What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell.
A content marketing strategy establishes your brand as a thought leader, boosting trust among your audience by creating and distributing content in various ways. Content marketing is a type of inbound marketing that attracts customers and builds loyalty, making it effective for customer retention.
To add, content marketing is the development and distribution of relevant, useful content blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, videos, and the like too current and potential customers. When it’s done right, this content conveys expertise and makes it clear that a company values the people to whom it sells.
The consistent use of content marketing establishes and nurtures relationships with your prospective and existing customers. When your audience thinks of your company as a partner interested in their success and a valuable source of advice and guidance, they’re more likely to choose you when it’s time to buy. Content marketing examples includes Blogs, Newsletters, Whitepapers, Social media posts, Emails and videos etc.
Why Is Content Marketing Important?
Since we know what content marketing is, let’s explore its importance. In many ways, content marketing is the complete customer acquisition channel. It drives traffic, builds trust, establishes your authority, and generates revenue.
Sure, pay-per-click (PPC) ads can bring traffic and revenue. Social media can be used to position your brand as an authority. But only content marketing helps you achieve a host of marketing goals without coming across as salesy in the first place.
Firstly, Content marketing is so important—and works so well—because it captures people throughout the sales funnel. You can use content marketing to attract users at the very top of the funnel, before they even think about making a purchase.
In many cases, a great piece of content is the moment when your relationship with the customer begins, and that content is going to be with them through every step of the customer journey
That’s not the case with content marketing, however. In fact, the yearly return on investment (ROI) for a successful content marketing campaign is FCFA 500,000.
In fact, the yearly return on investment (ROI) for a successful content marketing campaign is FCFA 500,000. This is why 82% of marketers are still actively investing in content marketing. And it’s why you should, too.
How content marketing works
What Is a Content Marketing Strategy? The best way to stand out is to identify your potential customers’ needs, create valuable content that addresses those needs and distribute that content to the exact platforms that your target audience frequents.
In order to be effective, your content marketing strategy must address all three of those pieces, otherwise it will fall flat. Content marketing strategies will vary widely depending on your industry, audience and goals—there is no one-size-fits-all approach to it.
Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy
The most effective content marketing strategies are made up of four pillars: customer, cost, convenience and communication.
Working together, these pillars help you to set goals, understand your audience, determine the best types of content to use and measure success.
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​Here are the steps to creating a content marketing strategy:
Plan
Start by developing a content marketing plan that establishes your mission and sets specific, measurable goals.
Research
Next, you need to identify your target audience and research the best ways to communicate with them by using the forms of content marketing they prefer to interact with.
Audit
Take a look at your current content and see if it’s meeting the goals you set in the planning phase. If it’s not, improve upon or replace the parts that aren’t working.
Manage
This is the time to start using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform in order to collect leads, manage information and automate personalized marketing campaigns.
Create
Create high-quality content in the forms that your research showed will be most effective in reaching your target audience.
Engage
Convert your audience into customers or leads through interactive engagement with your content.
Analyse
Analyse your results and, when necessary, adjust your content marketing strategy accordingly.
What Are the Benefits of Content Marketing?
There are numerous benefits to content marketing, many of which are long-term advantages that will continue to increase in value over time.
While there is a fair amount of upfront research, investment and implementation required, content marketing ultimately holds the possibility of reaching new audiences and building strong customer relationships. Some of the benefits of content marketing include:
Boosts Audience Retention
The most effective content marketing always starts with providing engaging, memorable experiences for an audience. What medium is used will depend on who you are trying to reach, but will likely include a few different forms of content in order to maximize both attention and retention.
Lands Higher Conversion Rates
Once you have the attention of your target audience, it’s time to convert all those leads. Content marketing is one of the most effective tools available to guide potential customers through the buyer’s journey and finalize purchases.
Increases Brand Awareness
The beauty of content marketing is that it’s an accessible strategy that any business, no matter how large or small, can implement. Using it to increase brand awareness can take many shapes, but one of the most rapid techniques is developing a strong social media presence. By examining social media statistics and trends, you can determine which platforms are the best fit for your brand.
Establishes Your Authority
Customers want to buy from a brand that knows what the heck it is doing, even if that means spending a little more. A highly effective content marketing methodology makes it clear that your business is the authority for a certain product or service, and that you have the data, reviews and online presence to back that claim up.
Creates Customer Loyalty
When your content marketing is so good that you have established a loyal customer base, the benefits won’t stop there. All those devoted buyers have family and friends who need brand recommendations from someone with a positive first-person experience. This means far-reaching perks for you, with no extra work needed.
Forms of Content Marketing
There’s no shortage of forms of content marketing to choose from, so the sky is truly the limit in the different ways you can share your messaging with the world.
It’s definitely best to take an educated approach, however, since certain types of content work best for particular audiences or industries.
Knowing who you are targeting and how those people prefer to receive information can help you determine the right methods to use.
Some of the best forms of content marketing right now are:
Blogs
Blog articles can be incredibly helpful in answering questions related to a topic or product, particularly when they have been written with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. It costs very little to add a blog to an existing website and is an excellent place to share views from experts, reflect on your brand values or house an FAQ section. Once written, blog posts can be used over and over to create new content, such as infographics and videos.
Videos
Video is so versatile because there aren’t many rules when you choose to use this type of content marketing. Videos can be short or long, have speaking or music, go live or be prerecorded the choices are totally up to you. Some audiences may want quick how to hacks on TikTok/Instagram, while others prefer longer instructional videos on YouTube. The secret to successful videos is to make them accessible to everyone.
Infographics
Many audiences enjoy obtaining information and learning more through bright, eye-catching infographics. This type of content is designed not only to be absorbed as is, but also broken down into smaller snippets that are easier to digest. Infographics are a great way to dispense complex information, and make it simple to share that information with others.
User generated Content
These days anyone with a smartphone can be a brand ambassador or influencer. Many customers enjoy consuming content created by other people whom they view as “real,” as opposed to picture perfect marketing put out by companies with unlimited budgets. User generated content has the potential to reach audiences who may have no interest in reading a blog article or deciphering an infographic, but can absolutely be persuaded to buy a product that is trending on social media.
White Papers
If your business is looking to share high level data or research, white papers are solid content marketing options. White papers are ideal for providing details in the form of graphs and charts, as this content marketing angle seeks to share as much information as possible in a persuasive way. This marketing method can serve as a great lead generation tool, as users typically must sign up with an email address in order to access the content.
Podcasts
Some people prefer to listen to their content, instead of reading or watching it. Podcasts have opened a new avenue to content marketing, helping to increase brand awareness by reaching an audience through authentic conversations. From expert interviews to offering unique engagement opportunities, podcasts make it easy for brands to share information and establish authority.
Reviews and Testimonials
Along the same lines of user-generated content, customers are also influenced by others’ reviews of products and services, making positive testimonials a powerful content marketing tool. They can help sway potential buyers into actual ones by addressing concerns, confirming or disproving assumptions and providing real-life examples of performance.
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