Here we will talk about the art of content marketing, that is, the creation of such content, which is able to attract customers, introduce them to the company or brand, and most importantly encourage them to buy it in your company.
Why is content marketing so relevant nowadays? In recent years, most of the ways of online promotion have shown that content marketing works best and is the most natural way of promotion. The main reason is that Internet users are already very full of information of second-rate quality, they are no longer interested in empty articles, which as one repeats the same information site by site.
The task of content marketing today is to show that you are able to give the information that they want to see. This article will reveal the main types of content and their characteristics.
Content marketing definition
What is content marketing? Content marketing is now used by all companies that want to increase sales. We can say that this tool is necessary to perform such marketing goals:
- Increase in sales.
- Customer retention.
- Creating or changing a company’s position in the market.
- Ample opportunities for influence.
- Attracting customers in the long term.
The content represents the different types of information, which is available in this resource and where you can find readers. Today, the most popular are these types of content:
- Articles.
- Product reviews.
- Audio files and podcasts.
- Videoclips.
- Comments sometimes contain more useful information than the material to which they relate.
- Competitions.
- Announcements of events.
- Certificates for discounts.
Ideally, you need to use three types of content:
- Viral. Such content includes articles-lists with valuable tips, guides, step-by-step instructions, provocative and humorous posts.
- Expert. It includes market research, comparative articles, interviews with famous people, and posts that show you as a professional and explain why your product is better than others.
- Selling. This is the content on your website dedicated to goods and services, which explains in detail all their benefits, that is why them need to choose you.
To achieve good results, you need to combine all three types of materials. Naturally, selling should be the least.
Rules for social media content marketing
Now more about what else is the content and how to work with it correctly:
- Articles
They should contain useful information for your TA. In this case, any person who wandered into your site by accident should understand what you do, what you offer and how it can be useful in life.
And depending on the concept of the site, you can focus on one type of article, but it is best to combine several options. So, what can be these options?
- Articles that show your expertise. Write about the industry in which you develop your business, innovations and interesting opportunities, as well as problems and their solutions.
- Current events. They should be on your site, it remains only to decide in what form — it can be fresh ideas, events, and discoveries.
- Reviews. Do honest reviews, tell not only about the pros, but also about the shortcomings, and do not forget to offer an alternative from your own price list.
- Interview. This will attract new visitors, help to keep the existing ones and dramatically increase the level of trust in your company, of course, if the specialist is good.
- Masterclasses. Tell people how to assemble your tricky device, take them step by step, show photos of the process.
In any case, no matter what format of articles you choose, the article should be interesting, easy to write and understandable to the user, even if it has a lot of specialized terminologies.
- Expert columns
The popularity of blogs is growing every day, and all because people want to be closer to the source, want recommendations and impressions from living people. They want flexible high-quality content filled with examples from life, with a good author’s style and the opportunity to discuss the topic.
- Video content
Videos can be different, ranging from standard advertising, examples of which we have all seen on TV. Training videos are in great demand: users often look for how to do this or that, and such a video is a chance to answer the most pressing questions and immediately offer a direct or alternative solution to the problem.
- Webinars
Another very popular type of video content is webinars. By conducting a webinar, you win twice. First, at the time of the event, people will be happy to listen to the host, and most importantly, will be able to ask questions in real-time. The main thing is to prepare in advance and not to put the audience to sleep. Secondly, the webinar can always be recorded and put on the website or blog as a training or review video.
- Cases
In fact, the case is a step-by-step instruction on solving a certain issue. It differs from the master class in that, often, the topics of cases are much deeper and more complex.
- Presentations
Presentations are a type of content that combines visual and textual parts. In life, you can limit yourself to just pictures and graphs, and the rest to tell the audience orally, on the website the role of the speaker will perform the text.
So, from all this we can draw the following conclusions: in order to attract the attention of a potential client, it is unlikely to be limited to one type of content, because each of the options helps to achieve certain goals.
Content marketing: The role of success
Let’s take a closer look at how to do everything right and what mistakes should be avoided when you are writing content for marketing.
- TA analysis – 50% of success
Texts should be written based on the fact that your potential client is a smart person. If only because he has the money to hire you or pay for the goods you offer. To attract attention, you need to offer something interesting and useful.
- Without the author, it will not work
The fact that high-quality content should be written by an expert, I think, once again can not be reminded. It would be too naive to hope that a stock copywriter will write you cool material on medicine, engineering communications or Internet marketing.
