Content is the cornerstone of both present and future marketing, a key that unlocks the door to profitable PPC, stellar SEO, and powerful PR.
A content marketing strategy helps to boost the volume of traffic to your website thus build your brand. Together with a robust content marketing plan, the strategy is designed to create and distribute valuable, relevant, engaging and hopefully entertaining content to generate awareness of an organisation and maintain levels of engagement.
“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience - to drive profitable customer action.”
Why do I need to invest in content marketing?
When businesses that didn’t already have a content marketing strategy in place were surveyed by the Content Marketing Institute, 67% said that the reason they didn’t have one was due to lack of resource or small teams. And, it’s fair to say that content marketing has a reputation for taking up a huge amount of resource, for little or no gain.
But opinions are changing...in that same survey, the B2B organisations that were committed to content marketing have seen a big rise in its success. With factors such as the creation of better quality content, the constant development of the strategy and more accurate targeting and measurement as contributing to positive outcomes.
Expectations are also managed with companies now prepared for the results to take a long time to yield, but when they do they can deliver a cheaper CPA and become a more sustainable and stable channel for delivering traffic to a website.
Whether it’s a quarterly sprint publishing key topics or the “hub, hero and help” approach, Adido will choose the right content strategy for you and your audience
Why do you need a content marketing strategy
Consumers are becoming savvier in how, when, where and why they consume your content and you must adapt to survive and thrive. People won’t care about you if you aren’t worth caring about. When you stand for something, care about something and have a passion only then it deserves to shine.
The fact of the matter is, if your customers deem you and your content as not being worthy of their attention, you will be ignored.
Marissa Phillips, Head of Content Strategy at Airbnb eloquently describes the importance of a good marketing strategy:
"Content strategy is a design practice [and] plays an integral role in shaping core product experiences. We think about our work as part of a system. The way we communicate across these surfaces influences how people feel about our company. Although we write for different audiences we always use the same voice. Our voice is the extension of our brand and personality within the product, and it’s the foundation of everything we write."
We advise on the type of content that’ll work best in the market, ensure it’ll resonate, be found on key search terms, have a clear call to action and be tracked and tested.
The fact is, many are fairly new to the idea and need help to structure and plan their activity and the resource to deliver. While even those with established strategies may want advice on how to achieve better outcomes with more accurate measurement and scaling of content.
First and foremost though, there are several questions you must bear in mind when creating or structuring your content marketing strategy:
- Who is the reader?
- What is my story?
- In which area can I be the leading expert which will also help my business?
- What is the objective?
- How will I measure this exactly?
- Is this initiative helping to build a unique audience?
- How patient can I be in making this happen?
It's pertinent to note that crafting a successful content marketing strategy to be distributed online is easier said than done with a hugely competitive marketplace standing between you and success.
But despite this, when using the right creative elements; knowing how to draw attention to your content and business as a whole; as well as the right means of driving value from content via channels for amplification; content marketing is one of the single most powerful tools in your arsenal for honing in on profitable consumer action for your business.
An effective content marketing strategy cannot be rushed. Take the time to understand your customers and your business, find a voice within your content, be relevant and on-trend. Demand attention.
