Understanding Content Marketing Strategy for Business
Definition
A type of marketing strategy that focuses on showcasing content that is relevant and valuable to people. People love to read, listen or watch things that are of interest to them. So, if you know what people like and what topics are in demand then you can create your own content marketing strategies. It helps in gaining attention of people and creating interest in your business.
Top 11 content marketing strategies for business
Let’s look into Top 11 content marketing strategies for business
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations of relevant and in-depth information of a product or service. Visual representations include elements like images,icons,charts and texts. It helps to attract and acquire customers of potential interest to the business.
Videos
Videos are used to convey messages that require the attention of customers. A video commercial played in between your favorite gaming or music channel on YouTube can be an example of Video Content Marketing. Infact, videos of your favorite games or music are also a type of video content marketing. Video content marketing strategy shows how people can be driven towards branded products or services with customer focused video messages.
Podcasts
Podcasts are a way of communicating messages to audiences through audio or video recordings.These audio or video recordings are enjoyed by listeners or viewers around the world. Podcasts are recorded on television,radio, website or app and are streamed for users who are busy doing something else.So they can listen as well as do their routine work. This type of content marketing helps businesses in conveying target oriented information to audiences who are interested in a particular topic.
Webpages
Webpages can be used as a content strategy to reach a huge audience base, create interest and brand awareness. Content on webpages (blogs) can be read by internet users around the world.It would cost less or nothing to the business. The only requirement of this strategy is to select a customer focused topic. Businesses can also use web pages as landing pages for product or service promotion (advertisements). Web pages based product or service ads can increase visibility of business. Therefore, web pages (blogs) based strategy can be used as Organic (non paid) or Paid form of marketing to reach the target audience.
Email is the most effective type of content marketing strategy that gives great results and is free of cost to the business. Requirement for a content based email marketing strategy is to have a relevant message for opening of the email (open rate). Relevant message is coupled with valued information about the product in the body of the email. Both Relevant message and Valued information help in brand promotion and increased conversions (click rate) for the business.
White papers, eBooks and Reports
White Papers, eBooks and Reports can be used by businesses to showcase an in-depth level of expertise and industry know-how. Finding a pain point and delivering a solution has always been the most liked strategy for success in business. With the help of Whitepapers, eBooks and Reports business can focus on the issues and give valid solutions to customers. Hence, it is the best content strategy for garnering people’s attention and demonstrating industry specific expertise.
Social Media Posts
Social Media Posts are a type of content marketing strategy that can bring tremendous brand coverage/awareness to the business. For instance, Organic social media posts can serve the purpose of providing product or service information to the people and create awareness while Paid social media posts can be used to direct specific target based audiences to a landing page for consideration and conversion. Hence, both organic and paid forms of social media posts use content marketing to generate people’s interest and take actions related to purchase or subscription.
User generated Content (UGC)
User Generated Content is a form of content marketing strategy that involves users in promoting business products or services and getting discounts or coupons for their efforts. This type of content strategy gives an instant boost to the business and creates huge brand awareness.
Memes
Memes are the latest content marketing strategies that bring traffic to your website if aligned well to the social media requirements
Testimonials and Customer Reviews
Testimonials and Customer Reviews are content generated from customers. They serve the purpose of trust in the business. If you get a good amount of testimonials and customer reviews on your website or on google reviews, then you can easily gain visits to your website.
Influencers
Influencers who usually have a lot of followers can serve the purpose of content marketing for your brand. You need to find the best influencer who suits your product or service and the niche market you want to focus on. Build relevant and valued content and serve it to your targeted audience through influencers around the world.
You can also refer to a blog from Hubspot about examples of content marketing.
Why is content marketing strategy important for business?
Top 9 reasons why content marketing strategy is important for business?
- Content marketing helps in creating relevant, valuable and consistent content to attract, engage and acquire customers
- It creates trust with your audience
- It is less expensive as compared to other marketing strategies
- Content consistency can create more engagement
- More engagement gives more conversions and leads
- Brand awareness and visibility is possible through content marketing
- Original and creative content is recognized and followed by fans on social media and other channels
- You can get competitive edge over other businesses
- Content marketing strategy can bring joy to the audience as they get educated and can make informed decisions. Therefore, loyal following to your brand increases
How to start a content marketing strategy for business?
10 Steps to start a content marketing strategy for business
- Focus on the buyer’s persona i.e who our ideal customers are and what they are looking for?
- Understand what our competitors are doing and what kind of channels they have selected for content marketing?
- Set SMART goals for your target audience.
- Understand which channel of content marketing will fulfill your business and your audience needs. For example email marketing or social media posts.
- What should be the ideal time to run the campaign? Build a calendar for the campaign.
- Set a budget for the campaign.
- Run a campaign and do A/B tests with your content.
- Monitor the performance (ranking) and make necessary changes.
- Iterate
- Keep your content updated.
Conclusion
In Conclusion, businesses with the help of content marketing strategies can promote and sell their products or services to target audiences. Content marketing strategies educate customers and help them to make informed decisions. It builds customer trust and loyalty towards the brand. Hence, content marketing strategy is considered as the heart of marketing and is important for business.
