Brands need to start acting on creating awareness around their brand. In order to be able to achieve that, one of the most important elements is content. It is not about quantity. It has, and always will be about quality.
If you still do not believe in content marketing let’s have a look at a scenario together; When you are purchasing a product or service, you will generally prefer buying it from a reputable and credible brand rather than one that is unknown. Trust plays a major role in your buying decision – and guess what? When you are evaluating the product or service, the first thing you will check out is their engagement, and engagement does indeed come from content.
I am sure that you have heard people saying “Content is King”. Of course, it is! Content helps set your brand apart from your competitors. Behind every great brand, there are great people who are generating amazing content and content strategy.
Content strategy is about figuring out what content will help your targeted audience and make them take action towards your brand. To be able to do that you will need to not only set goals and KPIs but also make sure all your team is aligned with your branding.
Study your audience. In this, many content providers make the mistake of focusing on quantity and not quality – do not be one of them! Study your audiences’ psychographics and demographics likes and dislikes and create content more relevant to them so they can engage with you and trust you. A good way to know your audience is through conducting an SEO analysis. While I know this sounds rather technical, it is in fact, not that difficult. All that needs to be done is to use services like BuzzSumo and it will show you the analysis of the topic.
Apart from this, you will need to run some gap analysis exercises in order to see what your audience wants versus what they are getting.
Since the ultimate goal is driving traffic and revenue, it is essential that you have clear sets of Call to Action (CTA) and stay away from hard selling. Instead, have a more consultative approach. For example, CTAs should have a more approachable note such as “Let’s us help you” instead of using terms like “Buy from us”.
Always create a content calendar! You will never know how useful this step is until you get around to doing it. A content calendar will provide you with full oversight on your contents’ feel and direction especially when you have it grouped in a single place in plain sight.
Once you have everything in place you will realise that the content that you have published is not only creating awareness but is also contributing to your pipeline.
In a nutshell, the benefits of content marketing can be summarised into a few easy to understand points. Firstly, incorporate brand trust by building your brand in terms of recognition and credibility. Enhance engagement and loyalty toward your brand by increasing brand awareness in the market. It is essential to also generate traffic to your websites and social media pages or through any other communication channels, you create with your client. Apart from this, a crucial element is to create and present a relatable brand persona that allows you to make people buy instead of having to sell. Lastly, it is important to develop and nurture a long term relationship with your audience in order to improve lead quality.
