Content is one of the most important components of any marketing strategy. It can drive traffic to your website and can even increase your SEO score over time. Content is how you provide your target audience with the information that they need and want. Content marketing lets you engage and build relationships with your audience in a meaningful way, without feeling spammy or disruptive. But what exactly is content marketing and how do you successfully integrate it into your marketing strategy?
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating, planning, scheduling, publishing, and assessing your content to help get your message to your target audience in a way that is valuable and on-brand. If done correctly, content marketing can help foster relationships, build trust, and create awareness of your products and services. But most importantly, content marketing is creating a narrative for your audience that both resonates and feels authentic. Content marketing is more about providing value to your customer and less about trying to sell them a product.
Content is how you provide your target audience with the information that they need and want.
Types of Content Marketing
The good news is that there are numerous ways to engage in content marketing that can be tailored to your audience and your brand.
Social Media
More than three billion people are actively engaged on various social media platforms and your audience is out there waiting for you on one, or likely more, of the platforms that you are already utilizing. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are prime targets for content marketing and they are easy to use and to tailor to your needs. Photos, videos, infographics, links to blogs and podcasts can all be gathered in one place to be easily accessible to your audience.
Infographics
This is a visual age, and infographics are a nice way to appeal to the people who love to see images all the time. Infographic marketing requires the combination of striking words, attention-grabbing images, and a format to combine these two elements together. Good infographic content can draw attention to your business and can even persuade them to heed your call to action.
Blogs
Blog content requires some time and energy to execute, but it also provides a lot of value to your customer. This can be one of the most flexible types of content marketing there is since you can include many of your other types of content marketing in your blog posts.
Videos
This type of marketing works particularly well with instructional content. Like blogs, they are flexible because they can be used to cover a lot of topics under your niche. This is suitable for a target audience that is hands-on and likes to observe their content,learn more from it, and then apply it in their own lives.
Podcasts
Think of this as an audio version of a blog. It’s great for informational and instructional content but is also useful for storytelling. If your audience is people who are constantly on the go, you can reap a lot of benefits from providing this style of content.
Strategies for Success
Regardless of the type of content that you utilize for your marketing campaign, there are some things to keep in mind to really leverage your content marketing strategy.
● Know Your Goals: Make sure that your goals are outlined. Remember, a yearly marketing plan review, with a strategy that is nimble enough to adjust as needed, is key.
● Determine the Content Types: You have to know your target market to know what type of content they find valuable and prefer to see.
● Establish Your Metrics: SEO metrics such as traffic and engagement are good quantifiers that will help you determine if your strategy is successful.
● Set Your Budget: Aside from the content creators, you’ll need to set a budget for advertising and SEO needs.
● Create a Content Schedule: This is applicable for content creation, editing, and publishing.
● Create the Content: Brainstorm the concepts and make a list of the topics that you want to cover and the value you want to provide. Make sure that the content is on-brand, the concept is visually appealing, and that you are optimizing for the platforms you utilize.
● Publish It: Once you’re done finalizing everything for your content, hit the publish button, and to it consistently. At the end of the day, it’s important to consistently engage your audience with high-quality content using the strategies mentioned above to build relationships and trust over time.
If done correctly, content marketing can help foster relationships, build trust, and create awareness of your products and services.
Join our FREE Facebook Group: Practical Marketing For Business Owners