What is content marketing?
There are so many ways today you can communicate with your audience. One of the most effective ways is through content marketing.
But what is content marketing? In a nutshell, content marketing is a strategic marketing process of generating valuable and relevant content to attract and engage with your audience. It has become one of the fundamental ways businesses interact with their customers.
There are many ways you can deliver engaging pieces of content to your target audience. Blog posts, email campaigns and social media campaigns are to name a few. Content marketing and SEO are one of the same.
To gain a more favourable spot-on search engines, you need to produce high-quality original content and to recognise what keywords you need to target in your content, you need SEO. Successful marketing is virtually impossible without having great content.
Why content marketing works?
Content marketing is not a new concept. It has worked for companies in traditional marketing for hundreds of years. Roughly 300 years ago, Benjamin Franklin published his famous Poor Richard’s Almanack to promote his printing business, which is thought as the first piece of content marketing.
Today, content is becoming more and more integral to businesses and has rapidly become the most definitive way you can interact with your audience. The rise of ad blocking technology has harmed digital advertising, but people still use and desire varied kinds of content online.
Content marketing works because it offers customers informative and useful information that they can use to help in their buying process. Businesses use content to attract new customers and make a case for their product or service. Customers have the power to choose what they consume, as the amount of content online is immense. Give them the best options if you want them to pick your brand.
Content marketing and SEO work together to get your target audience to find your content. According to Leverage Marketing, websites on the landing page of a search engine receive almost 95% of all web traffic. Content marketing is an excellent way to get your business on the first page.
How to develop a content marketing strategy
Getting your content to the elusive first page or to climb to the first spot isn’t easy. Having a great content marketing strategy with a blueprint that is distinctly aligned to your long-term goals is a great start. A content strategy outlines who your content will affect and your desired outcomes. Creating a content strategy can be developed in six steps.
1. Define your goal
What is your aim for producing a content marketing plan? Why do you want to produce content? Knowing the goals of your content at the beginning will help you plan your strategy.
2. Conduct target audience research
To develop a successful strategy, you will need to define who is your content’s target audience. By knowing your target audience and creating a buyer persona, you can produce more valuable and relevant content that your consumers will want to interact with. Some key details to include in your buyer persona are; age range, spending habits, location, what they are looking for.
3. Focus on your niche
Content is everywhere online, some great content will get lost in the pack. To avoid this, create content that stands out and is unique and has a distinct voice. Your content must offer value to your readers, so focusing on what makes your brand unique will help your content be seen.
4. Measure your results
One of the most important aspects of developing an effective content marketing strategy is measuring the results of your content. Pumping out content marketing efforts without analysing your user feedback could lead to stale content your audience doesn’t enjoy. Measurements to look out for are average page time, the bounce rate, and the page views.
5. Listen to your customers to improve your content
Data analysis is an immensely useful tool, but it only gives you the black and white figures. Customers like to know they are being heard and their opinion matters. That’s why asking for feedback on your content will help you make better content.
6. Amplify your content strategy
Your first content marketing strategy and your targeted content creation are only the first part of the equation. The last part should be the amplification of the content and your content strategy. To amplify your content, determine the places your target audience frequents the most and then publish on those channels. You’ll need to think strategically to identify all the resources you need to amplify your content.
What is branded content marketing?
Sometimes telling your audience about your products and services is not enough to push them into a sale. Branded content will help get the conversation started and is a game-changer across multiple mediums such as articles, podcasts, video content and live events.
Branded content is customized content linked to a brand with the sole intention of creating a connection between the brand and consumers. Branded content thrives by building trust and is a great opportunity to increase brand awareness, while also building a strong brand perception. An example of branded content is Michelin, the tire manufactory who are the innovators of brand content when they released the famous Michelin Guide to encourage people to travel by car in the early 1900s.
What is B2B content marketing?
B2B content puts your brand in front of your ideal customers and to solve their pressing problems. B2B or business to business refers to any content that is aimed towards a business or organisation. Companies that sell products or services to other businesses typically will use a B2B marketing strategy.
The purpose of B2B marketing is to make other businesses familiar with your brand and the value of your product or service, once that is completed, then convert them into customers. B2B brands focus on a wide range of content formats that verify their expertise to inform and engage the prospective buyer. Another purpose of B2B content marketing campaigns, is to instill trust in the minds of consumers that they are a brand businesses can count on.
What is interactive content marketing?
You have most likely seen those quizzes or tests online that will show you how good a friend you are or what kind of food you would like to eat. They are everywhere online. Interactive content is any type of content that spreads its message by user participation. Interactive content develops from passive consumption to active engagement.
Focusing on interactivity will encourage your audience to stay more connected with your brand and keep them more motivated to go further on the buyer’s journey. Interactive content is a powerful strategy to collect data about your audience and will help improve your content. If consumers find interactive content engaging, they will be more likely to spread it to their friends and family and will help you reach potential customers.
Why should you use ADS for your content marketing?
At Agile Digital Strategy Ltd, we have a passion for helping businesses grow their brand online, both nationally and internationally. Our expert team can give your business a competitive advantage online in your industry. Our marketing team will create a content calendar to plan the best times to post your content to your preferred social media platforms. We can create engaging pieces of content that reflect your businesses goals and objectives.
Agile Digital Strategy is a google partner agency, this allows us to enhance our clients’ Google advertising campaigns and deliver the best results. We also provide social media content strategies that promote your business and lead your target audience to your website. If you would like to learn more about what Agile Digital Strategy can do for your marketing campaigns including content marketing, check out our content marketing services.
How to calculate the ROI of content marketing?
Content marketing is one of the highest ROI marketing practices your business can use. This is largely because of its long term, unique, compounding effects. The goal of any marketing is to grow your business at the lowest possible cost.
So for every piece of content you make, it should generate a positive return on investment. A popular formula for calculating ROI is the return minus total investment, divided by the investment amount. The answer will be presented as a percentage.
Google analytics has become the fundamental place to review site visitor metrics like page views and bounce rates. Just because you can measure something doesn’t always mean you should. You should identify your top measurements priorities, establish performance benchmarks, and calculate the baseline cost involved.
Agile Digital Strategy is here to help your business grow. If you’re looking for more information on how we can help today, you can get in touch. We would be happy to assist you and explain more about successful content marketing.
