Content marketing is defined as a marketing technique that centres around the creation of unique, valuable and creative content to captivate specific audiences which can then allow you to increase in profitable customer action. With the rapid changes in marketing in the last 20 years, new-age marketing has moved away from the traditional approaches that were once great and have moved towards a more creative landscape and content marketing encapsulates all aspects of these changes. It is now seen as more effective to provide customers with relevant content that they can use which is thought to be more valuable when it comes to the sales of products or services. Research conducted by the Content Marketing Institution proves that massive companies such as P&G and Microsoft are geared more towards content marketing strategies than more traditional means of marketing. It is often thought that content marketing provides companies with higher sales and an increased sense of customer loyalty since customers will be more inclined to show interest in your company when receiving valuable content.
There are important factors that should be remembered when using content marketing. Firstly, it is important that you understand your audience and are aware of your target demographic and intended audiences. For example, if you are a company that is selling hair accessories, your primary audience will be women. Use this to your advantage and research into the online behaviours of women e.g., which social media platforms they are more likely to use and what type of content will do well on that platform and what type of content they are more likely to interact with. Make content that is valuable to them such as example articles about hair care. You should also look into when your customer demographic is more likely to be active online. It is key to keep in mind what your customers are going to find useful to them.
You should also be active in the communities that you are advertising to. A great way of doing this is to repost your customer’s photos and videos. This will build a greater sense of customer loyalty and customers often enjoy seeing that their purchases are being valued by their chosen companies. It will also help to boost your engagement online which can be a massive part of content marketing.
It is crucial that you remember that content marketing is highly strategic so you should focus on creating your brand’s strategy. You should look at telling the story of your brand. Engage customers by letting them know about where you started as a brand as well as your goals and core ethos and values as a brand. Build a stronger connection with customers and potential customers by showing that your brand has a personality behind it. A great place to start is on your “About us” page. This will allow you to go into more detail about your core beliefs as well as your goals and what your company stands for. Also, with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, more and more brands are engaging communities by using webinars. A webinar is an online seminar where customers can really learn about your company, and it can help build those strong connections between brands and their customers. Finally, using videos on social media (YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are great for video sharing) to educate your customer base or to talk about your company can be a great content marketing tool.
