… a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Our definition of Content Marketing is that it is all the material designed to engage the consumer and potential customer by copy, video, podcasts, and audio, among other materials such as downloadable PDF’s or E-Books. It is marketing approach designed to turns likes into leads, clicks into followers and sign-ups into sales.
Contrary to what many people think, Content Marketing was around long before Digital Marketing or even the Internet itself. Because content marketing is all about storytelling and we as humans have been telling stories since the dawn of man and most of our attention will always be focused on those that tell the best stories.
Take a look at this advertisement from Cadillac, it was created in 1904, long before digital marketing was even around. See how this great piece of content is telling a story about the Cadillac brand. "Among all means of travel- and among all automobile- the Cadillac stands pre-eminent as hill-climber. It then compare the ability of the Cadillac to climbs hills at a rate that far exceed other methods of travel such as a bicycle, trolley car or a locomotive. "
Wouldn't that sound very intriguing back in 1904? Now, when you consider that was very early in the history of the early American Automotive Industry I'm sure that was a remarkable feat which was amplified by the great story about the advancement of their technology in comparison with other means of transportation. The core of the message was Cadillac is the best alternative choice.
So, our attention will always go to those who tell great stories. Content Marketing is something that all digital marketers needed to be mindful of when creating their digital campaigns, whether it be a click-funnel, nurture campaign SEO or social media ads, it is very vital and essential to the overall success of your marketing. In other words, content marketing is all about building stories, products don't sell, stories do! This is why great content will always be king.
To produce great content that engages the user into acting, knowing your goal is especially important. Whether it is to increase your leads, create brand awareness, generate sales, or even educate the market about the importance of your product or service having an KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and an end goal is paramount to having success with content marketing.
If a person is familiar with your brand, that recognition will only be gained thanks to good content, this will also be recognized at the time of purchase or when they make a buying decision. To spur this action and to help them down the sales funnel, we need to focus on a strategy.
In Content Marketing, the strategy is strongly linked to the objective. In this case, as I mentioned previously, it is the KPI or Key Performance Indicator. This objective must be measurable and considered important for your company, in addition to being measured by numbers or a percentage. It can be the number of visits to your website, the number of mentions of your brand on social networks, in that customers give in an application, among others.
Check out this nifty graph by Content Marketing Institute to get a better understand of what digital marketing KPI's are:
As you can see from this graph, different KPI's from website traffic to time on site, to page views are all fostered or decreased by good content or the lack thereof.
Now, after outlining your Content Marketing objectives, think about who will read, listen to or view the material. Creating content to reach as many people as possible is not the end goal unless you're a big Fortune 500 Company such as Coca-Cola, as it may seem too widespread or uninteresting, so make sure your content is created with your target audience and their personas in mind. If you are trying to attract dental clients, why blog about how SEO is impacting architects? So you must create an audience persona of what your ideal customers looks like.
Keep in mind, that it is through analytics or market data, that we create an audience persona for which we will produce our Content Marketing for. Speaking directly to a specific type of audience, we reduce the reach, but we increased the number of people who will fulfill our end goal, which could be more sales or registrations.
Finally, for efficient Content Marketing to work, it is necessary to explore the ideal channels and platforms in which to spread your message. In other words, think about where your persona is (social networks, blogs, e-mail, etc.) and how they would like to be reached. As we say in marketing, find your tribe and hang out where they like to hang out.
For example, if you are trying to reach a B2B manufacture of trench drains they more than likely would not be hanging out on IG and more likely hanging out on LinkedIn. If you are trying to reach shopper to sell your beauty products to, they will be more likely to hang out on IG versus hanging on out LinkedIn.
So, what kinds of content can you create to reach your user and achieve your KPI’s?
Copy (for more complex content).
Image (for visual highlight).
Video (to generate empathy).
Audio (for consumption at any time).
Did you like the tips? How about starting your Content Marketing strategy right now? Want to learn more about how to use Content Marketing to achieve your digital marketing goals? Count on A16 Studios and let us help you create authority and recognition for your brand by leveling up your content and content marketing strategy with on real business success. Get it touch now!
