5 Critical Success Factors of Content Marketing
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a rather broad term, and often goes over the heads of those not involved in the digital marketing world.
But amongst marketeers, both digital and traditional alike, it is well known that content is king.
Content marketing can take many forms. It can be anything from blogs or news articles to funny videos or online quizzes.
The key is engagement.
Content marketing refers to creating and distributing content that the customers of a brand will interact and engage with. It may not necessarily be content that is directly related to the products or services a company is selling, but rather it’s aim is to provoke a reaction from the target audience.
“Content is the atomic particle of marketing.”
Why do businesses use content marketing?
If you create content that educates your customers, entertains them, makes them go in search of more content from your brand or share your material with a friend – then you know you’re doing something right.
The more your customer interacts with your brand, the more likely you are to build brand awareness. This in turn generates interest in your products, leading to demand. Demand hopefully leads to conversions, with the ultimate goal being to create brand loyalty within your target market.
Let’s take a look at some of the key success factors involved in an effective content marketing campaign.
1) Clearly define your goals and objectives
Are you trying to increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Increase sales? Or perhaps even drive loyalty and reward programs?
As with any successful project, clearly defining goals and objectives at the very beginning is extremely important. Having a clear understanding of your end goal makes it easier to develop the most appropriate and effective strategies at the early stages of the project, as well as creating accurate metrics to measure the success of the campaign.
2) Determine target audience
When it comes to creating the target audience, it’s best to generate the most accurate set of demographics possible to ensure your content is as engaging and relevant as can be.
Important data points might include general information such as age range, home location and gender. Your data might also include specific job roles or income levels, as well as interests or likely past-times of your target audience.
The more you narrow down your target market, the easier it will be to create the right content.
3) Where do your target audiences hang out?
Life has become a constant paddle through the deep sea of social media.
If you want your customers to take your bait, you have to make sure you’re fishing in the right place.
Conduct some reasonable research and determine where your target audience spends most of their time – whether that’s Youtube, Facebook, Instagram or a mix – and optimize your content for these platforms.
4) What does your target audience care about?
If your goal is to provoke a reaction, then you should be trying to appeal to people’s emotions.
What problems do they have that you can solve? What issues do they care about? What’s going to make them laugh and share content with friends?
Meaningful content is powerful and much more likely to drive engagement amongst its audience.
5) What will your audience engage with?
So once you know who they are, where they are and what they care about, it’s time to decide what the most effective way will be to deliver the content.
Perhaps they are most likely to watch a 30 second explainer video? Or are they new moms who want to read a blog about early childcare? Maybe they’re teens who want to take a quiz to find their perfect celebrity match or millennials who only care about memes!
This could require some testing and trial and error but is well worth worth it.
What are you waiting for?
So now that you understand the value of content marketing, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today and we can help you plan, execute and scale your content marketing campaign and begin your journey towards massive online success!
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a rather broad term, and often goes over the heads of those not involved in the digital marketing world.
But amongst marketeers, both digital and traditional alike, it is well known that content is king.
Content marketing can take many forms. It can be anything from blogs or news articles to funny videos or online quizzes.
The key is engagement.
Content marketing refers to creating and distributing content that the customers of a brand will interact and engage with. It may not necessarily be content that is directly related to the products or services a company is selling, but rather it’s aim is to provoke a reaction from the target audience.
“Content is the atomic particle of marketing.”
Why do businesses use content marketing?
If you create content that educates your customers, entertains them, makes them go in search of more content from your brand or share your material with a friend – then you know you’re doing something right.
The more your customer interacts with your brand, the more likely you are to build brand awareness. This in turn generates interest in your products, leading to demand. Demand hopefully leads to conversions, with the ultimate goal being to create brand loyalty within your target market.
Let’s take a look at some of the key success factors involved in an effective content marketing campaign.
1) Clearly define your goals and objectives
Are you trying to increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Increase sales? Or perhaps even drive loyalty and reward programs?
As with any successful project, clearly defining goals and objectives at the very beginning is extremely important. Having a clear understanding of your end goal makes it easier to develop the most appropriate and effective strategies at the early stages of the project, as well as creating accurate metrics to measure the success of the campaign.
2) Determine target audience
When it comes to creating the target audience, it’s best to generate the most accurate set of demographics possible to ensure your content is as engaging and relevant as can be.
Important data points might include general information such as age range, home location and gender. Your data might also include specific job roles or income levels, as well as interests or likely past-times of your target audience.
The more you narrow down your target market, the easier it will be to create the right content.
3) Where do your target audiences hang out?
Life has become a constant paddle through the deep sea of social media.
If you want your customers to take your bait, you have to make sure you’re fishing in the right place.
Conduct some reasonable research and determine where your target audience spends most of their time – whether that’s Youtube, Facebook, Instagram or a mix – and optimize your content for these platforms.
4) What does your target audience care about?
If your goal is to provoke a reaction, then you should be trying to appeal to people’s emotions.
What problems do they have that you can solve? What issues do they care about? What’s going to make them laugh and share content with friends?
Meaningful content is powerful and much more likely to drive engagement amongst its audience.
5) What will your audience engage with?
So once you know who they are, where they are and what they care about, it’s time to decide what the most effective way will be to deliver the content.
Perhaps they are most likely to watch a 30 second explainer video? Or are they new moms who want to read a blog about early childcare? Maybe they’re teens who want to take a quiz to find their perfect celebrity match or millennials who only care about memes!
This could require some testing and trial and error but is well worth worth it.
What are you waiting for?
So now that you understand the value of content marketing, what are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today and we can help you plan, execute and scale your content marketing campaign and begin your journey towards massive online success!