Content marketing is now an integral part of an organization’s general marketing strategies. An average piece of content can become a model when combined with outstanding marketing plans, while at the same time, an awesome piece of content might never get read or shared if the associated promotion activities are weak. According to Julie Fleischer, “Content marketing provides 4x the ROI of our traditional marketing spend.”
The era of bombarding the crowd with our messages until they buy from us is long gone. In today’s world of information overload, content is everywhere. And only the best will get results. We should consider that “content marketing is really like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date. ” —David Beebe.
It’s important to note that content marketing is a continuous effort towards helping brands tell their stories subtly by regularly creating and distributing valuable, educational, and highly relevant content for your target market. When you add value to their lives with the content that you create to help solve their problems, you build trust and industry authority. So, when they’re ready to make a purchase decision on a related product or service, you’re the brand they think of first.
Today, it’s beneficial for businesses to have well-thought plans on how to leverage content marketing in promoting their businesses. Here are the things to consider.
- Authenticity is key.
There are tonnes of related content contesting your audience’s attention. How do you stand out from the crowd? Sharing valuable content that informs, educates, and inspires your audience is a real way to help them. You shouldn’t try to trick your audience into thinking something isn’t what it is.
- Make it bold and disruptive.
If you want to grab the reader’s attention through your content, make it bold and disruptive. Content marketing works by capturing the attention of your target audience members and helping them address their informational and task-oriented needs. The belief is that your audience, over time, will come to trust and rely on your guidance, recognise your company’s unique value proposition, and ultimately reward you with business and loyalty.
- Consistently create valuable and relevant content.
Content marketing is a continuous approach, like having a conversation with your audience. You don’t create content once; you create it regularly. Regularly publishing relevant content helps you build strong relationships with your audience. If you leave it suddenly, they will find someone else to talk with.
- Distribute content strategically.
With the massive blog posts and educative publications we see every day, exceptional content won’t echo much if it is kept private. You should know where your target audience hangs out and effectively distribute your content there. You can explore the content syndication approach. It allows you to republish any kind of digital content, including blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, and more on third-party websites. So, it helps you reach more people and gives your content more exposure, which in turn increases your organic traffic.
- Core content is the key to customer action (ROI).
While content marketing isn’t as “hard sell” as advertising, the main goal is to have a potential customer buy a product or avail of a service.
You can create related content around this core content that pulls the visitors in and then encourage people to read on to your core content.
The more useful your content is for online searchers, the higher it will rank on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This can lead to more and more visitors to your site. You can then use it as a chance to keep building relationships with your prospects and keep them interested, all while your inbound sales funnel grows.
