Grow Your Business With These 6 Content Marketing Basic Essentials
"Basic" doesn't mean ineffective; it's simply where we all start. If you're dipping your toe using content (like a newsletter or YouTube channel) to attract customers, master these 6 things.
Content marketing is, and will remain, a great foundational marketing strategy.
If it wasn’t so important, there’d be much less agony all around about generative AI (a topic for another day) amongst marketing professionals).*
The basics are simple: share helpful information, create trust in your audience, they buy.
As with anything, once you begin to dig in, it gets complicated. But you need to be able to roll over before you sit up, much less crawl, walk, or run.
I’ve created campaigns with multiple pieces of content, branching workflows, emails, etc. Couldn’t have done that without understanding the basics.
Take this newsletter (or website or blog or whatever you want to call this platform, even, yes, another social media platform). When originally conceived back in . . . 2014 or so . . . it was called Spikey Katfish and I wrote about whatever I wanted to. Some marketing. Some stream of consciousness items. Some random stuff. Readers were nice, but I was mostly just writing to write and clarify my thinking.
In late 2023, I moved it here and did nothing much.
Last year, I got more intentional with a focus on marketing in general, but still no clear goals. Over 2025, I’ve become more intentional here.
I’ve changed the name. I’m focusing more and more on newsletter content (plus inbound/content marketing in general along with a dash of AI – the technology for genAI overlaps with my previous life as IT editor so I have some thoughts there). My main focus now is practical marketing insights, advice, and actionable strategies based on research and personal experience.**
During my strategic planning, I identified these six foundational elements—each supported by personal experience and the consensus of industry experts.
These aren't complicated ideas. Like "eat less, move more" for weight loss, these six basics will create your content marketing foundation and help you consistently attract and retain customers.
And much like the basics of weight loss, the basics of content marketing can carry you a good part of the distance to your business goals.
1. Create Useful Content – Blog, Newsletter, Video, Etc. – REGULARLY
This means you need to write.***
Blogging and newsletter writing are essentially interchangeable from an audience standpoint. Putting useful words online to help your customers/potential customers remains one of the simplest (though not always easiest) ways to attract new leads and engage customers.
Regularly share relevant, useful content that directly addresses customer needs.
Why blog?
Google (still capturing about 93% of search traffic) prioritizes helpful content that clearly answers users' questions. If your blog provides those answers effectively, Google will reward you with increased visibility (though Google’s AI focus is beginning to skew this; I’ll write about that issue in the future).
Active, regularly updated sites rank higher.
Consistent blogging builds trust and a loyal audience.
What to write about?
Marcus Sheridan famously turned around his failing pool business by transparently answering customer questions through his blog. His influential book, They Ask, You Answer, encapsulates this approach.
Simply put: honestly answer every customer question you receive, clearly and transparently. Then do it again.
As for video, YouTube has been in the top 10 of search engines for over a decade. I like to read, not everyone does. Others are auditory learners – give people a chance to engage with you both ways (I’ll be experimenting with video much more starting next week).
Content format should match audience preferences. Your customers might love the written word, prefer videos, or respond best to podcasts. Use persona insights to determine how you'll deliver content — ebooks, infographics, videos, podcasts, webinars, case studies, and beyond.
Quality matters: all content must genuinely inform or solve a problem. Repackaging blog posts into downloadable resources or as an email welcome sequence for new customers/subscribers is an excellent way to leverage existing content and attract leads and/or build trust.
2. Know Who You Sell To
If you ever hear a marker talk about personas that’s all a persona is – a fictional composite of your ideal customer. Identify and thoroughly understand your ideal customer segments. Create detailed personas—complete with names, images, and background info. Target your content precisely to their preferred communication channels (email, video, social media, etc.).
3. Social Media Amplifies Your Reach
Done well, social media exponentially increases your content's reach. Done poorly, it feels intrusive and ineffective.
Used correctly, social media is like pouring gas on a fire. Use social media to pushpushPUSH your product, and it’s like dumping cold, wet sand on your efforts.
