23 Feb An Insiders Guide To Content Marketing
You’ve just heard someone mention, “Content Marketing” and you have a fair idea of what “content” is and what “marketing” is right?
Wrong!
Well a little wrong, Content Marketing is an umbrella term covering a set of strategies, techniques and tactics in creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Let focus on the keywords of this Definition:
Strategy
The content marketing strategy should be located within the overall marketing strategy of the business and not be a standalone marketing initiative.
The goals for content marketing should be derived from the business goals, and content marketing can be used as a tool to achieve these goals.
Techniques/Tactics
Have you heard of these tools?
- Blogging
- E-Books
- Video
- Infographics
- Presentations
- Social media
- Email marketing
- PR
- Webinars
- Testimonials
- SEO
I am sure we have all come across these tools at some point, however having a content marketing strategy will ensure there is a common thread communicating a singular business message, with customer acquisition at the forefront of all marketing activity.
Distribution
- Slideshare
- Youtube
- Survey Monkey
- Mailchimp
- Podcast
- Hellopeter
- RSS Feeds
Without the proper promotion and distribution of your content, you’re likely to find your content marketing ineffective and simply not worth the time, money and effort.
Valuable/Relevant/Consistent
Everything about a brand’s content, marketing and communication efforts is about its customers and what’s important to them.
Content is bigger than ever for brands, getting the right mix of valuable, relevant and consistent content is powerful and is really changing the rules, and challenging traditional media owners at their own game.
As evidenced by market leaders like Red Bull, which has amassed over 1bn views and has over 4 million subscribers to their content on Youtube.
Red Bulls’ success has propelled them to even start their own publishing company, this is the power of content marketing now Red Bull is able to charge their fans to view their content essentially they monetizing their content.
Target Market
First off, you need to know who your audience is.
Effective content marketing requires brands to watch, listen, and learn what content and messages consumers find engaging and where it is capturing their attention.
To create targeted content, you need the appropriate messaging to shepherd that audience through every step in the customer journey.
Targeted content that reflects a deep understanding of who your audience is will resonate with potential customers and ultimately help get them to buy.
Conclusion
Content marketing is not a miracle potion.
It works because it takes a considerable amount of information and effort, when executed well and leads to a roaring success for brands that do it well.
Content marketing creates something of value for your audience that helps them make decisions around whether to buy from you, or use your services, or whatever your business goals are.
Content can help you forge bonds, inspire engagement, and amplify relationships to new levels of scale.
Most companies are not doing real content marketing….yet. That’s why you’ll have an advantage if you jump in NOW!
How do you Get Started?
Contact BWD we offer Content Marketing services, often paired with SEO or PR.