Getting Started With Content Marketing
Getting Started With Content Marketing
What is content marketing and why is it important to my business? Content marketing is different than traditional B2C marketing. Content marketing focuses on creating a genuine relationship with the consumer. It gives them a reason to believe your product is right for other people, so it will be right for them, too. Content marketing values the customer and their lifestyle, meeting their wants and needs, and catering to what they like over traditional product advertising.
What content is right for my business? Whatever your business is selling or producing, your customers want to see it in action. Giving them content that enables them to see your product/service in action, being used, and being consumed is the best content. Don’t just give them stock photos of your product, telling them the price and why they should buy it. No one will waste their time looking at something as boring as that! For example: someone scrolling through social media is 80x more likely to stop and watch a video opposed to pausing on a static photo and liking/reading the post. Videos grab attention and can be the best form of content for certain social media platforms, specifically Facebook.
How do I change my business’s traditional marketing strategy to a content marketing strategy? It doesn’t have to be an overnight process. Actually, it’s better to space it out. Start adding lifestyle photos into your feeds, start sharing customer testimonies and sending out products to micro-influencers for them to post about/rate/review. Find new content by searching your product on social media and repost photos posted by customers. The more you search and create this new content, the easier it gets to spot the perfect new piece of content to post. Your strategy should align with your brand image. For example: if your brand/business is a vegan restaurant, you might post photos of your food, your customers, vegan life quotes, vegan foods, and have a green theme to your social media accounts.
Developing the right content marketing strategy. Understanding your audience is key to developing a successful content marketing strategy for your business. How do you determine your target audience? You first narrow down your customers by their demographics. Separate your audience into sections and groups that make it easier to target these specific people. For example (and continuing with the vegan brand example): your customers are probably better determined by region and location over age/gender. Vegan eaters might shop more at a certain location and store rather than a traditional grocery store. Vegans are looking for clothing that is vegan and vegan-friendly or vegan based. Pay attention to where these people shop, what they are buying, and why they are buying it. This is a perfect way to target your audience through SEO, Google ads on these websites and offering print marketing at these locations. Pay attention to the posts you post and how successful they are vs how they perform against other posts.