Content marketing is generally one of the more difficult concepts to get across to clients. At first blush, many don’t really grasp what goal is trying to be accomplished.
Instead of a blog post filled with theories or studies conducted by whoever, we’ll just offer a simple case study in the legal industry.
The content that was created for this law firm was a simple 30 page book that answered very common questions about the legal process. This book was offered for free in printed form and also via PDF online. It didn’t offer any type of legal advise, it just factually answered questions.
The answers to the frequently asked questions didn’t give half-answers where the reader was left unsatisfied. It didn’t have a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo where the person felt outmatched and confused. It was honest, down to earth answers to questions that the firm realized people had in initial consultations.
Here is where some business owners or law firm owners may say, “You’re answering the questions that people call to ask. If they read it in a free book, they’re not going to call me and I won’t get the lead!”
Months after the firm started giving these books out at events and tracking how many times it was being downloaded online, they noticed something.
People began calling in referencing the book. Since their original questions were already answered, the reason they were calling is because their situation was a bit more complex. They noticed that these people calling in referencing the book had cases that were more complex and more valuable than other lead sources.
When the person finally decided, “Hey, I need to call a lawyer,” there wasn’t a list of 10 lawyers they were going to call and shop. There was one. The one that gave them a book of information and answered their initial questions within their content.
Don’t get stuck on the “book” factor of this. The “content” can be anything from a blog post to a TikTok video. The point of this post is that you can give some of it away. Because giving some of it away will build trust in the people viewing your content.
To answer the original question (what is the goal of content marketing?) building trust and positioning yourself as an authoritative source within your industry is the goal. Generally speaking, you’re not going to be able to accomplish that task by hogging all the information.
