Content marketing is the concept of sharing information regarding products and services for a targeting audience. Content is a general term used for the following assets.
- Written content such as blogs, articles, whitepapers, emails, ebooks, social media content, website content among others.
- Pictorial content such as social media images, flyers, infographics, banners.
- Video content such as YouTube videos, webinars, tutorials, reels, among others.
- Audio content such as podcasts
All the types of content discussed above are important for targeting the audience. The most important thing is to understand the role of content in choosing the audience. For example, a newsletter is a combination of written content and images. It is delivered directly to the inbox of a customer providing relevant updates.
Now, this newsletter is only received by the customer who is a subscriber. In comparison to this, social media marketing campaigns are combinations of all the types discussed above. The platform is going to target the audience as per the keywords or hashtags. There is no consent of customers required initially. Though the role of both newsletters and social media marketing campaigns is the same the workflow is different.
Note: There is no use in creating content if it cannot provide any value.
What is content marketing and why it is important?
Content marketing is basically the process of the development and distribution of relevant information in multiple forms. When executed perfectly, it brings a lot of value to the marketing campaigns deriving quick and efficient results. However, it can also hurt the campaigns if not executed correctly.
There should be consistent use of content marketing. Only then it can derive results. That’s because the algorithms of social media platforms analyze the trajectory of the results. For example, 100 users are interacting with the first campaign, and with every campaign, the number of users is increasing. Here, the algorithm is going to analyze the likes, shares, and comments in a post. Similarly, if the users are ignoring the campaign in intervals, the campaign may not be uplifted.
Content marketing is important because of multiple reasons. The most important one is that it is proven to work. In comparison to the other options, there is a competitive edge.
- Businesses having blogs and articles receive more than 60% leads.
- More than 40% of buyers read blogs and check reviews before finalizing a product.
- Companies using content marketing regularly have 30% higher success rates than businesses not engaged in content marketing.
- More than 70% of B2B businesses have experienced high engagement after using content marketing. The lead flow has also increased accordingly.
What is a good content marketing strategy?
Content marketing is not just about creating content. It is about strategizing the approach that can help in attracting, engaging, and converting a lead. A good content marketing strategy must have the pillars given below:
Positioning the value of the brand
The content marketing strategy should clearly define the position of your brand. For example, brands selling vegan products can use terminologies referring to the use of natural products only. So now, the brand has the support of customers who follow a vegan diet. To define the clear image, it is important to choose:
- Understand the existing customer base
- The experience for users
- Other competitive brands
- The unique value of the brand
- The way of solving the problem
- The competitive edge over other brands
Providing a strategic plan
A strategic plan focuses on the growth process. For example, content marketing helps in attracting a lead, engaging a lead, and converting a lead. A good content marketing strategy is going to provide the path for the overall development of the brand for efficient results. This includes attracting a lead, engaging, conversion, and reviewing in a workflow. Planning is very important when it comes to creating a long-term Strategy.
Determining audience
What does your potential customer persona look like? From where does your potential customer come from? What do they do? What are their buying habits? Which channels do they use the most? Why do they buy this? What solution does your product/service offer to the customers? All these questions must be answered in your buyer persona.
What goals can you achieve with content marketing?
As per the business requirements, there can be different objectives achieved with content marketing. Most of them are listed below:
- Setting up long term lead generation funnel
- Increasing revenue
- Gaining subscribers
- Retaining customers
- Analyzing statistics for efficient results
- Increasing brand value/authority
- Understanding the market reviews for improvement
What are some of the best content marketing examples?
In the past, there are multiple cases when marketers displayed real strength in terms of attracting customers and promoting brands. Let’s check out the best ones for reference:
Coke’s “Share A Coke” Campaign
If you are reading the campaign name for the first time then you should definitely check out how Coke promoted their drinks without spending a huge amount of money. To achieve better results, marketers focused on a customer’s needs which can be fulfilled by the company. So they offered personalized drinks. They took around 150 popular names and printed them on the bottles. This is it and the audience went crazy about this idea.
Now the presence of the internet helped the brand a lot as when people see something worthy or unique, they tend to share the same. Many users shared their images with personalized images of drinks and the campaign went viral.
Microsoft’s Stories
The guy at Microsoft knows about reciting a story. Enjoying a good story is liked by everyone. There is a special connection when the story is based on personal experience. In fact, the author and entrepreneur Seth Godin’s Marketing philosophy is based on the same principle i.e. the better the connection, the stronger the relationship. The ideas behind Microsoft Stories made it a huge hit.
GoPro and the Visual Content
Visual content is very powerful and GoPro understands the scope in this. Their marketing strategy revolves around providing quality products and quality visual content.
As a result of this, they have 3.4 million subscribers on YouTube and 6.8 million followers on Instagram. Going deep into the campaigns of GoPro, the company understands the core experience of users what they love, what they want, and the problems faced by them. Accordingly, they proceed.
Where can I post my content for marketing?
Creating and publishing content is very important for better reach. Publishing blog posts and articles contribute a lot to the same. Because flyers are generally posted through the official pages but blogs and articles also help in generating backlinks from multiple sources. On a monthly basis, more than 70 million blog posts are published. Below are the topmost places where you should be definitely posting your content:
Medium
Medium is a portal where users can publish blogs and articles. The import feature helps in generating canonical links. As the users of Medium are in millions, posting there is definitely worth the effort.
Reddit is also worth it when it comes to posting the content but there are a few constraints like posting the content in the right manner is very important. Redditors know the brands trying to spam the content. That’s why it is important not to get flagged. Choosing the content wisely is also very important here as the data should provide worth to the users.
LinkedIn Articles
LinkedIn is a professional platform so be aware of what you are sharing because LinkedIn users are not a fan of casual content on the platform. If you hit the right chord with the content, Linkedin Articles can do wonders for your marketing.
Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are still relevant because many users are still using Facebook as a primary platform for spending personal time. Join relevant industry-related groups and contribute to the information flow whenever possible.
Quora
Quora is one of the topmost websites where people discuss their doubts in the form of questions and answers. The answers are generally posted in the form of blogs having backlinks or promotional links.
Conclusion: Content marketing is used for many years but obviously in different forms. The current form of content marketing i.e. the digital way has changed the concept by 360°. Blogs, Articles, Images, Videos, and Podcasts are the new digital weapons. To make the best use of content marketing, prepare a good strategy.
One thing which every company should understand is that access to the market is limited. This means all the competitors can access the same customer base. Thus, start as soon as you can. The only condition applicable here is to post authentic content. Because it won’t take much time for the false information to get flagged or reported as there are many dedicated fact-checkers.