The Driving Force of Awareness and Revenue: Content Marketing
Almost 40% of marketers say that content marketing is important in their overall marketing strategy.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top goal of companies for their content marketing effort is to boost brand awareness. This is in contrast to the more business-oriented outcomes, such as lead and revenue generation.
Even before the dawn of the Internet, content marketing has been a way for companies to get the attention of their target market. Before, they would have advertisements on newspapers, television, radio, and billboards. If they wanted a more cost-effective option, they’d resort to posters, flyers, and brochures. Whether it’s an iconic one-liner or information that has them sold on a product or service’s benefits, content is one of the factors that weigh in on their decision to purchase a product or service.
Fast forward to now and companies still rely on content marketing to get their product or service exposure. As the types of content continue to change and innovate, businesses must learn to adapt, so they can stand out from the growing competition.
With an effective content marketing strategy, you can establish yourself as a trustworthy brand that your target market can turn to for their needs.
The Top Content Marketing Trends You Should Know About
- 94% of marketers use social media to distribute their content (SEMrush, 2019)
- Websites that post blogs regularly attract 55% more traffic (Quick Sprout, 2018)
- Listicles gets double the shares than other blog post formats (SEMrush, 2019)
- 87% of video marketers say that using video content for their marketing strategy has increased traffic to their website (Wyzowl, 2020)
- 80% of marketers say that video has directly increased their revenue (Wyzowl, 2020)
- 55% of users watch videos online every day (HighQ)
- 61% of marketers focus their social media content around providing information, 58% focus on storytelling, and 53% provide content that inspires (Sprout Social)
With all this in mind, you should take advantage of these trends and apply them to your own content marketing strategy.
The Top Types of Content You Should Be Using to Your Advantage in 2021
When it comes to creating content for your brand, you must be strategic in using the right medium that will fit your brand and your target market’s preference. Marketers use a wide range of content types but the following have been known to generally produce results for businesses online:
- Videos
As mentioned in the article earlier, 55% of Internet users watch videos online every day. Video has been dominating the online marketing sphere, especially in social channels. Unlike before when putting out video content and showing it to a wide audience was only done for huge businesses that could afford a television slot, video marketing online is a cost-effective way to promote your business.
74% of marketers have found that video has a bigger return on investment compared to static imagery. That’s why a lot of businesses are focusing their efforts on creating high-quality video content for their target market for engagement. Platforms that have the best ROI for video content are as follows: Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Regardless, it can be difficult to create video content on your first try. But don’t fret! With the rising popularity of video marketing and video creation come numerous tutorials on the Internet for you to take advantage of. You can also get professionals to help you do the work for you at competitive rates.
- Blogs
Even if users prefer videos over blog posts nowadays when it comes to the content they consume, blogs still hold great importance when it comes to brand awareness. Why? That’s because Google’s search engines still factor in text content on web pages for rankings.
According to Semrush, companies that still create blog posts receive 97% more links to their website. However, the issue for blog posts is that 43% of people skim through them, which means that users can’t digest the continuously growing amount of information available or some of the information provided is not relevant to the target market.
With that, you must create blog content that offers relevant topics that are related to the product or service you provide. With blog posts, you can even add in different types of media like videos or infographics so that it won’t be text-heavy.
When creating blog posts, you also have to add relevant keywords to your content. You’d need to do keyword research to find out what your target audience is typing out as their search query and add these keywords to your blog content. Also, you need to make sure that you are following the appropriate SEO practices when it comes to using keywords on your blog content.
Suggestion: As mentioned above, listicles are the blog posts with the most engagements. With that, you should definitely lean toward content with titles like “The Top 5..” or the “Here are 7 Ways…”
- Infographics
Did you know that a good infographic can get a lot of attention in the form of shares and inbound links? Our brains are hardwired to prefer visual cues. Statistics show website viewers spend around 10% more time looking at visual content. That’s why a lot of content marketers are taking advantage of infographics for a lot of their social media posts or blog content.
Of course, not all information you want to share with your target market can be made into an infographic. Infographics must be insightful but brief. If your infographic has a huge chunk of text, you best believe that your viewer will scroll through it without reading. At the same time, if it’s simply graphic without an obvious context, then your audience won’t get it. You must find the right balance of text and visuals to make your infographic effective.
- Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are valuable content that you provide to your target market in exchange for their emails. When you talk about lead magnets, they’re not exclusively content focused on type but rather, it can be a mix of type, graphics, and videos, depending on what will meet the needs of your target market while promoting your product or service.
What sets lead magnets apart from all the other content types is that you get something from your target market in exchange for the information you provide. With this, you really need to think carefully about the high-value proposition you’re planning to offer them. It also needs to give them instant gratification – meaning an immediate solution to their problem.
There are many ways you can go about your lead magnet. Make sure that it’s not only informative but also an attractive glimpse of what you can do that will persuade your prospective customer or client to take the next step of purchasing your product or service.
Examples of Effective Lead Magnets:
- Training Videos
- Templates
- Trial Versions
- Coupons or Discount Codes
- Email Marketing
Email marketing is used to improve a brand’s relationship with current or previous customers to encourage loyalty, repeat business, and gain new customers. An effective email marketing strategy comes with strong content. If your content is not compelling enough to get conversions, then you can guarantee that your subscribers will unsubscribe from the email list right away.
So what content would be attractive for email marketing?
If your content is meant for everybody, then you’re not creating content for anybody. What you should do is segment your target market and create content that’s personalized to fit their needs. What are their problems? And what kind of solution do you bring to their table? What sets you apart from the other solution?
Of course, your subject head should be eye-catching right away. Your overall content must be brief and compelling. That way, you can get more conversions out of your email marketing campaign.
- Social Media Posts
With social media posts, you need to create content that attracts engagement. This is different compared to all the forms of digital content provided as you need to create posts that would attract the target audience’s attention right away and persuade them to share your content, so you can expand your reach.
Social media content may vary. You can use graphics, videos, or even links to other websites. You can repurpose some of your content on your website to social media as well. What’s great about social media content is that you can measure how your content is performing on various platforms, so you can adjust your content strategy to fit the preferences of your target audience.
In Conclusion
Content matters in your online marketing strategy. When you plan out your content and provide relevant information or engaging messages to your target audience, you are sure to get the traffic, engagement, and conversions that you want. Not only that, but your content also builds your business’s image online. It allows them to know how you can benefit them and what your business stands for.
Nowadays, people want personalized content, one that meets their specific needs. When creating content, make sure to have a specific image of your target market in mind.
Don’t be afraid to innovate. Set yourself apart from your competitors, so your business is memorable to your target audience.
How Binary Ideas Can Help with Content Marketing
Would you prefer to focus on your business and have professionals work on building your business’s online presence? Leave the work to our professionals at Binary Ideas. We have a team of professionals who can work with you in planning and developing your online marketing campaign that will effectively increase your traffic and conversions.
We can also help build your website and social media presence online if you’re still starting out as a business.
If you want to know more about the online marketing services we offer, feel free to contact us today.
