Content marketing is quickly going mainstream, replacing traditional marketing strategies used to attract, engage and retain loyal fanbases.
Marketing not only has to give consumers helpful information, but it also has to build trust and relationships. Gone are the days of aggressive sales pitches and CTAs with ads that scream for attention.
Now, attracting, acquiring, and engaging customers with top-quality content marketing that they find valuable and relevant will boost your brand presence. Additionally, constantly offering top-notch content with no strings attached will keep your brand at the top of your customer’s minds. Whether blog posts, videos, or social media, engaging, relevant content should be made available to prospective customers.
Your goal here is to drive profitable action. After all, your relationship with potential customers goes deeper than simply buyer and seller. Your content marketing tells the story of your brand, putting a trustworthy face to the business. Therefore, it’s an excellent opportunity to offer insight and give helpful information.
Furthermore, while print advertising and other traditional marketing avenues will always have a place, the changing landscape highlights the need for more sophisticated marketing strategies. Using content marketing to leverage leads and establish relationships with people has grown massively in recent years. This approach makes customers more receptive to your marketing messages, resulting in positive action in the future.
We’re excited to see what the next few years has in store!
What Is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing is a strategic approach to engaging your audience with valuable, relevant content that helps them solve problems and make informed decisions. This strategy is best described as attracting, engaging, and inspiring customers to act by providing valuable information across various forms of media.
For example, breaking news stories, blog posts, videos, and infographics. All of this content can increase traffic to your site and social media, causing them to rank higher in search engine results, generating more engagement and conversions.
Good uses result in:
- Making it possible for smaller businesses to compete with larger companies by creating higher-quality content.
- Sustaining competitive advantage by positioning a company as a thought leader in its field of expertise.
- Generating leads, sales, positive word-of-mouth referrals, and boosts customer satisfaction.
- Helping companies identify their ideal target demographic by offering relevant information they need at the right time.
Recently, content marketing has been changing from a passive approach to an active one. Companies are using content marketing to highlight high-quality, thought-provoking pieces that engage in a meaningful way. This strategy provides an excellent way for companies to engage with their customers and build loyalty.
Additionally, businesses can also use content marketing to build brand awareness and generate leads through social media channels. Marketers often prefer this channel over SEO, PPC or direct mailers.
Ultimately, content Marketing is a process of creating content that customers find interesting and informative, making them want to purchase the product or service. It involves planning your strategy through three phases: market analysis, content creation, and distribution.
While getting loads of attention only recently, the term ‘content marketing’ hit mainstream two decades ago after Joe Pulizzi coined it.
Who Uses Content Marketing?
Content marketing focuses on creating relevant, valuable, and authoritative content to attract an audience, build a relationship with them, and ultimately generate sales. Recently, it has become one of the most popular marketing strategies for brands.
Companies can utilise content marketing in various ways. For example, by:
- Developing engaging, dynamic content of value to the target audience.
- Creating content that influencers will share to support their brand name.
- Optimising for SEO purposes to drive traffic to their main sites.
Some of the top organisations that use content marketing include Red Bull and Apple.
The Story of Content: Rise of the New Marketing is a new documentary by the Content Marketing Institute exploring the evolution of content marketing. Content Marketers nowadays use a wide variety of tools to be able to produce high-quality content with ease.
Some tools that today’s marketers are using include:
- Blogging platforms.
- Social media.
- Content automation software.
- Marketing automation software.
Content marketing has become one of the most critical marketing strategies employed by businesses. It can generate demand for products and services, differentiate the brand, and increase visibility.
Some examples of companies that use content marketing successfully are Netflix, Google, The New York Times, Nike, and Forbes.
Key Challenges When Creating Content
Financing
Producing content is easy, but good content? Not so much. There is nobody better than you to blog about what you know about your business. In fact, to produce content that is both high-quality and matches your brand’s goal, you will need to prioritise writing over other work.
While it is difficult for most businesses to prioritise content over day-to-day operations, many freelancers are inexpensive, efficient. Usually, they can help build your brand’s name.
Perfectionism
Brands often spend too much time worrying about creating the perfect piece of content. Either that, or they worry about creating only content their bosses, sales, or product people want. Overall, the key is to create content that will be constantly updated and tailored to fit your specific audience.
Many people struggle with publishing relevant, engaging content. Fundamentally, without a captive audience, your business might fall behind competitors and lose potential revenue.
Time
Wish you had more time in your day? Ever been editing an eBook on one tab, writing a Facebook post on another while uploading images on an Instagram post on the third? If so, then you’ll know how time-intensive creating good content is.
You’ll always seem to be running out of time and finding new opportunities for content, and the work is never-ending. Ordinarily, it takes an average of 2 months for marketers to release an eBook. Producing content fast is easy. However, creating quality content that brings value to your brand is trickier.
Publishers often put content out there just to be seen and heard. Consequently, inferior quality content is often more detrimental to a brand name than no content at all. While this is a classic case of “if you are going to do something, do it well”, this doesn’t quite ring true with many companies. Content governance can help overcome time management. However, this single facet of a complete strategy ensures your business is thriving and constantly driving revenue. In summary, ownership in content is essential; when each party in the process has clear responsibilities and moves in tangent with each other.
