Digital Marketing is constantly evolving and
organizations must be on top of new and emerging trends. Keeping up in an
industry that is always changing can be difficult, especially when traditional
marketing approaches can be seen as a constant unchanging variable.
In my role as a marketer at Fanshawe Pioneer
Village I am always looking at ways to improve our marketing efforts and make the
most of our modest budget. Digital Marketing has become an important medium for
creating an online brand experience. One of the most effective digital
marketing strategies that we have implemented in the last year is Content Marketing
and that is why today’s topic is going to be all about Content Marketing!
Content Marketing focuses on matching information
or entertainment to customers needs (Stokes, 2008). Content Marketing is all
about creating engaging content to attract audiences and ultimately sales.
Traditionally, marketers see themselves as advertisers and their job is to get
people to buy their product. With Content Marketing marketers must act more
like publishers with the intention to attracting, acquiring and engaging
audiences (Stokes 2008). The Content Marketing Institute describes Content
Marketing as;
“a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant
and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and
understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer
action” (Content Marketing Institute, 2013).
Before you begin drafting a marketing plan with
a focus on Content Marketing you must ask yourself who you’re trying to reach,
how is your content structured, who creates your content and how is it being
constructed. Content should be created with a specific outcome in mind. Content
Marketing is all about communicating with customers without selling them
anything, it’s all about delivering information that educates buyers and as a
result you will gain their business. Good Content Marketing is about getting a
person to stop and read what you have to say and convince them you’re worth
investing in.
Content should never be created for its own sake;
it should support your organizations marketing or business goals (Content
Marketing Institute, 2014). Content Marketing can help you raise your brands
awareness, build your followers, convert your audience into paying customers
and retain existing customers.
It can be very overwhelming trying something
new. Content Marketing needs marketers to be committed and consistent. Marketers
need to figure out how much time they’re willing to put into Content Marketing.
They must ask themselves who is creating the content, how often they will be
publishing new content, and what their time frame for delivery is. It’s best to
avoid content formats that require a lot of consistency if you cannot commit.
Starting off small is always best. Take a look at the diagram below, sometimes
its better to start small and build your way up.
(Content Marketing Institute, 2014)
After you have decided what channels you’re going
to use you have to decide the types of topics you’ll be sharing with your
audience. The topics you choose to talk about should help you achieve your
goals. It took a lot of testing different topics and formats until I
found out what works best for my organization. It took about a year to really
narrow down the best topics, content and information in order for me to really
capitalize on Content Marketing.
It can be overwhelming trying something new but
here are some ideas on how you can integrate Content Marketing into your
organizations marketing plan and the outcomes you can expect:
·
We receive so many emails in a day, and how many of those emails
actually get read before hitting delete? By creating relevant, interesting and
high quality content people will stop and read what you have to say. (Stokes,
2008)
·
If you’re sharing content on Social Media keep it relevant and
valuable. Creating high quality posts will result in more sharing and
interaction from consumers.
·
Content Marketing can strongly influence SEO. Search engines will
favor your website because your content is valuable.
·
Video Marketing is another great way to implement Content
Marketing. Video Marketing allows you to create dynamic and shareable videos
tailored to your audience interests. (Stokes, 2008)
Once you have created and implemented your
Content Marketing strategy, you need to measure your success. It’s important to
measure your efforts. You should focus on analyzing four major components:
content message, content format, distribution channel, and promotional efforts.
Drew Hendricks explains that by understanding how you’re performing in each of these areas, you’ll be able
to better allocate your budget and retarget your efforts for maximum return
(Forbes,2015).
By putting the effort into Content Marketing organizations
will see huge returns, if you don’t believe me check out Kapost’s statistics on the value
of Content Marketing.
What makes Content Marketing a great tool is
it’s ability to be scaled according to your organizations needs and budget. In
my role as a marketer I have always focused more on acting as an advertiser but
in the last two years we have shifted towards Content Marketing. The transition
has been very positive and our effort in creating engaging content has paid off
greatly. We have started attracting new visitors, broadened our audiences and
our followers are much more engaged.
- Marianne
No comments:
Post a Comment