Let’s face it, the traditional methods of marketing are becoming outdated and ineffective. The world has turned to media and the internet and as a result the marketing world is slowly following suit. The days of newspapers and milk carton ads are dwindling, so where are we supposed to shift our attention? The answer is social media.
If you’ve found yourself wanting to utilize the internet to market your business (and who isn’t at this point?) then you’ll find it is very hard to avoid hearing about content marketing. It’s everywhere you turn nowadays.
But what is content marketing? Content Marketing is basically creating engaging, free content to attract potential customers and to convert those customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share will be directly correlated to the type of product or service you are selling. You are essentially educating people so that they will know about, appreciate, and be interested in your business.
So more importantly what can content marketing do for your business? And what makes it so different from how you advertise already? Let’s take a look at what makes content marketing so unique.
Used By The Globe’s Leading Brands
It’s true. Annual research reveals that the vast majority of the world’s leading brands all utilize content marketing strategies. Brands such as Microsoft, P&G, Cisco Systems, and John Deere all have found success through appealing to the internet and social media. But why? Because content marketing works and this is just the beginning.
Content Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
Essentially content marketing is more modernized and focuses on things like blogs, podcasts, videos, and social media. Traditional methods of marketing are more copy-based and focus on things like magnetic headlines, persuasive landing pages and conversion-driven emails. Two entirely different approaches right? A smart online strategy would allow them to work together but you’d be surprised at how rare really effective content marketing strategies are.
It’s a Win-Win
When it’s properly utilized content marketing works so well because it benefits both your business and the consumer. Your product and service provides immense value to the buyer and at the same time this good relationship brings in revenue back to the company. More specifically there are three key reasons benefits of content marketing.
-increased sales
-cost savings
-better customers who have more loyalty
You can’t lose, so there is no reason why anybody shouldn’t utilize content marketing as best as they can.
Maintain the Persuasive Power of Copyright
As mentioned earlier, content marketing doesn’t by any means suggest you completely abandon traditional approaches. As a matter of fact, traditional copy-based writing techniques are the backbone of content marketing. When you utilize proven copyright techniques to create your online content, you’ll find readers will:
-subscribe and “like” your content
-share it with their peers
Then it becomes a domino effect. As more people react and share your content, your audience will grow exponentially. It doesn’t matter what your field or demographic is, there is a large audience out there for almost everything. As long as your content is original, fresh, and stands out, the possibilities are endless.
Content Marketing and the Future
There is no doubt that this is just the beginning of an era fueled by content marketing and social media. Businesses have found that adopting new techniques will always keep marketers ahead of the curve, so it always helps to see what fields the experts think will be popular in the future. Some of the building blocks of future content marketing include things like:
–Virtual Reality: It’s already become extremely popular in real estate, entertainment, and sports and the statistics suggest its popularity is drastically spreading into other fields.
–Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI): Because we live in a time fueled by content overload, AI makes content production more predictive, personalized, and efficient.
–Native Advertising: Many experts believe consumers will see a narrower divide between content marketing and native advertising as the latter settles and becomes less intrusive.
–Livestreaming: Livestreaming has been growing in popularity in recent years as it creates an engaging authentic interaction to consumers. These types of relationships are not only convenient but they also build trust.
The list goes on and on, the point here is that there is a plethora of things to pursue within the field of content marketing and as time goes on and technology advances the list will only get bigger. The time to utilize these options is now.
Good Content, Good Results
Successful content marketing relies on good content. It may seem like an obvious statement but the need to focus on content sometimes gets drowned out by other factors such as organization and time management. The content is the heart of this whole strategy so you really want to make sure a good portion of your time and resources are invested into developing a well thought out, new approach to your marketing scheme.
Content transfers over to any form of marketing. Regardless of where you’re coming from or what advertising approach you decide to take, they all have one thing in common and it is the fact that they all rely on engaging and interesting content. The content based aspects of marketing you might want to focus on include:
–Social Media Marketing: Utilizing sites and apps like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc.
–Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Organizing your content in a way that will make it better suited to be ranked on search engines like google or yahoo.
–Public Relations (PR): Making content that addresses things the public cares about
–Inbound Marketing: Using content to drive inbound traffic and generate leads
–Content Strategy: Strategizing an approach and analyzing your intended goals for your content.
At the end of the day, any efforts you put into content marketing are useless without a well developed plan. Once you’ve concluded what you want to achieve and what specific paths you intend to follow then the rest will fall into place.
Imagine your customers genuinely looked forward to seeing your content. What if they not only saw your content but spent several minutes looking over it and engaging with it? What if they shared it with their friends and family and only said positive things about it? All of these are essentially the result of great content marketing. Bryant Digital is a Virginia Beach native company and we specialize in generating leads and sales through ads, managing social media, and content marketing. If you are interested in expanding your businesses’ potential and want to utilize content marketing strategies we would love to hear from you. If you found this reading helpful be sure to also check out our other blogs here.