The first and most important thing to keep in mind is that there’s no single “perfect” social media plan applicable for everyone. Your audience might be on Facebook and hate Instagram. Others might love Pinterest. And there will always be another app and social site.
Use social media to share your information. A good rule of thumb is to share 5 things from others for every piece of your content you share (the ratio varies).
It’s not the exact ratio that’s important but showing that you’re part of the community – not just there to blast out messages about the wonder that is you.
Use social media to meet your customers. Social media is both one-to-one and one-to-many. When you answer a customer’s question in a social media space, you’re creating a relationship with that customer. Because of the public nature of social media, you’re also showing yourself as a helpful partner rather than a company just interested in selling to everyone else.
Go where your customers are. Learn the rules (the particulars of how to create content, such as ideal length and image sizes that work best, as well as the social mores for how people interact) for that particular channel. Then become a member of the community. Share good information. Be human. Don’t make a hard sell.
4. Email Nurture Campaigns
Email remains the backbone of marketing.
There are dozens of ways to use email to nurture leads to customers and to provide excellent customer service. A short list includes:
Cart abandons. When someone goes to an action landing page (to register for a webinar, make a purchase, etc.) but doesn’t complete the desired action, create a short email sequence to nudge them to completion. If you’ve ever put a product in your cart at Amazon and then not bought it, you’ve gotten one of these.
New customer welcome. Create a sequence of emails over a few weeks to welcome a new customer, provide advice on how to get the most out of their purchase, invite to join an online community (if you have one), and even upsell.
Educational nurture. When a lead downloads an information asset (an ebook, for example) or attends an event (like a webinar) or even signs up for your newsletter, create an email sequence to share related blogs, other content assets like infographics, and even third-party information that educates your lead. Insert offers later in the sequence to invite for a call, a free trial, a discount offer, etc.
5. Newsletter
You control ONE connection with your customers: email.
A newsletter is just another piece of content, but as a distribution method it is THE key piece of content.
Your email newsletter is a foothold in your lead or customer’s digital home (their inbox). Once you have permission and are invited in, you have to continue to earn that trust by delivering useful and informative information to your customers/potential customers.
A newsletter gives you an algorithm-free way to connect with your audience. serves as a regular reminder that you’re there for your audience. Newsletters come in various designs and formats; the effective ones build trust and can also be effective sales tools.
6. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Google is fundamentally an "answer engine," not merely a search engine. Effective content marketing revolves around providing the best answers (that’s the genius of Sheridan’s book).
Key SEO tips:
Write for humans first, optimize second. Avoid keyword stuffing; instead, prioritize helpful content.
Align content with strategic keywords. Identify terms your audience searches for and tailor content specifically to answer those queries clearly.
Keep in mind that SEO is changing (again) to reflect Google’s AI synopsis answers, designed to keep people on Google’s property. SEO experts are beginning to learn how to manipulate this shift by Google back into their favor.
By the way, these continual algorithm shifts by Google as well as the other platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn (who actively throttle the reach of posts with links) is why an email newsletter is a key piece of every smart business’ marketing strategy.
Start Today
The sooner you implement these foundational tactics, the quicker you'll see results. Clarify your goals and get going.
Ready to turn content and your inbox into a growth engine for your business? Newsletter-in-a-Box gets you from blank page to first send in four weeks. Email me at bryant@simplyusefulmarketing.co or book a quick call and let’s start filling your customers’ inboxes with value and your pipeline with leads.
*My stance remains that the companies paying content mills to churn out copy outsourced to folks in India via Fivrr (and for 5 bucks) are the same folks who are going to use genAI-generated slop for their marketing. Lazy businesses that take shortcuts are going to remain lazy businesses that take shortcuts. And then they’ll just say “content marketing doesn’t work.”
**Revisiting Simon Sinek's Start With Why reinforced my belief in clearly defined purposes as essential to achieving meaningful results, no matter the task.
***You as in YOU; don’t let generative AI tools do your thinking for you.
As I was editing, I thought of this song from the great Curious George Soundtrack by Jack Johnson. Because a large part of marketing is people watching.