What makes content marketing distinct from other forms of marketing is that its primary goal is to engage your target audience’s interest rather than lead immediately to a call-to-action to buy. The content can take many forms, and part of planning an effective strategy is selecting the medium that is most likely to capture your audience’s attention.
For example, a kitchenware seller may send out recipes or blogs that offer advice on healthy substitutions to make guilt-free desserts. But it can also use video content effectively to demonstrate techniques in cooking.
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A downloadable app that converts cooking measurements from Imperial to a metric system can also be a form of content marketing. It can even offer infographics on the shift in demand for certain ingredients as more people took up cooking at home to explain the sudden scarcity of yeast and other common ingredients.
What all the approaches described above have in common is that they position the brand as a credible source of information within its own defined niche. Over time that leads to a deepened relationship with your audience.
Content marketing goals
Some B2C marketers have trouble defining their content marketing goals, though it generally falls into one of the top six as identified in a Content Marketing Institute survey:
- Creating brand awareness (84%)
- Educating audiences (75%)
- Building credibility/trust (65%)
- Nurturing subscribers/audiences (49%)
- Generating sales/revenue (48%)
- Building a subscribed audience (38%)
Seeing you consistently address their interests rather than just promoting yourself makes them feel more connected to your brand. As a result, they will be more inclined to buy from you than from brands that have not invested in earring their trust.
As content marketing is not direct marketing, it’s more realistic to expect it to build leads that will result in sales down the road rather than to expect an immediate boost in sales. Like SEO marketing, it’s a long-term strategy that often takes six months to demonstrate significant lifts for your targets. However, really good content marketing that your audience appreciates can produce results very quickly.
The right way and wrong way to approach content marketing
So how do you know if you’re doing it right? You look at others who are putting out great content and those who can’t break out of the self-promotion mold even when they claim to want to do content marketing.
The point comes across clearly in my own experience in managing the content and advertising for a bridal magazine in which the hairstylist got it right and the photographer got it wrong. She gave readers tips that they could use. He wrote about himself and his approach to photography.
What were the results of the two approaches? The photographer was disappointed in the fact that the article didn’t generate sales instantly even though many people told him they saw it. The hairstylist was thrilled that the article brought her more customers than any advertising had ever done.
Granted, women get their hair done more frequently than they hire photographers, but that is all the more reason for the photographer to recognize that he cannot expect immediate sales. His real error was in squandering the opportunity to do content marketing right.
The photographer failed to offer the audience anything of value they can apply to their own lives because he was so intent on self-promotion. The hairstylist, on the other, hand, instinctively understood what content would appeal to her audience and was rewarded for giving it to them.
In the case of the hairstylists, the business leads came in right away, which is somewhat unusual. Typically, it does take a series of articles to get that level of response.
The 7 essentials of highly effective content marketing
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is content market marketing success.
The foundation of it is the following seven principles:
- Plan to put out content continuously and consistently to build your authority and keep your audience coming back rather than treating your video or blog as a one-and-done.
- While you can and should jump on seasonal and news trends, the core of your content should be evergreen, to be relevant beyond the current news, and help your SEO.
- What you present has to always center around your customer concerns rather than your own latest offering or uniqueness, so no shameless self-promotion.
- Even if you’re using words as your primary medium rather than video or photos, remember to pay attention to visual appeal with an attractive layout and images that not only catch the eye but fit the story you tell.
- Avoid clickbait which costs your trust in favor of headlines that are on target, to the point, and short enough to be read on a phone (no more than 65 characters).
- Use your social media channels as another avenue of content marketing, not just to link to your blogs and videos but to engage directly with your audience there with discussions and shares that are not just broadcasts of what your brand is doing.
- Check your stats every month or so to see what’s performing well and what isn’t to inform and optimize future content.
Quality, consistency, relevance, and engagement go a long way in connecting with people. Over time that translates not just into improved brand recognition and goodwill but more sales.
Good luck!
