Sunday, April 14, 2019

Why is content marketing important for driving profitable customer action?

The creation and distribution of engaging, relevant and valuable content with the goal of attracting a targeted audience and driving profitable customer response is known as content marketing.

Effective content marketing services such as sharing useful, educational and entertaining information on appropriate social media platforms help in expanding your business innumerably.

An influential content marketing strategy is quite beneficial in marketing your brand and retaining a clearly defined audience. The types of content marketing include online and offline content marketing examples that one can include in their strategy.


Furthermore, google analytics helps in checking the performance of your current content, and preventing the tactics that do not work well. Running certain tests between two similar pieces of content assists in gathering the relevant information required to iterate the current content marketing strategy. Moreover, an organized content schedule is very important for maintaining consistency and effectiveness. You can even consider outsourcing to a content writing agency. Know more about the advantages of outsourcing to a content writing agency.

Why is Content Marketing important?

Content marketing is important for spreading awareness of your business and eventually educating the audience about your products. Traditional marketing and advertising tactics directly deal with consideration and decision phases of the buying cycle. However, the current content marketing strategy deals with the initial phase of the buying process, i.e. increasing awareness about one’s brand. One can experience remarkable ROI when the marketing strategy is executed appropriately.

Additionally, various types of content marketing support other channels of digital marketing such as social media marketing and search engine optimization. Thus, boosting your website’s ranking is yet another advantage of content marketing services. The key steps that need to be followed for a successful content marketing strategy are:

* Analyzing your marketing goals, and forming a brief content marketing strategy accordingly.

* Creating buyer personas and getting to know the target audience.

* Analyzing the type of content that is best suitable for your business, and creating high-quality content consistently.

* Promotion of valuable content on social media platforms.

* Including content marketing in all the stages of the buying cycle.

* Finding ways of involving customers into your content marketing strategy, i.e. user-generated content.

* Revising and re-evaluating your content marketing goals regularly.

                          "You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.
                                                              ― Jodi Picoult"

Mapping of content based on the customer’s journey


Creating content for each stage of the buying cycle is the key aspect of content mapping. Few people buy the product immediately, whereas some people discover the website, thoroughly research the product, and then buy. Hence, guiding the prospects in a strategic manner is quite crucial during the buying phase. The different phases of the buying process are:

Creating awareness – Content marketing is the best assistant for creating awareness among a wide range of audiences, and Content marketing HubSpot and SEO play a vital role during this phase. Paying attention to high-level metrics such as top-performing pages, number of page views, number of readers, rate of engagement and articles viewed also help in creating engaging content.

Consideration phase – During this phase, the customer compares products from different brands and checks for the quality and price. Hence, in order to generate trust among the customers, one needs to create content like e-books, consistent newsletters, high commitment keywords, and long-tail keywords.

Decision phase – In this phase, the customer makes a decision to trust the brand and purchase the product. The aspects such as frequency of orders, size of orders, opportunity pipeline and sales come into play. Furthermore, including compelling CTAs, offering discounts, special offers and free trials are also quite beneficial.

Examples of Content Marketing

The marketing of valuable content can be done in numerous interesting formats. Blog articles, YouTube Videos, Podcasts recordings, Social media marketing, Emails, Webinars, Infographics, Cartoons, Quizzes, Generators/Calculators, Assessments, Downloadable guides, and Apps are some of the common content marketing examples. Content marketing focuses on reaching out to a broad target audience, whereas inbound marketing focuses on specific buyers.

Content Marketing Blogs – Strategic blogging is a key aspect of content marketing. It increases your brand awareness, and people can access high-quality information for free. By sharing informative business blogs regularly, the potential readers gradually turn into potential buyers. It also generates trust among a wide range of audiences. Furthermore, publishing one blog post per week is the best way to begin building your brand, since most people trust the information in your blogs. Here are some trending blog content writing ideas you can explore. Following consistent publishing, schedule is important for building the audience. Social media plays a vital role here, hence optimization of blogs for social media sharing is yet another crucial step. When your content is being shared by the readers, it eventually goes viral. Optimization of blogs can be done with several free content marketing tools. Creating a customer persona helps one to target specific customers. It includes their personal information such as likes/dislikes, age, occupation, motivation and pain points. An effective content marketing strategy needs to include guest blogging/guest posting as well since it increases your authority and drives traffic to your website.

