Content marketing is becoming increasingly important for businesses in the digital age, and for good reason. Content marketing allows businesses to foster relationships with their customers and prospects, as well as build brand awareness and loyalty.

Content marketing is a powerful tool that can be used in a variety of ways, from creating social media posts to running webinars.

Here, we’ll explore the importance of content marketing and how it can help businesses succeed. We’ll look at how content marketing can be used to engage customers, build relationships, and increase brand loyalty.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing and distributing content to your target audience in order to engage them and ultimately, drive profitable customer action. It’s a great way to build trust and loyalty with your customers and can be used to market your product or service in an organic and natural way.

Content marketing is all about providing valuable and informative content that your target audience needs and wants. It can be used to create leads, drive website traffic, boost SEO and build brand awareness.

Content Marketing Examples

We engage with content every single day. It is reported that 20% of our time online is spent consuming content! Some of this includes:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Online courses
• Webinars
• White papers
• Case studies

…and so much more!

Why You Need a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

To put it simply, because it works.

Current research shows that businesses with a blog generate 67% more leads than businesses that don’t have one. This is likely in part because your customers are doing research about you, and if you’re not using a blog to tell them about your goods or services, they can easily find someone else who will.

But more than just sales, a successful content marketing strategy is good for other aspects of your business as well. Content marketing can be used at every single part of the buyer’s journey – from awareness to the consideration stage through to the decision making and re-engagement. Content marketing has you all the way!

How to Make the Most of Your Content Marketing Efforts

At the end of the day, content marketing is story telling. An effective content marketing strategy will tell a story about your business, your product, your service, and how the consumer will benefit.

But the story will need to be specific to the stage in the buyer journey.

For example, if you’re looking to increase brand awareness you would create blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and social media posts.

This type of content provides your customers with information about the product or service that will help them become aware of its features and benefits.

When customers are further down the funnel into the decision making stage, they are looking for case studies, webinars, product comparisons, demos and reviews.

This type of content provides consumers with the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision.

Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Creating a successful content marketing strategy will depend on a number of factors. Some of these are industry related; what type of business you’re in and who your audience is, for example.

The other factors that must be considered are directly related to your business; your short and long term goals, your budget, which marketing channels you’ll be using, your staff’s capacity for content creation, what your timelines are, etc.

These are all important to consider. After all, while a how-to video, or GRWM (Get Ready With Me), can be extremely effective at selling cosmetics and other beauty related items, it’s likely not such a good idea for the finance industry.

So, let’s talk about how you can get started. Here is a general content marketing strategy that can be adapted to suit your business and industry.

Identify your goals

The first step to creating a successful content marketing strategy is to determine what you want to achieve with your content. When you reach your customers, which part of the buyer’s journey are they in? Are you looking to educate on a broader level, or influence purchasing behaviour?

Once you have a full understanding of this, you can then determine the type of content you’ll need to create.

Know your audience

You need to understand who your target audience is and what kind of content they are interested in. What channels are they using to consume content?

Most businesses have a pretty good idea about who their ideal customer is, but may need some assistance in creating content that is relevant and getting it on the correct channels.

Develop a content plan

Create an overarching plan or schedule that outlines topics, formats and platforms you’ll use to create content. This will more than likely include your website and social media channels, but it’s important to include all relevant channels, and develop content that is suitable for each.

Create engaging content

Your content not only has to be relevant, but engaging for your audience. It should be informational and entertaining (‘infotaining’, if you will) and provide value to your audience.

It’s important to remember that while some crossover is ok across different channels, there should be specific content created for each. You wouldn’t post the same video on TikTok that you would on LinkedIn. Both of these channels are very effective, but they come with different purposes, audiences and expectations.

Track your progress

It’s important to have realistic goals for your content. It’s unlikely that a brand new blog will be ranking #1 on Google within a week, or even 16 weeks, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t successful.

The same can be said of all channels. It’s unlikely that one will result in a successful campaign on its own. It’s a combination of different channels and messages working together.

Keeping an eye on things like click throughs, web hits, purchases, items added to cart, forms filled out, etc. will give you a good idea about how each channel is performing.

Stay up to date with the latest trends and refine and optimise your content marketing strategy as needed.

Making Content Marketing Work For Your Business

When you boil it down, content marketing should showcase your value while attracting, engaging and selling your products or services. It can establish your brand as an industry leader and inspire confidence in your customers.

At Thinkify, we are experts at brand building and storytelling and we create content to attract, engage, delight and convert.

From creating consistent, memorable branding to crafting insightful, customer-centric content that brings a sense of authority and expertise to your business, we have you covered.

Get in touch today to find out how we can communicate your message on all channels and get you noticed – in a good way!