Content marketing has become one of the leading advertisement and promotional methods over the course of the past decade. If you have heard the phrase “content is king” then understand its importance because it is truer now than it was back then. In modern times, the marketing approach and advertisement methods heavily rely on content marketing. Whether its plain text or video advertisements, content is leading the way for numerous brands and companies around the world.
However, content is successful because it employs educational means. That is why one cannot just sit down and start making content right away. There are certain elements that one needs to understand in order to use it to its full potential. These include understanding how to submit a Wikipedia page, the market, audience, content type and a few other methods. Therefore, we will be discussing some of them and how you can ensure using content marketing to its full effect.
Do A Thorough Market Research
If you are in an industry that is not rare, aka eCommerce, then chances are there are a thousand other brands that are using c content marketing better than you are. Apart from the obvious experience advantage, they have also adapted well to the changing norms. For beginners and start-up business that could be a challenge but it does not mean that it cannot be dealt with. All you need to do is do thorough research that can help you understand your audience.
More importantly, the focus of this research should be upon your competition as much on you. In order to be successful in a fierce and rapid online market, one needs to understand their competition. The reason behind that is you may comprehend something they have not yet figured out. That is the reason why some new businesses triumph over established and experienced businesses. Oversight is a problem for them as much for you, so avoid doing that and make sure you understand your market and competition properly.
Create Customer Personas
There are many experts in content marketing that suggest understanding the “who” factor is much more important than the “why” factor. In simpler words, you need to understand your audience and prioritize doing so more than the creation of the content. Without proper comprehension of your audience, you may end up creating unoriginal or irrelevant content. Understanding your industry or market is one thing, but to create customer personas are another.
You need to recognize your targeted customer\reader\viewer. These will include certain elements of demographics and psychographics. Bottom line is, the better you understand your customer, the more chances you will have of creating compelling content.
Choose Your Content Tone
While in the research phase, you will come across major brand names. The thing you may miss is the slight but highly important difference between their content tones. You can also call it a content voice. This is important because it is more a part of brand identity than of marketing. You need to create a brand persona in the head of your customer. That is why you have to find the right type of content tone. The one that works for your brand. It may take a little time and a few mishaps, but it will present itself to you.
Devise A Strategy
A study suggested that more than 60% of the businesses lack a documented content strategy. Those are the 60% that do not fall into major brand categories or are struggling with things such as brand awareness and marketing. The importance of a strategy is that it will tie all the above-mentioned affairs together. You need it because it will serve as a guide and how-to of sorts. Some of the most important elements of a content strategy are calendar, customer personas, marketing trends and content creation. You can understand why it is important by just looking at the few of those.
Use Various Platforms
The thing to understand about content marketing is that it requires the utmost levels of patience. If you get disheartened at the fact that your blog is not performing as you thought it would, then chances are that blog type of content is not meant for you or your brand. Good news is that it is exactly why content marketing employs more than one platform in order to create content. Your strategy should not just revolve around blogs. If it does not work, there are websites, social media networks, video streaming sites and even mobile phone applications. Use various platforms until you figure out which one is best for you.
Focus On SEO
If you are looking to find recognition in the online market, the first thing you need to do is put your brand on the radar. Now, to do that you need SEO. That is why you need to put elements in your strategy that help you focus on SEO. In order to do that, you need to do thorough keyword research. However, it is more important to understand that modern SEO focuses more on intent than keywords and that is why it helps find the right amount of exposure.
