Web Marketing strategies, which are increasingly important for building a brand, the success of a project or the success of a business, are firmly based on an effective and careful Content Marketing strategy. Without content, communication is unlikely to work.
That's why in this post you will find a mini-guide to Content Marketing , to understand what it is, how and when it works, what its purposes are, how to build an effective Content Marketing strategy.
Sit comfortably, therefore, take a few minutes and start reading!
What is Content Marketing?
The Content Marketing is a web marketing strategy that consists in the creation of content designed to offer something useful to the people we are interested in communicating our message.
Defining the usefulness of the content is not easy, as it varies according to the brand concerned, the target audience, the goal we want to achieve, the message we communicate.
What matters, however, is always keeping in mind who the people we are talking to are, a necessary condition to plan and create content that can be of value to them, which can transmit useful information, amuse them, involve them, interest them.
In general, the contents that contain utility are:
- The contents that offer more accurate and timely;
- The contents that give emotions;
- The contents that tell stories, travels, adventures, relationships;
- Content that gives an important gift to people.
What are the types of content that can be interesting to produce?
- Blog post;
- Guides and mini-guides;
- Infographics;
- Reports and case studies;
- E-book;
- Newsletter;
- Photos and images;
- Video;
- Surveys;
- Webcast;
- Webinar.
Content Marketing: what objectives?
Now you're wondering, what is the purpose of Content Marketing? Why dedicate yourself with care and planning to the production of valuable content?
The objectives of the contents you give life to are mainly three:
- Communicate who you are;
- To be found by the people of your interest;
- induce people to perform a specific action, the one useful for you (and also for them), which can be purchase, book, download a product, sign up for the newsletter, access a promotion, receive a discount and so on.
This is why, to convince your target audience, your content must first of all be visible and be found at the right time, then attract people's attention, involve them, interest them, and finally convince them.
Objective 1: communicate who you are
Knowing how to do Content Marketing is essential to build, manage and consolidate your brand reputation. The contents, in fact, are an essential tool to tell people who you are, to show them what you can do, to offer something useful and advantageous to the people who follow you.
In short, the contents speak and must speak consistently about you.
Objective 2: how to be found
How can you find yourself in the increasingly spasmodic chaos of the Net? By relying on SEO and paid sponsorships. The analysis, the selection and the correct use of the keywords of your interest are fundamental to position yourself and be found in the SERP of the search engines in the moment in which people turn to the Net to solve their problem, express a need, and ask a question.
But does positioning yourself just mean knowing how to use the right keywords in the right way? No. It also means that. In fact, being present in the search engine results is possible if and only if you produce quality, relevant, authoritative, precise and punctual content. In short, capable of offering something useful (we thought about it a little while ago) to your readers.
Further impetus to your Content Marketing activity must then derive from paid sponsorships, activated on the same search engines and on social networks. Without sponsorships your visibility is compromised.
Goal 3: win people's trust
Gaining people's trust is a delicate matter in itself and today that hoaxes and fakes are always in ambush it becomes even more so. How to get people to trust you, then?
It is possible if and only if your content is capable of informing, educating and / or having fun, depending on the case, needs, and objectives.
But not only that, because earning the respect and esteem of those who follow you is possible only if over time you will be able to prove yourself expert and competent in your sector, to become an always reliable reference point .
What is a Content Strategy?
The Content marketing strategy, one designed to reach a pre-determined objective and able to bring home the results, is not possible without an effective and careful strategy.
But what is Content Strategy? It is that part of the (web) marketing plan that relates to the management of the contents that communicate your brand, your identity and your image, contents that are as written as visual, to be read, viewed, downloaded and shared.
When planning a Content Strategy, you need to keep in mind:
- Who are the people you are addressing;
- What problem can you solve for people?
- In that way you can solve it;
- How you can (and must) communicate effectively to people;
- How your content will stand out from others;
- What formats to use;
- How to achieve it concretely;
- The time and budget available;
- Which promotional channels to use to promote your content.
That clarified, now the question is: how do you build an effective Content Marketing strategy? I suggest it below!
How to design a Content Marketing strategy
Planning a Content Marketing strategy is an activity that requires a perfect mix of analysis and creativity, of skills and intuition, of reason and imagination.
