stmContent marketing has recently been among the top trending things in the world of digital marketing. Though the term is fast gaining popularity among digital marketers, not many people actually understand what it is all about and how to go about it today.
In this guide, I’m going to be showing you everything you need to know about it in order to increase your sales and profits and an internet marketing expert.
Now, let us begin.
What Is Content Marketing?
According to the Content marketing institute (CMI), a well renowned online resource on all things content marketing, it is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience, with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Quite a mouthful, that one, right? Let’s break it down. Content marketing can easily be misconstrued and taken at face value, which is the marketing of content. But it entails a bit more than that.
First off, let’s talk about content. In simpler terms, it’s blog posts, videos, audio, audiovisual posts, written articles and so on. It is information in different media forms.
Looking at marketing, it is telling your target audience about the products and/or services that you offer so they become interested, and downline, long-term customers or subscribers.
The Benefits Of Content Marketing To A Business Today
Quality content marketing helps businesses to achieve the following goals:
- Awareness: To be a successful brand or business entity, the public needs to know that you exist and with the right moves, that would be a given. Internet and social media presence, with the help of SEO tools, are modern ways of getting your message out there as that is where the world gets its information in present times.
- Education: Content marketing must be engaging and educational. People are always looking for new information about things they are not well versed in and quality content does exactly that.
- Sales and leads generation: As more and more people interact with your content and decide it adds value to them in one form or another, they develop interest and this translates to sales and leads increase. 72% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement and is a great lead generation tool [via Content marketing institute]
Content Marketing Strategy
This is a layout of the implementation and distribution of the entity’s content marketing tools.
Going in blind into content marketing without a top-notch strategy is like farming with no prior knowledge. Mistakes will be made and if unlucky, costly ones with irreversible consequences. So, it’s paramount to create an efficient plan to go about it.
Below are key basics for guidance on content marketing strategy:
- Know your audience: Your content cannot yield results if you do not know who you are appealing to or creating for. Survey your existing customers and know the demographic(s) your products or services are meant to cater for, and use that as the foundation for your content.
- Reasons for employing content marketing: By explaining your reasons for creating content, and the vision of what success will look like with this approach, there will be more support for the idea and space to make mistakes and improve on them.
- Business plan: This involves the aims you have for the content, the value you’re looking to provide and what the business model entails. Value is a key component in content marketing. Without value, you are building nothing. It’s basically pouring water into a basket. What purpose does your content serve? What problem does it solve? These questions must be answered before proceeding.
- Brand story: This details what ideas you want to pass to the audience, the story behind your product and how it will change things in the landscape you operate in.
- Channel plan: details the platforms and sites that will be used to promote and share the content.
Content Marketing Examples
The following are examples of where content marketing has pushed boundaries for the brands involved:
- McDonald’s question time
- Coke “Share a Coke” campaign
- Red bull formula 1 racing
- FirstweFeast Hot ones
- Merrybet fans challenge
Conclusion
The main key to content marketing is value addition. Make sure you add value. It does not have to be the most obvious route, but ensure it’s exciting enough to garner interest from your target audience and they will be compelled to look at what you have to offer.
Written by Emmanuel Okiya
An SEO Content Writer.
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