Why is Content Marketing still the undisputed Emperor?
You must have heard zillion times, ‘Content is King’. While it may sound so overbearing and outdated to hear and be told everywhere, you can’t deny the fact that content is here to stay and rule our behavior and personality. ‘Content is King’ was first used by Bill Gates (1996) in an essay written on the impact of internet governing the consumer behavior. Well, it’s been more than two decades, the content has still deep-rooted its form firmly in the digital marketing space to show that it’s going nowhere from our business world.
What exactly is Content Marketing?
It is the art of creating content in the form of audio, video, texts, infographics, images, etc., to grab the attention of potential audiences and market it to them, through various channels(direct and indirect) so that they generate leads and develop into customers. Various content marketing strategies can also be used to maintain the existing customers.
Traditional Content consumption in the form of brochures, magazines, TV commercials, etc. has not vanished completely, but the way people view content has transformed over the years. Now, every person on earth for any random topic would read about the product or queries and then make an informed decision. So, the traditional marketing where the brand would create a trend is slowly disappearing and people are buying and consuming products as per their choice.
So, what are the different kinds of Content Marketing?
Let us look at some of the types of content the audiences are consuming namely:
a) Videos: This form of content is widely liked and preferred by the audience over other forms because audio-visual content is always more engaging and gives a clear message to the viewer. This type of format can be used for showing the manufacturing and handling of a process in an industry by generating more traffic volume to your website.
b) Podcasts: This is a recent form of content that is picking up pace among the audience. It’s preferred by people who commute and don’t have time for screen viewing. This format is useful to educate and give insights into any particular field.
c) Blog posts: This is one of the prerequisites of the business world, to have a functional website with updated blogs talking about, how their brand can solve the visitor’s query. This format can be used to generate SEO traffic by creating content that is solving customer’s problems via their product or services. It helps in brand image building.
d) eBooks: This acts essentially as a long-form of blog post that gives insight and description as to what your business has to offer. This creates more interest and curiosity among the target audience that would eventually convert into leads.
e) Info-graphics: This form of content where images act as eye candy to grab the attention of the audience to get more clicks and traffic to your website. But, this form can’t potentially be used everywhere.
f) Case studies: This type of format is useful for customers who want an in-depth analysis of their choosing to buying journey in the form of other personas. This type of content creates an impression portrays you as an expert leader in your business field for a well-educated audience if used rightly.
g) White Papers: This type of content need not be confused with eBook, as they also offer a long-form of content with an in-depth analysis and detailing of what their products or services have to offer with accurate graphs, charts, tables, etc., to show how authentic and well-researched your business is. Though it’s time-consuming to build such dense content, it again creates you a respectable leader in your field.
Now, let us look at why Content Marketing is Undisputed Emperor
i. Awareness Generator: Your audience wants to know what your business is about and how your service or product can solve their problems. So, when start creating content to educate them about your business which helping them, you’ll generate more traffic by their frequent visits and eventually converting them into leads.
ii. Creation of Brand Image: By consistently creating quality content, what your target audience is searching for can help you build trust among audiences and gradually believing in your product without any second thoughts. Thereby, it creates a reputation of your brand which the target audience wants to be identified by keeping themselves informed about your new updates and launches frequently via consuming your content. Finally, you can emerge as a recognized brand in the market.
iii. Cheaper than other forms of marketing: It is one of the cost-effective marketing tools after social media marketing. You can hire freelance or in-house writers to develop your content. This will help you in directing your investment in other parts of businesses when marketing solutions are taken care of at an affordable price.
iv. Builds Bonds with Audience: For long-term presence in the market, creates a brand image in such a way that customers will always look up for your advice whenever they have a problem. This creates an emotional association with the brand where people identify and trust your brand without much effort.
v. Domain Authority: Higher the quality of your content, the more the number of inbound links will be shared through your site which will increase the ranking of your site. Higher the domain authority, automatically your organic search traffic volume increases. More referral traffic from other sites also increases and ultimately creating leads.
vi. SEO gets a boost: Google loves high-quality and consistent content where the audience’s queries are answered. As a result, more backlinks are generated from a high domain authority website to your site, making your content more visible on SERP(Search Engine Results Page), thereby upping your SEO game and generating long-term ROI(Return on Investment).
vii. Social Media Traction Increases: As your content becomes a hit among audiences, there is more following, likes, comments from them to stay updated with your content from time to time. Even your loyal audience would share your content with their community, as a result increasing your traffic and generating more leads.
viii. The same content and different expression: You don’t have to create different content for each channel; instead the same content can be conveyed through videos, audios, blog posts, etc., by having your touch of creativity balancing information and entertainment quotient.
ix. You portray as a leader in your industry: By constantly creating content and educating your audience via analytics, facts, and research, you put yourself in a dignified position to be referred to as an exceptional leader in your business where people have trust in your brand without you having to be sound pushy as the traditional sales guy.
x. Relevancy maintained for a longer period: This is one of the advantages of investing in content marketing where creating consistent quality content makes your brand image pops up on every other platform where the target audience build a community based on your brand value and your business becomes a part of your target customer’s life, which creates a longer shelf life for your businesses and helps you stay relevant.
Ways to Improve your Content Marketing Strategy:
- Buyer Persona: Understand your target audience’s behavior, location, gender, lifestyle, values, etc., to produce content that is centered on them. These days audiences are more likely to buy into things that resonate and feel like them at the grass-root level. So never underestimate the power of your target audience. Each content you create is not going to be liked by all, create niche content that speaks to that particular target viewer, which has more chances of generating leads.
2) Frequency and Relevance: Create the content consistently without being too frequent or not showing up at all. Have a content calendar prepared in advance for a year and keep making changes as per your needs. Create relevant content that is helpful in the present scenario and adding value to your audience’s life. Make sure your content is crisp, focussed, and delivering a message that is crystal clear to the audience. If it’s not possible to create new content every time, you can consider revising and updating your old content.
3) Educate and Not Sell: Customers these days feel they have control over things to make an informed decision by having their research tactics that is via Google and not fall easily into the Sales Guy trap. So, to make your business grab their attention, don’t use your traditional sales pitch, instead use the buyer persona approach backed up with a comparison, analysis, and research to make them feel that they are taking an intellectually sound decision.
4) Promotion: Just creating content and publishing will not create any buzz in the market. You’ve to promote your product through blog posts, email listing, videos, podcasts, etc., wherever the users are more likely to spend their time online. Make sure the content has the right balance of entertainment, education, emotion, and an authoritative tone to make your audience wanting to know more about your brand. Even Paid collaboration with influencers (YouTube, Instagram, Celebrities) will make your brand heard among a wider range of audiences thereby increasing traffic and expanding your customer base.
5) Measure your Performance: Before analyzing and measuring your content strategy, be clear with what your goals and conversions are. Based on these goals, you can define your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and monitor them regularly. You can analyze your website traffic volume, social media conversions, content shares, backlinks shared, lead conversions, SEO ranking, keyword ranking, etc., regularly to change your strategy where improvement is required.
Final Thoughts
I hope by now you must have understood the importance of content to up any business to new heights. The key is to be consistent, relevant and give valued content to the audience. Since, every person would Google about your business to see whether it’s authentic and genuine, make sure to have a recognized and reputable brand image online which is going to generate more conversions than any other medium. Always remember investing in content marketing is a long-term strategy that will create a brand identity with a larger shelf life, so create responsible, meaningful, and educated content. And now without any doubt, you’ll also say that ‘Content is the Undisputed Emperor who is here to stay.’
-Zakiya Fathima
