In this digital age, customers are tech savvies. They are constantly searching, posting, and reviewing brands before making a purchase decision. Therefore, brands have to provide valuable content for them to resonate with the product/service and learn about the brand. That’s why Content marketing is important.
Since content is a pivotal part of digital marketing, more brands should priorities content creation to build a much-needed buzz, brand presence, and drive sales. With that said, let’s review what content marketing exactly is, the types of content marketing, essential strategies, and benefits.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is brainstorming ideas, planning, creating, publishing, and sharing content through different social media channels. Companies aim to reach a wider audience, generate leads, and increase conversions with quality content marketing.
By providing your customers with the necessary information, you help them make informed decisions. The more value you provide, the easier it becomes for them to trust you and your brand. In short, content marketing:
- Educates prospects of the brand and services offered
- Increases the rate of conversions
- Builds customer-business relationships and brand loyalty
- Creates a community around the brand
- Highlights a product’s uses and how it solves customers’ problems
- Helps in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) activities
How it is useful?
53% of marketers already use content marketing to reach and connect with their target audiences and allocate 29% of their marketing budget. Microsoft, Domino’s, P&G, Marriott, Cisco, American Express, and Walmart are some of the many top brands that deploy content marketing to increase leads and conversions and maximise their marketing efforts.
Types of Content Marketing Businesses Use
When it’s about incorporating content marketing into your marketing strategy, the first thing you should focus on is using the correct type of marketing for your brand. Since options are many, it doesn’t mean you have to experiment with all. Instead, pick the ones you think are ‘right’ for your business.
For example, let’s say you run a website that focuses on providing Assessment Help to students of different study levels worldwide. You could use infographics, blogs, video content, and emails to reach out to more students.
Therefore, the types of content marketing commonly used by various brands include:
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Infographics Content Marketing
Infographics are a great way of displaying content, data, facts, and figures in a limited space. The mix of content, images, and numbers make it easier for brands to communicate their objectives and engage customers.
Best for brands with complicated business propositions
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Social Media Content Marketing
There are over 3.6 billion active social media users worldwide. With such extended market reach, it’s clear why businesses are keen on investing in social media content marketing. Popular platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter offer unique opportunities to create engaging content like images, posts, reels, videos for retaining customers.
Best for businesses looking to build a loyal community and set trends
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Blog Content Marketing
Blogging is a powerful tool for it. It allows you to create specific content focusing on a particular niche and showcase creativity. Furthermore, you can combine blogs with different SEO strategies to promote and share content on various platforms.
Best for brands targeting to sell solutions or way of things to customers
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Email Content Marketing
These days, marketers use emails to connect with customers, share updates with newsletters, and send offers and discount links. Therefore, well-written emails and newsletters are necessary to stay associated with clients and subscribers.
Best for businesses looking to build trust and loyalty with their audiences
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Podcast Content Marketing
Podcasts allow businesses to create amazing content for increasing engagement, solving problems, and promoting customer loyalty. It also allows a brand to collaborate with other experts in the line of business and explore the format for brand promotion.
Best for businesses aiming to set tread and become industry experts
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Paid Ad Content Marketing
Paid ads target a broader audience to gain a strong stand in the market. Such a form of it is highly beneficial, as it gets your content to the right audience at the right time. Apart from inbound marketing, paid ads are shared on social media, sponsored content, and more.
Best for brands open to experimenting with different forms of content
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Video Content Marketing
A research study suggests that 69% of customers prefer video content to learn about a business and its offerings. Because of this, professional marketers to Analytical Essay help experts consider videos as a vital element of content marketing.
Videos communicate a complex idea in a simple but impactful manner. Using platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to create customer-centric content can help you get your brand out there, increase brand engagement and conversions, boost ROI, and build brand loyalty.
Best for businesses wanting to explain complex propositions in the simplest form for easy understanding
Effective Strategy
A good marketing strategy is vital for the success of a content marketing campaign. So let’s take a deeper look into the steps for developing a content marketing strategy:
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Determine an objective
Define the primary purpose and set a measurable goal. Whether it’s brand awareness, increase in conversions, engagement or ROI, or attracting more customers or investors, identify what you want to achieve and go at it.
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Learn about your customers
Your content is for your audience. Different audiences on different social media platforms expect different types of content. Hence, research and know more about your prospects and their interests.
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Set KPI’s
You have to set realistic and measurable Key Performance Indicators or KPIs to analyse the success of your content marketing campaign. But how do you define the right KPIs? Analyse your business objective. For example, if your target is to increase your blog traffic, you should track the traffic count.
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Create a content plan
Once you’ve identified your target audiences and their personas and established the KPIs, decide on the type of content – posts, blogs, infographics, etc. Ask yourself these questions:
- What does your customer need?
- What are their challenges?
- Why do they need you?
- How can you help them?
- Which platforms do they frequently visit?
No matter what you choose, maintain the highest quality standards.
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Select content channels
The right content channel is crucial so that your content reaches the right audience and fulfils your marketing target. Depending on the platform, create your content accordingly.
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Set a budget
Fix the budget based on the type of content you are creating and for which channel. Then, determine what resources you have and what you have to purchase, from tools to writers, designers, and ad space.
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Content creation
Always focus on creating top-notch content. It should be informative and solve your audiences’ queries. Also, maintain a content calendar to be regular with your posts and plan for future posts before the scheduled time.
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Analyse and track results
Finally, analyse the performance of your content. Then, use the metrics to make changes to your content (if need be) for better results.
5 Reasons Why Content Marketing Is a Critical Factor in 2021
- It creates brand awareness.
More than word of mouth or traditional marketing, it can change any business’s marketing efforts if done right. It can increase your website traffic and let others know about your brand, how unique you are, and what it has in store for its customers.
- It builds links and helps in digital marketing.
Good content will invite links from high DA (Domain Authority) websites, which will improve your website and page authority and bring you massive traffic within a short time. In addition, posting high quality, informative content using the right keywords can improve ranking on search results.
- It educates customers and builds trust.
One of the primary purposes of content is educating prospects. When they find content that solves their problem, they begin to trust the brand and come back for more. So the more engaging content you create, the higher are the chances of getting returning visitors.
- It develops a bond with target customers.
Customers visit you regularly and interact when you create authoritative content and get linked with high DA websites. They look at you as an expert in the specific line of business and recommend you to others, resulting in more followers.
- It generates leads and increases conversions.
Finally, the central aspect of it is lead generation. Giving your customers content that they connect with makes them more likely to become your customers, increasing the conversion rates.
Final Words
Content marketing is a trend that isn’t fading anytime soon. In this competitive business space, an increasing number of businesses are adopting it to enjoy the benefits it has to offer. If companies want to survive the rising competition, it’s about time that they include content marketing in their marketing strategy and optimizes their marketing efforts.
