traffic, increased authority and influence.

Building traffic volumes through content marketing ultimately leads to profit, as the content itself should generate revenue through advertising, affiliate marketing, or sales.

This article analyzes the costs of content marketing, as well as how to create and market great content (in particular, blog content) so that provides high conversion rates, for maximum ROI (Return On Investment).

What does content cost to create?

Content is expensive to produce. You either:

1. pay someone to create content
2. spend time and effort creating content yourself

This kind of simplifies the equation a bit because it doesn't take into account the fact that the content itself must be of very high quality - if it is going to earn money for you or your business.

High quality content, unlike most online content, takes time, experience and skill to create.

It's the exception, rather than the rule, for bloggers to succeed straight away.

So creating content has additional costs associated with a learning curve. This is actually one of the main reasons many businesses fail to make money online.

Depending on how much you write, your natural ability, and how fast you learn, it can take a few months to a few years to get really good.

Check out Why businesses fail online for more info on this.

How to create great content

I have a very simple formula for producing great content. It can be summed up as:

• Have a clear value offering
• Pitch early
• Provide a call to action
• Offer alternatives

In other words, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to tell people, and how you want them to react (with alternatives if they don't want to convert immediately). This message needs to be presented in a clear and concise manner that also provides value to the reader.

Don't write rambling posts about various loosely related topics. Online browsers don't have the time or inclination. They want concentrated value - make them laugh, give them useful information, offer a unique opinion or perspective, etc.

Good content will automatically encourage people to share it, follow you (and grow your social influence), or move to the next step in the sales funnel.

You can learn all you need to know about creating great blogging content by browsing our blogging archive.

What does it cost to market content?

Marketing content has a range of associated costs. While organic search traffic via Google and other search engines is technically free, you may incur costs by paying SEO experts to help optimize your Web platform and make it competitive.

The price of paying an SEO expert to sort out your SEO and Internet marketing strategy is negligible in terms of the amount it will save you if you fail from misdirected efforts. Read 5 reasons why hiring a top SEO consultant is crucial for small business.

Organic traffic

If your content is well written with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in mind, then you might generate a good portion of your traffic for free, via organic search.