In a competitive digital world overloaded with information, reaching your target audience becomes a mammoth task. The conventional approach of direct promotion or direct selling does not work anymore. The digital audience is not keen on anything that is too sale-sy or pushy. The audience wants more. They want to get different insights and understand the options before making decisions and spending their hard-earned money. Here is where content marketing comes in. It helps your brand stand out. But before we dive into the details, let us first understand what we mean by content marketing.
What is content marketing?
“Traditional marketing talks at people. Content marketing talks with them.”
– Doug Kessler, Creative Director, Co-Founder, Velocity Partners
Content marketing is a process of reaching out to your target audience by providing them with valuable and relevant information. It is the art of getting your target audience hooked to your brand without actually selling them directly. It is a way of interacting with them via mediums they thoroughly enjoy without interrupting the way they consume their content. The seamless integration of what your brand has to offer starts building trust towards your brand. This trust is eventually rewarded by them turning into clients.
The social media landscape and digital media has evolved and exploded in the last decade. Every post, be it static, audio or video, that you engage with on the digital landscape is a part of content marketing. An efficient content marketing strategy engages your target audience and converts them into clients. Operating without a suitable content marketing strategy is a risky proposition for any brand or individual today.
Here is why you need a well-thought content marketing plan to achieve your business goals:
1. You own the media: Without a content marketing strategy, your brand relies on external factors and media to create authority. You do not have complete control over your brand’s positioning and identity. You are at the mercy of the audience and your competitors’ content strategy. If they have a strong plan, the chances of people turning to you would be restricted. You can control the communication about your brand with a well-crafted content strategy that is uniquely yours. It will help you manage how the audience perceives your brand and how you engage with your audience.
2. It generates traffic and leads: There is no dearth of content in today’s highly competitive digital world. Because of this massive overload of content, people have started becoming more sceptical about the way they consume content. A comprehensive content marketing strategy would ensure you deliver high-quality content. This high-quality content gives your target audience a motive to keep coming to your channels. Combining that with value and relatability adds a reason for them to share with other prospects. It eventually leads to an increase in traffic, thus increasing the potential of high-quality leads and conversions.
3. It enhances other marketing initiatives: Digital marketing is a mixture of many things that revolve around one important thing – content! A holistic content marketing strategy ends up amplifying other aspects of your digital marketing initiatives. As a part of a strong content marketing strategy, you have to provide high-quality blog content that eventually helps you with SEO. You need to create quality video, audio and static content that enhances your social media marketing activities. Besides that, it also helps to create a digital footprint, thus helping your digital PR activations.
4. It helps build trust and authority: As discussed in the above points, the key to a great content marketing strategy is to have high-value quality content. This high-value content, when effectively distributed, helps to boost your numbers and build authority. Your brand starts appearing as an industry leader when you provide the audience with insights.
Those are some compelling reasons to get your content marketing strategy in place. However, one of the critical things to understand here is that content marketing is not just one thing. It is a bunch of things. It is like a delicious pie that needs a few ingredients in the appropriate quantity, mixed in the right proportions and used at the right time.
The traditional approach of content marketing was limited to blog posts, but brands cannot rely solely on that anymore. Content marketing has seen a paradigm shift with the rise of digital media, and content can be created in every form imaginable today. The digital platforms allow a seamless amalgamation between text, audio and video forms of content. So it becomes quite critical to create content in a form that your target audience is most likely to consume, be it in audio, video or text format.
Here are a few forms in which a brand or an individual can create content:
· Blog posts
· Social media content
· Webinars
· Podcasts
· Case studies
· Videos
· Ebooks
· Whitepapers
· Infographics
· Press release
To stand out in a highly competitive world, you have to put content to work to achieve your business goals. Carve stories with human connection, and see your business grow like never before.
Are you still thinking about how your brand can benefit from content marketing? Connect with us, and we will help you out with your queries.
