Content Marketing
WHATS CONTENT MARKETING? ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!
Content marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material such as videos, blogs, and social media posts that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
The inborn business brain in you will never know to be content until youve done everything in your power to make your business stand in the forefront. And thats just a fact, its not a debatable factor of goodness or anything.
You want to grow, you acknowledge that its a competitive world out there, and with the booming online world, things just began to get a tad bit complicated. Or perhaps, thats an understatement.
There are many businesses that still assume that they could do well without marking their online presence. And maybe they can, for a few more months or a year provided that theyd built quite a name for themselves earlier. But assuming that one would just be fine without putting any effort to be there where the people are is just nonsensical.
Well, why are we rambling so much about it? For a reason of course.
It is quite surprising yet not too surprising that many out there arent familiar with content marketing. And they dont need to be if they arent in this whole business promotion field.But if anyone at all needs to develop their business and presumes that they can do so merely by distributing pamphlets and posters, then nu-uh! The first thing that you need to do in 2018 to have a business is to focus on content marketing.
What is Content Marketing
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as:
Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
The most crucial point to note when it comes to content marketing is that youre promoting your business indirectly, yet not merely with the purpose of benefitting yourself, rather your customers too.
Another point to note is that the content that youre using for your marketing purpose should be relevant. Supposedly, youre an architectural firm, then you need to get into content marketing by providing valuable information regarding the interior, exterior designing, tips for your potential customers to choose the right materials, people and so on. All the while youre providing your potential clients with two things:
Information + an option to choose you as their go-to company.
The definition of content marketing provides all the insight needed for content writers and marketing team to build their content strategy. Here we outline the most crucial areas to take care of when you plunge into the world of content writing. So that you can get your job done easily by breaking things down and getting to the bottom of it.
Content marketing in essence:
is a marketing technique
should be relevant to your business
has to be consistent
should be able to attract and acquire the right audience
has to prove to be profitable
This article will explain how you can achieve these factors for a good price. So grab your cuppa or black coffee, and pen and paper to jot down the factors that you need to get into your head.
Content as a marketing technique
60% of B2B business struggle creating engaging content, according to the report of the Content Marketing Institute. Apart from that, it reveals a lot more shocking statistics that were attempting to resolve one at a time.
A lot of businesses these days realize the importance of content marketing, apart from a few exceptions that we mentioned earlier. However, many dont yet practically understand why they need to incorporate it into their business.
Well, here is a shocker, content marketing is NOT new. The only way its done now is different than before. Businesses, and not just the boring gizmo business or service providers but actual entertainment companies, clothing lines have been using content marketing in any way possible.
History shows some of the best examples. The companies always focus on a problem that their target audience may be facing, and use that information to create a solution and in turn, sprinkle a gist of their marketing language to indirectly tell people that they are the best people to trust when it comes to resolving those issues.
Here is a phenomenal content marketing example:
Acorns is an investing app that helps people invest the spare-changes of their debit card purchases over time. Acorns does a great job in doing what they do, but how they reach the hearts of their customers is even better. Acorns uses a smashing blog to serve as an excellent example for all the other companies seeking to promote their business.
Their blog is filled with content that would certainly benefit their audience. Consistently pumping quality content for their audience, they range from providing how-to articles to Interview and News.
Now thats how things need to work for you too. Blog it, be involved, know what they want to know, and let them know.All you need is a good content marketing agency or partner with the best content writing team.
The relevance of your content
Aforementioned example of Acorns provides you a whole new idea about being relevant. In a laymans term, being relevant merely means to stick to your point. But in the world of content marketing, you cannot build a content strategy by merely sticking to the point as they say.
Now you need to think out of the box yet, you need to have certain boundaries so that you dont go all over the place and eventually, lose your ultimate purpose. If youre an investing company like Acorns, your target audiences are the people who use debit cards, and who are interested in making money through smart investments and theyre, well, a lot.
If youre an online clothing retailer, then youve got plenty of people eyeing you from everywhere. So you need to be relevant and provide information about buying online, about what fabrics are the best to choose for when what sort of fashion statements they can make as the seasons roll by and so on. There is so much to explore even when youre relevant.
Relevance merely means to write anything that would benefit your target audience in regards to your niche area. Anything that touches their mind or heart.
