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BLOG POST
February 22nd, 2024
what is content marketing?
the ultimate guide 2024
What is content marketing?
Today, content typically means information that is made available through digital devices.
Marketing involves the methods a business employs to promote its product or services.
Therefore, content marketing combines these two approaches by presenting valuable information to people to encourage them to buy a product or service.
Why does content marketing exist?
People have grown tired of living in a consumeristic world where they are constantly being sold to. We have an innate desire for control over our own decisions and hate feeling pressured into doing something.
Content marketing is the latest and greatest attempt by businesses to avoid being guilty of this. Instead taking an approach that incentivizes genuinely helping others over simply making money.
Of course, the end goal of content marketing is still to sell a product or service. It would be equally unwise for only the customer to benefit after all.
Ultimately, the primary aim of effective content marketing is to create a fair balance that allows businesses to promote themselves without intruding on a potential customer's freedoms. Naturally, this helps develop a much more ethical and pleasant culture to live in.
Therefore, if you want to be effective in the world of business today, it is essential that you learn how to create engaging content and market it.
In this blog, we will go into much more detail about the benefits content marketing can provide, the different types of content marketing, what makes for good content and how you can get started.
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What are the benefits of content marketing?
01. Stronger customer relations
Effective content marketing delivers valuable content that is tailored to an ideal audience's interests and needs. This strengthens their engagement with, trust in and loyalty to the brands they resonate most with.
Unlike traditional advertising, which often interrupts our daily lives against our will, content marketing enriches it by providing informative and entertaining content we choose to engage with.
Additionally, content marketing facilitates ongoing communication and interaction between brands and their audience, creating opportunities for meaningful dialogue and relationship-building.
By actively listening to and responding to customer feedback, preferences, and concerns, businesses demonstrate their commitment to meeting the needs of their audience, ultimately fostering stronger connections.
02. Increase conversions
Content marketing boosts conversions by strategically guiding potential customers through the sales funnel with targeted content that addresses their needs at each stage of their journey.
Well crafted content incorporates the use of compelling call-to-actions to encourage viewers to take the next step. A good call-to-action delivers this message as clearly and concisely as possible.
By nurturing leads with valuable content and providing clear pathways to conversion, content marketing increases the likelihood of turning prospects into paying customers.
03. Stronger brand personality
Content marketing helps brands infuse personality and authenticity into their communication by allowing them to express their unique voice, values, and perspectives through content creation.
Unlike traditional advertising, which often relies on polished and scripted messages, content marketing provides a platform for brands to showcase their human side, engaging with audiences in a more genuine and relatable manner.
Whether through storytelling, humour, or personal anecdotes, brands can connect with their audience on a deeper level, building emotional resonance and fostering stronger relationships.
04. Long term cost savings
Content marketing can reduce costs in the long term by providing a more sustainable and cost-effective way to attract, engage, and retain customers compared to traditional advertising methods.
While traditional advertising often requires significant financial investment for each campaign, content marketing allows brands to create evergreen content that continues to drive traffic, leads, and conversions over time without incurring additional expenses.
Removing the risk of having to invest a lot of money to advertise allows much more freedom to experiment. That way, businesses can easily find out what is and is not working before investing more time and money.
Like anything, the potential downsides are determined by how long each piece of content takes to produce. This is why clever research and planning is essential in order to maximize efficiency in the long term.
Types of content marketing
01. Video
If content is king, then video is undoubtedly the best form of content to start implementing in to your future marketing efforts.
The dynamic nature of video in how it comes a wide range of elements makes it much easier for audiences to understand and retain the information that is presented to them.
The ability to present visuals and audio in particular helps humanize a brand much because, well, it captures real people. For this reason video content performs much better than any other medium.
There is a wide range of video content you can create because of these benefits such as explainer videos, how-to's, product demonstrations, behind the scenes and much more.
Social media videos in particular have become incredibly popular recently. So many businesses have gone viral because they remained consistent and waited patiently until one video finally took off!
For example, Spud Man, known as @spudarmy on social media, has become insanely popular through simply sharing POV video of him making jacket potatoes in his food truck. People now queue up for hours for his food, yet he actually makes more money through his social media thanks to sponsorships. It goes to show that a simple idea can still make for incredibly satisfying content that brings people such delight.
02. Blogs
Blogs are another powerful tool to demonstrate your expertise and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Given most blogs are found through google search queries, finding out what your target audience is searching for and providing the most informative answers is the best strategy for success.
Blogs play a crucial role in driving organic traffic to a website through search engine optimization (SEO). So the more useful content you create that people interact with, the higher your website will rank on search engines.
Including well placed call-to-actions in your blog can drive traffic to other key landing pages, encourage conversions, and ultimately increase sales and revenue.
03. Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to nurture customer relationships. You can implement other pieces of content in to your email newsletters, share new offers and let your mail list know what you've been up to recently.
You can utilize another great piece of content as a lead generation tool to get people to subscribe to your newsletter. For example, this could be a free course, e-book, strategy session or resource pack.
Andrew Huberman's Neural network newsletter does this to great effect by providing really useful tips to improve your lifestyle backed by neuroscience. The content is always so concise and easy to digest despite focusing on very complex subject matter.
