With the technology growth, times are changing and traditional marketing as we know it is almost extinct and it now makes room for Content Marketing. But, what is Content Marketing anyway? – a type of marketing strategy that focuses on the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and insightful content with the purpose of attracting and maintaining the target audience. It is considered one of the most valuable marketing tools for the 21 century. Exceptional content marketing is a necessity rather than an option and represents your brand voice.
We are visual human beings. And we are deeply affected by the things we read, by the visuals we see. We read the news on Facebook, communicate through email, read articles on our favorite digital newspapers/blogs, follow our favorite brands’ Instagram profiles, read online books. And we do it on a daily basis. In this digital world where there are too much information and too little knowledge, be valuable to your customers. No one wants to read a boring, dry, and no value-adding piece of content. People’s attention span is 8 seconds. So you have 8 seconds to impress your potential customers as otherwise, you may lose them.
Why such a fuss over Content Marketing?
Some people may wonder why marketers are absolutely obsessed with Content Marketing. They may hold an outdated opinion – if the product is good it will sell itself. Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore. Chances are you have 100 competitors that offer similar products and services as your own. So how are you going to differ from them? The way you are going to “sell” your brand to your target audience has a lot to do with your content marketing.
Your content, Your voice
Each brand has a specific style and tone with which they approach their audience. The more genuine and relevant it is, the easier it would be to connect with your audience. If you are selling a type of service, it is vital that you earn the trust of your customers, especially if you are selling a service. People trust experts that would teach and guide them. And if you don’t engage with your customers they will never earn your trust. The same goes for products, hence the reason why many of the most successful digital retailers ask their customers to take pictures of themselves, and then they post them on their social media pages.
By doing this, you build a circle of trust. You are not just selling clothes, you are selling a way of living. On that note, if you run a blog you most definitely need to interact with your audience and what they exactly would like to read. They will never be loyal to your blog if you write random pieces that bring no value to them. They go to your blog for a reason – they found themselves in the content you are creating. You are them, they are you.
Your content, Your exposure
Simply put, bad content means bad brand awareness. And you definitely don’t need that. Brand awareness is the level of customer’s brand consciousness. Your content should be distinguishable. When your target audience sees it, they should recognize it. By doing so, they are recognizing your brand, your products, and services. Furthermore, you can use your content to increase the traffic to your website and turn your target audience into customers. It is highly recommended to use inbound links in your content that would lead to your site, blog, social media page, etc. The higher the brand awareness the higher the word-of-mouth marketing and brand loyalty.
Things to do to have a super content marketing
Each brand has its type of content, a unique type of communication with the target audience. There is no guide in content marketing that can tell you what type of content you should produce, nor what type of content would bring the most success for your brand. It is very subjective. But there are tips for the creation of content marketing that has been proven to be successful and these are some of them.
Get to know your target audience profoundly
This is the first and the most important part of your content marketing. If you skip it or not commit fully into understanding your target audience’s background and preferences then you might as well say goodbye to your awesome results. No matter how good is your content, if it is not tailored to your audience it would not interest them and it would definitely not turn them into your customers. Get to know their age, sex, location, preferences, interests, the type of content they read, etc. And yes, write in your target audience’s language. Trust us on this one!
Be authentic and insightful
Copying other content and just pasting it to your page won’t do you any good. So what can you do about it? How can you differ from your competitors? Don’t be afraid to be daring and let your brand’s voice be heard. As a matter of fact, that’s how you will attract them to click that like/dislike and comment button. You want to ignite a funky feeling within your target audience and make them yearn for more content. Produce content that other pages would share, something that will inspire people and make them take action.
Engage with your target audience
This is an essential step to make if you want to have a loyal customer base. The less you engage with your target audience, the less they think of you. It’s that simple. Talk to them, friend to friend. Comment, like, engage in conversations, repost, and reshare reactions from them. It is a lot easier to connect with a brand that is “easily accessible”. It makes a stronger connection and it breathes trust on both sides.
Uses of content marketing
If you think that content marketing has a lot to do with social media, we would tell you that you are not wrong. But we would also tell you that your way of thinking is limited. As a matter of fact, if you think more about it, you’d understand that this type of marketing is everywhere. It is all around you.
Email marketing
Your email content differs based on who you send it to – your partner, your friend, your colleague, or your potential client. They differ in style, length, language, information, subject, just to name a few. You may go about sending your friend an email without a subject line but would you do that in your email campaign? The subject line is the first thing your leads see. It will either make them click that “open” button or mark it as spam.
eBooks and Self-published books
Great content makes great books, whether that’d be an eBook or a Self-published book. Publishing one is an excellent marketing strategy for getting closer to your target audience. It shows that you care and it breathes trust in them. The more they feel “closer” to the brand, the higher the chances are that they would be loyal to it.
Marketing Collateral
Brochures, flyers, mailers, presentation materials, you name it. It is easier when you have a couple of pages to use to express your vision but try doing it in only a couple of words. It is extremely hard and challenging. It is as if your marketing campaign’s success depends on those 4 words.
Blogs, Press Releases and all types of other Articles
These types of content marketing will definitely boost your SEO (search engine optimization). An insightful, relevant, and informative abundant article would increase your chances of being featured on high authority websites, would boost your website conversion rate, improve the chances of being read by the target audience and hopefully convert your target audience into customers.
How to hire a professional content marketer?
Now that you have understood the reasons why you should use content marketing to promote your business, the next step is to find the best people to help you with this. There are many companies, marketing agencies, and freelance content writers that can create content for your brand and also prepare the strategy. For that reason, you need to be careful with your choice and thorough. When looking for help with content marketing, there are a few skills that you should look for in the marketers.
Skills your marketer should have
High rates do not necessarily indicate that you are getting a competent writer. The rate is set by each individual or a company and that doesn’t guarantee quality. The most important thing you should look for in the content writer is the writing skills – excellent knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and proper usage of keywords. A professional in content marketing should always approach your content as a product and find the right market for it. If you already have your target market set, this will make their work much easier.
However, they would need to make sure that the content is suitable for the product and your target market. Creating content as it implies is creative work. It’s not enough to just be using keywords and SEO, the content writer should always go the extra mile and be creative. Your content should explain to your customers why they need your product. The content marketers need to analyze and see which content goes well with the audience and which one doesn’t. If a campaign they started doesn’t give any results, it should immediately be replaced with another one. This individual needs to be able to assess this situation and act upon it. And ultimately, they need to keep up with the trends and be always up to date with the news.
If you don’t already have a preferred content marketer or you are not satisfied with the results with your current one, we highly recommend Ignite Global Media – a marketing agency that checks all the above-mentioned skills that a content marketer should possess. They take their job very seriously and offer a superb service. They pay attention to all the aspects of digital marketing and have experience in all the different uses of content marketing – blogs, marketing collateral, social media, eBooks, email marketing among other few. Don’t go around spending your time and money. Choose quality.
Choose Ignite Global Media.
Read more related articles here:
5 Tips on Successful Content Marketing
The 10 most common mistakes in social media marketing