What is consistent in content marketing
There is no use of focusing on content marketing if you dont plan to be consistent. But we understand, many wouldnt have really told about it is to be a long-term strategy. However, thats what it is.
The gist that you give about your company in indirect ways cannot be a one-time thing. The audience needs to know that this brand is involved, and manages to answer their queries, while at the same time, being credible in their provision of services or products. Some businesses may need more content, whereas others not so much, provided that theyve got their social media handles active and are saying something to their audience.
And thats the point. It doesnt always have to be huge blog posts, it could be the smaller things such as posting your client feedbacks, or whats new or a quick post that would somehow reach the audience where it has to reach.
Whatever it maybe be, or wherever youd like to post, all you need to do is be consistent in what you do.
How to attract the audiences?
The key to attracting audiences:
Speak in their language
Be Lazy with your content
Answer their questions
Benefit them.
Dont use jargons. Not everyone of your audience is going to get all the technical terms, nor do many of them want to learn. While we understand that you want to be specific, try to be specific without sounding too scholarly.
Think of yourself as a lazy reader. Being a lazy reader is not a very uncommon problem out there, because people arent really in their most energetic state these days. Got a lot of things going on, and loads of Instagram feed posts to scroll down, so when theyre looking for you, they are expecting you to say something relevant and informative in a simple manner.
You dont have to cut down on the information you provide. You can give them all they want, yet just dont overload or clog the entire page with info that it leaves their head boggled. Just answer their questions too, while youre at it. Thats all marketing is about.
Content syndication refers to republishing your content on third-party sites in order to gain a better and larger audience.
Also, content syndication helps greatly in attracting the right audience. Perhaps, your site isnt that established yet, so you can promote your site in an already established site and navigate the readers from the third party site to yours. Just link a couple of other reference articles, or provide a catchy statement thatd benefit them at the end about which they can know more on your site. Remember, make sure you provide the do follow link to your site!
Profitable content
Well, the whole purpose of incorporating all the aforementioned factors into the content is to create something that will prove to have returns.Content marketing is extremely crucial, hence you need to keep in mind that whatever youre writing has the potential to bring you returns.
Return on Investment is not just for building new business and stashing your money on it. It includes everything, even the time you invested to create your content. Check how your content fairs, and have goals. Define the customer path when youre creating content, and make the best use of your social media accounts. Refer the article about improving your content marketing ROI to get to know more.
Content Curation
The best way to write a profitable content is by focusing on content curation.
The Content curation is the process of gathering content which is relevant to the topic from multiple sources.
This helps greatly in reaching more audience and providing the best output you can. The growth may not be sudden, but rather a steady journey which certainly provides a solid development eventually. But be sure to keep checking your stats to measure your progress.
When you quote other relevant experts in the field and provide their information while giving them the credit, adding your personal touch and also linking their articles in your content, youd certainly have a far reach in your industry. Now your audience will know that you can be someone trusted and others in the industry will give you the due recognition eventually.
But before you do, make sure the content is unique enough to share and is something that would benefit your audience. When you go through browsing for articles relevant to your business for the sake of content curation, youd also be learning more than ever before. This will help you grow personally as a business because youre being taught while teaching and informing them.
You can learn to curate your content from several sources, but this particular article seems to be relevant, specific and very simple to make just about anyone understand the point.
User Generated Content
User-generated content refers to the content that is generated by the users, but something relevant to your brand.
For example, the Coca-Cola campaign in which they started giving out personalized bottles, and Share a Coke campaign, they had started out a revolutionary form of advertising. It was quite amazing really, because they didnt really have to spend on printing or stashing pamphlets, rather it was the people who bought the drink, drank it who promoted them.
Two gains: Free Promotion and Instant growth.
When people talk about your brand, others are going to trust you. So user-generated content is an actual thing that you really need to focus on getting started. Well, how? Its simple, give your audience something good to talk about you, give them your products and let them know that they can tag your social media account in their review or experience. Ask for their feedback, and some would even go as far as writing blog posts for you.
In that case, youre lucky, indeed.
The story doesnt end here
70% of B2B content marketers say their organization’s content marketing is more successful than a year ago.
However, content marketers need to aim higher than content and aim higher than marketing. With all that said, happy content marketing!