Infographics – The vertical and long graphics that include charts, graphs, and other information are known as infographics. A professionally designed infographic can be posted on websites and shared on social media for several years. Setting up a board on Pinterest and curating infographics on a topic related to your business is also quite beneficial. Infographics are perfect for bundling up, summarizing and presenting valuable information in a neat manner. Explaining an ambiguous piece of content with the help of images is the main gist of infographics.

Podcasts – Podcasts are certainly one of the powerful content marketing tools that provide visibility in iTunes. It eventually leads to an increase in sales, signups, and requests. Podcasts are usually advertised at the beginning and end of a show, and it attracts most people. Interviewing entrepreneurs and publishing recordings is the best way to achieve massive success within no time.

Guides, e-books, videos, and emails – While blogs are gateways for other channels of content marketing, the other mediums such as Guides, e-books, videos, and emails are beneficial in thoroughly addressing certain industry topics and converting the customers. An extensive amount of information regarding your business can be conveniently shared through eBooks. It includes frequently asked aspects about one’s business and helps in pointing readers in the right path. Creating high quality, entertaining and outstanding video content is yet another strategic way of promoting your services. Engaging videos tend to go viral at a faster rate, and gradually help in gaining attention and traffic to your brand. Furthermore, obtaining the reader’s contact information is a great way to contact them through their personal email ids. This is possible when the customers subscribe to your newsletters or fill forms for accessing your e-books. Sharing more content, nurturing leads and converting them into sales through email campaigns is possible through email subscribers

                              "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
                                                                    - Samuel Johnson"


Benefits of Content Marketing

Here are some of the benefits of content marketing over traditional advertising techniques:

Content marketing provides valuable information to the customers, whereas traditional ads do not serve this purpose. People usually tend to ignore and get away with the ads. However, when the relevant content is tailored to the customer’s needs and requirements, they tend to develop a relationship with your brand and products. Before buying a particular product, people may read Copy blogger for several months. Content marketing thoroughly educates the people and gradually convinces them to buy your products. YouTube videos and engaging blog posts play a vital role in convincing customers.

Content marketing also helps in creating a sense of reciprocity. As you provide substantial free content and help people in improving their marketing skills, the chances of customers reciprocating and buying your product is quite high. Content marketing strategy is also beneficial in attracting customers for free. For instance, you may attract approximately 500 customers by publishing a single content marketing blog post. Strategic planning, writing, and posting of blog posts benefits one for a lifetime. Driving traffic through your blog posts is extremely convenient, whereas google ads cost you for attracting customers to your website. Hence, content marketing will be an asset for a lifetime, whereas advertising is an expense.

Sharing content on social media is a smart way of multiplying your network and reaching out to maximum people. Furthermore, when your followers like and share your content, it gets multiplied and eventually reaches the maximum people. Thus creating a piece of valuable content is much more beneficial than a link to your website. Content marketing provides SEO benefits as well. Creating and publishing engaging and strategic content can increase the chances of getting indexed by Google. Hence, posting blogs regularly increases the number of pages in your website and gains search engine traffic as well.

Furthermore, uploading podcasts is yet another major advantage of reaching out to maximum people. People who listen to podcasts find a link back to your website as well. Uploading podcasts onto iTunes creates an additional source and opportunity of generating traffic without investment. Content marketing is highly targeted, one can develop specific content for the customers and draw the attention of the targeted customers within no time.

Conclusion

Content marketing is indeed an important aspect of every newly established business as well as other types of businesses. During the content marketing phase, being yourself is the major key to build your brand. Furthermore, being consistent with developing and publishing fresh content is the essence of driving traffic towards your brand. Moreover, re-evaluating your content marketing goals and objectives every six months is absolutely necessary for experiencing a successful business. Building your personal brand requires consistency, perseverance and hard work, thus one needs to stay patient during the initial months. Any inbound marketing campaign requires approximately 6 to 9 months to see the expected results.

Penned By: Aanchal Patil

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