Pros of Content Marketing
Improves your SEO
Relying on paid ads and email marketing is not enough. For example, with online lead acquisition, the first place folks look is Google. Paid and organic search are excellent ways of driving targeted traffic to your website. While paid search is the fastest way of driving traffic, consumers these days often skip past paid ads, looking specifically for organic content. Blogs, websites, and other publishing platforms can use content marketing to keep their information top of search engine listings.
Increases brand visibility
One significant benefit of content marketing is generating inbound leads. Thus, you must achieve this by adding high-quality content to your website to create a more prominent online footprint.
This strategy creates more opportunities for your business to come up when people perform a search. By optimising content to fulfil search engine requirements creates a better experience for your audience.
In summary, creating well-optimised content will allow you to rank higher in search engines.
Increases trustworthiness
Creating content produces long-term benefits for your business. Primarily, it allows you to answer customer questions and interact with them personally, which boosts engagement and trust. Specifically, when your content is delivered to the right audience when they need it, you gain a better reputation.
Creates advocates
Happy customers will be your best cheerleaders. Therefore any positive comments or feedback originating from a customer is many times more credible than your marketing message. Investing time and effort to satisfy current customers will lead to a loyal following that sets the stage for expansion through all important word of mouth.
How is Content Marketing Changing?
Content Marketing has changed drastically in the past years, with more complex digital platforms opening up new opportunities for organisations to market their products and services in a variety of ways, including:
- SEO
- Blogs to drive traffic
- Electronic newsletters
- Social media advertising
- PR campaigns
- Email newsletters
The past two years alone have been a turning point for content marketing. Now more than ever, people spend more time at home surfing the web, shopping, and ordering online.
New tools exist that can help people create content more efficiently and with less effort. Content marketing has been a significant part of marketing for a long time. However, it is just starting to explode in popularity because it provides a flexible and sustainable means to generate leads and generate sales.
It is becoming much more accessible to capitalise on this trend due to digital marketing automation tools. Content marketing has many benefits to businesses. Primarily, it helps generate more leads online, especially when trying to generate ROI from their content. Importantly, it is not merely about attracting leads and converting them anymore, now brands must build a loyal readership and fan base. These fan bases are what establishes a business as a thought leader and innovator. It is an excellent way of portraying your brand and telling a story behind the company.
People no longer want to just buy products. They want to buy products from businesses they trust, knowing that their dollar is going into an ethical, responsible business.
How Does Video Fit Into Content Marketing?
Video has become a universal marketing tool no longer constrained to advertising. Fuelled by the popularity and traffic of YouTube, content marketers are using video to create engaging content that converts more leads into customers.
In essence, video production companies help content marketers with their video production needs. They can produce videos for any business, including restaurants, retail, and entertainment.
“How-To” videos are an excellent way of establishing authority on a topic. For example, a restaurant or food supplier might post recipes. At the same time, an outdoor adventure brand could give instructions on a specific activity like “how to survive in the wild for ten days”.
Go nuts! Get creative. Videos put a face behind your business and is a fantastic way to showcase your products and services without being too sales-oriented. Video production companies are businesses that take care of video content, including advertising videos, infographics, training videos, and even documentaries. It might cost more because of the work involved in producing the content. Still, videos are way more likely to capture attention than text-based content.
However, with the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook Live and YouTube Live, video companies have reached a wider audience with their video content without needing to invest much money. Today, new technology allows for video editing that gives you the best of both worlds, where you can use static images and videos within your video marketing efforts.
Building a Content Marketing Strategy for 2021
With the advent of the internet and digital marketing, content marketing has become a vital driver of any business.
Here are some strategies for building your content marketing strategy in 2021:
- Keyword research.
- Crafting contextually relevant content.
- Digitisation of content marketing strategies.
- Set up a dedicated team for content strategies.
- Use personal data such as email subscriptions or social media profiles to gather insights on your audience and plan out your content accordingly.
- Consider working with influencers and other marketers to build up the most authentic content possible.
Content marketing is no longer an option. Now, it has become a necessity. As a result, the coming years are exciting ones, filled with useful, relevant content from businesses scrambling to meet the changing needs of the more informed consumer.
Brands that have clear values show ethical practices and offer a holistic experience instead of a specific product or service will reap the rewards of customer engagement.
EVEN was set up to bridge content gaps for clients, offering a single destination for video content production. Whether the objective is to broaden awareness, drive sales, or boost social growth, our team will work with you to deliver a strategic content plan that yields results.
After delivering the final versions in multiple formats, our job continues. We will work with you, identifying opportunities to develop content that will deliver your strategic objectives. Whether scouting shooting locations, sourcing talent, or hiring equipment to production and editing, we’ll be your content production partner every step of the way.
The business world is changing. Now more than ever before, consumers are spending increasing amounts of time indoors, ordering products and services from the comfort of their own homes.
The team at Even wants to work alongside dynamic businesses to create compelling content that inspires trust, loyalty, and action. Give us a shout here, and let’s chat about how we can help develop and execute the perfect content marketing strategy for you!