04. Case studies
Firstly, case studies and testimonials provide the most reliable evidence of your ability to deliver results and solve problems for your customers.
Highlighting your track record of success in this way helps you better stand out from the competition and in turn build greater trust.
Personal accounts from previous customers and context given by your team members add so much more depth and authenticity to your business.
Furthermore, video is the most informative and trustworthy medium you can use when creating this type of content. Whereas written content or stats are much easier to manipulate and therefore customers find them much less believable.
Of course videos can still be manipulated to be extremely well polished through being overly scripted and overly edited. Audiences see through this façade the vast majority of the time and find it incredible cringeworthy and off putting.
05. Infographics
Using visual aids are a great way to enhance your content and present information in a way that's much easier to understand.
For example, effective videos, articles and blogs often include visuals like graphs and charts throughout to reinforce key points. We highly recommend using visuals whenever you wish to present facts or stats to your audience in particular.
Spotify wrapped is easily the best example of utilizing infographics to create content that not only informs their listeners, but delights them.
The concept has become so popular its practically an annual event that dominates social media for days on end as millions of people share the music they listened to the most that year.
06. Podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to offer long form, unfiltered conversations to your audience. They have become immensely popular the past several years for a number of key reasons.
Firstly, you can listen to a podcast whilst doing other things whether that be travelling, working or simply relaxing. This is because a good podcast simply involves good conversation.
A lot of the media we consume today has become incredibly edited, filtered and manipulated to grab attention as quickly a possible. This creates a lot of misinformation due to so much important context being cut out.
Therefore, podcasts have become a counterforce that delivers information in a much more natural way that allows people to understand the subject matter being discussed with a much wider scope.
It should be noted that this format naturally requires a lot of knowledge and personality to be effective. At first, it takes time to get comfortable with taking at long length whilst being so raw. If you believe in yourself and your brand though that all you need to get started.
07. Quiz
Interactive content like online quizzes are incredibly fun and insightful. The outcome of most modern quizzes that brands utilize does not result in a score out of 10 say, but a personalised summary based on the customers answers using clever ai algorithms.
This personal touch not only makes it much more enjoyable, but helps the buyer make better purchasing decisions along their journey.
For example, Airbnb created a trip matcher quiz where you can answer questions to discover the perfect kind of vacation based on your likes and needs. Once completed it tells you your 'Travel Personality' and creates a trip itinerary which includes your ideal city, listings to stay in, experiences and places to visit.
How do I create the best content?
01. Educate
By providing valuable information, you empower your audience to better evaluate their personal needs and evaluate their options. This demonstrates you genuinely care about your customers, therefore they will trust that this translates to you products or services.
Prioritizing educating above all else will help you focus your content. This will ensure you are presenting the right information to the right audience of potential customers who are most likely to make a purchase.
Additionally, consistently demonstrating your expertise helps set you a part from your competitors. By aiming to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, you can better stand out from the crowd and attract loyal customers.
The key is to provide the most VALUE possible to the right people.
02. Entertain
Ultimately, people want to feel a positive emotional response for the content they engage with. If they enjoy your content they will remember it and come back for more.
Being presented with a story lights up more areas in the brain than simply being presented with information. Entertaining content evokes more emotional responses, creating a more profound and memorable experience.
We're social beings after all, therefore entertaining content feels more like an enjoyable social interaction and naturally activates more of our senses.
Consider how you want your audience to feel alongside what you want them to learn. What is the outcome you want for them?
03. Be authentic
Consumers are very wary of being conned and have become much more skilled in spotting when someone is being inauthentic. Therefore, creating content in a way that feels natural and true to your target audience's interest is key to build a strong relationship.
Implementing this involves having people that act natural on camera as well as delivering information that is not overly polished and edited. The fact is nobody is perfect, therefore striving to make perfect content can only lead to it feeling unnatural.
Regardless of what perceived issues you see that deter from delivering your message, trying to overly control things will bring a whole new set of problems. Be authentic above all else in your execution and build off of that.
04. Be relatable
Everyone has a deep desire for human connection. If you can effectively educate, entertain and be authentic, customers will ultimately relate to your content.
If it speaks to something inside of them they will stay engaged to the end. Once you have shown you understand your audience, only then are you ready to present a product or service that will enhance their life.
People buy from people at the end of the day, so strive to connect with an audience that you feel confident you can relate to.
How do I get started?
Now you have a good understanding of content marketing you're ready to get the ball rolling.
Before you dive in though you need a good strategy.
The first step is to identify your audience, then figure out your messaging, then the channels you wish to share these messages across and finally the kind of content you wish to create.
Once you have that figured out, you can start to schedule to ensure maximum efficiency. Initially, this will be dependant on your current skillset, available resources and free time.
The important thing is to just get started and keep at it the best you can. Trust in the process and your brand to give enough belief to not give up.
Its a marathon not a sprint. Give it a few months and the quality and quantity of content will continue to improve like a snowball effect.
Once you have the fundamentals in place, you'll have a sustainable marketing plan in place that continuously provides as much value as you can to the right people who will in turn want to buy your product/service.