Keep in mind that Content Marketing requires constant attention. You have to have people dedicated to monitoring your social channels and being responsive to those that are talking about you.
Brands used to be able pay for their audience, ie TV commercials, radio commercials, etc but now, brands have to focus on earning your attention. It is so easy for anyone to create a content channel that connects the brand with the target audience. Even small companies with limited resources can utilize content through the use of iPhones, cameras and other technologies.
Why Content Marketing is Important
One of the main benefits of Content Marketing is the fact that it is inexpensive.
With technology ever growing, and the availability of diverse channels of social media, it gives the consumer power to generate content. Therefore, companies need to focus in acquiring their audience through engaging content.
Also, through content marketing, you earn the audience’s trust and can then have them share the content which exponentially increase brand awareness and traffic website.
Goals For Content Marketing
Generate Brand Awareness: Content marketing is a great tool to generate brand awareness. By providing thoughtful information, companies can communicate to the consumer about the brand.
Customer Acquisition or Lead Conversation: If there is enough engaging content, this may encourage the consumer to provide information about themselves and even sign up for demos, or register for e-newsletter. Once the company has this information, they can then provide content that is relative to them, creating a relationship with the consumer.
Customer Retention/Loyalty: Engaging a consumer is only part of of the content marketing plan. One of the main goals in content marketing is for subscribers to share the companies stories and in turn be loyal consumers. Ways to retain customer include: customer e-newsletter or printed newsletter and a print or tablet magazine.
Passionate Subscribers: Ideally, if as a company, you have move consumers to regular customers, you have accomplished a lot in terms of content marketing. Therefore, content generated by satisfied or passionate consumers can be extremely useful and drives the company’s business goals. This can be seen when a community has been formed through the loyal and passionate consumers, where they blog, share, and fight for the brand itself. Have such a community is extremely important for a companies success.
Through all these goals, any company can truly grow and create a strong community amongst its consumers.
How to Measure Success
It is crucial for a company to measure its success so that they understand what is working and what is not.
Here are three tips to measure success for Content Marketing.
1. Measure: Constantly measure your success. There are various tools out there to measure the success of a company’s content marketing such as: Google Analytics, number of Likes, number of Share, unique users amongst others.
2. Track Results: Realize how many people are talking about your brand, creating content, sharing, and track its growth.
3. Continuously Refine: If something is not working in your strategy, take a step back, reorganize, brainstorm, and fix the problem. A company needs to constantly refine their approach in this ever changing environment of social media.
Companies Who are Doing it Right
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is the king of storytelling in the content marketing world. On their website itself, Coca-Cola tells stories and has links to other brand related stories created by users themselves.
One of the most recognized energy drinks, Red Bull, targets alternative lifestyles and sports. Red Bull’s content is usually powered by its social media and constantly upload videos of sporting events on their website. In an article by Mark Sherbin, he explains how successful Red Bull is.
“Pretty much everything. The company creates written content, sponsors events large and small, develops videos, takes shareable photos — and does it all with the same level of passion with which its audience consumes that content. In addition, the brand’s website is well organized, with a clear theme and plenty of exclusive articles and videos.”
Also, Red Bull’s Youtube page is filled with content generated by users and consumers.
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At this point in marketing, I would almost say SEO is going to the wayside. Google has become so intelligent with it’s search algorithms that meta tags, alts, and all other strategies for SEO are falling behind and the new algorithm is focused around content marketing, social interaction and internet buzz. Definitely an important tool that more companies need to focus on.
I think that content marketing is a fantastic marketing strategy. It allows the customers to gain a knowledge of the business, while interacting with it, and building a standpoint on that business. On the business side, it is getting customers to remember your product or business with the experience they had with your content. Good post.
Content marketing is effective when used properly. Customer interaction is an integral part of any successful marketing campaign. Being able to feel involved with a companies efforts to include their consumer base allows for more credibility for the company.