Here are the 8 steps to design a professional Content Strategy.
Step 1: Brand analysis
The point from which to start planning a Content Marketing strategy is always you or the brand you are speaking for. Who are you? What do you want to communicate? How would you like to tell yourself? What do you want people to know about you? What are your core values? And what promises do you intend to keep?
Step 2: Analysis of the target
Who are the people you turn to? What are their tastes, their needs, their needs? What do they do in life? How do they carry out their daily lives? What can you do for them and how can you win them over?
Knowing (and possibly in detail) the people you turn to is essential to understand what you can do for them and how you can win their attention and their trust, so what content could be more effective for that particular niche.
Indispensable tool? The Buyer Personas, or fictitious and ideal representations of your target, a sort of detailed identity card of the people you intend to reach with your Content Marketing.
Step 3: Analysis of the sector, the market and competitors
Knowing the sector in which the brand operates, the market and the competitors it will have to deal with is important both for drawing interesting food for thought and ideas, and for identifying what could make you distinguishable and easily identifiable, therefore memorable.
Step 4: SWOT analysis
Now you are ready to write your (precious) SWOT analysis. Have you heard of it yet? It is a strategic planning tool that allows you to analyze the strengths (Strengths), weaknesses (Weaknesses), opportunities (Opportunities) and threats (Threats) of the brand or project in question.
In particular, the strengths and weaknesses concern the internal environment, the opportunities and threats concern the external environment of the brand. The former refer to the characteristics of the brand which are respectively useful and harmful to achieve the purpose you have pre-determined. The latter identify the conditions that can cause an advantage or damage to the objective you have set yourself.
You will understand well, therefore, how SWOT analysis will allow you to identify and be aware of the elements to focus on and those to avoid or to which to pay close attention in the production of content.
Step 5: Definition of evaluation objectives and parameters
Having clarified who you are, the environment in which you operate, the people you turn to, and the time has now come to define your goals. Starting from the purposes of your marketing plan and in particular web marketing, you will have to understand what purposes you want to achieve with your Content Strategy.
Keep in mind that in order to be effective, the objectives must be SMART, an acronym that stands for:
- Specific, specific,
- Measurable, measurable concretely through parameters and numbers;
- Achievable, reachable, achievable;
- Realistic, realistic;
- Time-constrained, or with a deadline, with a deadline date.
Once the objectives have been set, you will also have to decide how to evaluate their achievement (or failure to achieve) and in what time frame, so as to adapt and improve your Content Strategy constantly and in real time.
Step 6: Planning the tools
Based on the analyzes carried out and the objectives you intend to achieve, you must now decide which tools you want to use to travel your journey.
Will it be blog posts, videos, images, e-books, infographics, and webinars? What content do you intend to use to carry out your Content Marketing?
Consider that each content has specific characteristics that you can and must exploit to your advantage according to the specific needs and characteristics of the brand and the target audience.
In this phase I also decided to decide the timing, or when to publish what, with what rhythms, respecting which deadlines and the budget allocation: how many resources do you want to allocate to the production of that specific content? And how many for that other?
Indispensable tool? The editorial calendar, a document in which you will indicate what to publish, when and how.
Step 7: Planning of the communication guidelines
Your content must communicate consistently who you are and must travel together in harmony to achieve the result you have set yourself. To succeed, it is essential to establish communication guidelines that define:
- The message underlying each content,
- The communication style,
- The tone of voice,
- The language to use (words yes, words no),
- It must be characterized as the visual.
Step 8: Planning of promotional activities
Without a correct and effective promotional activity, your content is as non-existent and all your efforts will be in vain.
This is why, when developing a Content Marketing strategy, it is also essential to foresee which tools to use to promote content, in which channels, how to distribute the available budget, with what timing and with which communication methods.
Content Marketing: conclusion
Here, you should now be ready to plan an effective Content Marketing strategy, it being understood that experience plays an important role.
Author Bio:
Greg S. Chun is a professionally belong to the finance department and he is working with a well-known company where he supports to Get Instant License in Abu Dhabi. He also writes articles on a different niche to share his experience with the world.