8 common mistakes to avoid:
- The lack of strategy. As for whom you write, with what regularity, on what list, how distributed, etc. all In my head will not keep, and availability of a documented strategy simplifies delegation;
- The lack of understanding of the audience. But this is a key success factor. What do you know about the people you want to talk to? What do they want? What are their fears, problems, and expectations?
- Focus only on yourself. It may seem to you that listing the benefits of a loved one and an active description of their own products is a good strategy — but, no. Content should be related to your business, but not focus solely on it;
- The lack of expertise. An article written by a copywriter from the exchange will never compare with similar material from an expert in his field. Look not for an author with perfect literacy, but someone who understands what he is writing about;
- Sales instead of training. The main task of the content is to help readers solve their problems, sales are a secondary effect. If you do the opposite, you will quickly “see-through” and the attitude will be appropriate;
- It’s too hard to understand. It is necessary to speak with the reader in his language, and not to try to use of professional slang and unclear terms;
- Focus on volume, not quality. It is better to publish 1 high-quality article per week for 1 social network than to try to stamp a dozen publications on the stream and post it automatically in 5 social networks at the same time;
- The content is not distributed. You should not expect that the content will be distributed on its own. Instead, focus on promoting it through all available channels.
Content marketing strategies
Competent content marketing strategy includes the following steps:
- Understanding the target audience. At this stage, it is necessary to determine the circle of your potential buyers and study their needs.
- Clear wording of the proposal. The content should help the user to analyze the problem, offer a solution and benefit.
- Definition of specific objectives. Select the goals you want to achieve and schedule the time period required to complete them.
- Analysis of competitors’ activities.
- Use of social networks. Using this direction will allow an open dialogue with potential buyers and quickly learn about their personal preferences.
- Content mapping. All the materials that you will publish in different sources, group in a table (content map).
In order for content marketing to work, you need to follow certain rules and develop a plan for managing the content of the site and social networks. This plan will be a content strategy. The work takes place in several stages:
- The first stage is the analysis of the TA
At this stage, you need to understand how, and for whom the content is intended. Understanding the TA makes it possible to determine:
- writing style and presentation of text material. For young people, especially in social networks, it is allowed to write in an easy and simple style, it is not forbidden to use slang. The older generation should be addressed in another language – official and business;
- format of submission. For example, if you decide to blog about the repair of apartments, it is better to publish in video format. For marketers will suit infographics, and charts, and for children – comic books;
- the needs and pains of the target audience. What problems most often arise from our potential buyers, what they like and what not – all this can be identified by analysis.
- The second stage is the analysis of competitors
The analysis consists of several parts:
- making a list of possible competitors. In our case, it is the online stores of your niche and around it;
- analysis of channels of content distribution. Look at what external and internal sources the competitor is moving. We study everything: entries in the expert blog on the website, publications in social networks, articles and materials on other portals;
- the study of the quality of materials. You can always see what your competitor is doing better and what is worse, what is right for you and what is not;
- analysis of the degree of use of different channels. It is unlikely that the opponent uses them all equally. Somewhere publications more, somewhere less.
- The third stage is creating a relevance map
Just posting content is pointless. It should correspond to the needs of the TA.
- The fourth stage is content creation
Now it’s time to create content. We will tell you more about the content. It should be:
- regular. First, visitors will quickly forget about you if you publish the materials once in a while. In the top is always the one who is published more often than others. Secondly, search engines like traffic on the site and monitor the frequency of updates;
- useful. If you publish-secondary information from which there is nothing to learn, it is unlikely that someone will watch. Materials should beat in specific pain and problems of TA;
- interesting. The submission of material is also important. You will write dull texts or post mediocre videos – there will be no interest in them;
- quality. Content should be easily perceived and pleasing to the eye. ;
- unique. It’s about getting the consumer new information.
- The fifth stage is creating a content marketing plan
The content plan is a key strategy document. This is nothing but a schedule of publications. It is made in the form of Excel-tables and similar tools. There should be at least 3 columns: the subject of the publication, date, and channel for publication. The schedule is drawn up for a month or more – depending on the number of materials.
- The sixth stage is the implementation of content strategy
By this point we have:
- results of the analysis of the target audience and competitors’ websites;
- map relevance and semantic core, distributed on sections of the site and all channels of promotion;
- quality content: articles, videos, and other materials;
- content plan for the month.
Final word
Well-prepared content in Internet marketing allows you to convince people to spend some of their free time reading it. Content creators should set themselves the main task – to convince a potential client that the content is worth something and reading it will provide useful value that may solve his problem once and for all.