Although traditional advertising performs a useful service in that it educates us about certain products and services, it is becoming increasingly evident that traditional advertising has, apart from certain notable exceptions, had its day.
We are bombarded on all sides at all times by advertising hoardings and billboards which we barely glance at, we flip over advertisements in newspapers and magazines, are irritated by pop-ups on line and choose streaming services to avoid our favourite TV programmes being interrupted by advertising.
Yet businesses and organisations still need to promote their products and services, somehow, and in order to do so they need to attract and retain the consumer's attention. We all love a story and content marketing, by telling a story, does just that, by the strategic use of engaging, high-quality content.
It is key that your marketing is relevant to your target audience and catches their attention in a way that feels natural and organic rather than disruptive. Use well researched and informative articles written in an appropriate style and accompanied by eye-catching images and graphics.
To be effective, content marketing should permeate your whole marketing strategy, and take a coordinated approach, including newsletters, blogs, podcasts, infographics, social media posts, and videos, all offering useful and relevant information to attract users to your brand.
The quality of the content is vitally important, make it useful and informative, "How To" style posts are very effective in keeping a consumer's attention engaged as are those that feature celebrities. It is not just about publishing any old piece of content and hoping people will find it. It's about purposefully tailoring your pages, videos, eBooks, and posts to your target audience, so that they come to consider your site as a useful resource. Paid advertisements can do well as part of a content marketing strategy, and can be shared on social media, landing pages, banners, and sponsored content.
Monitor your site traffic carefully, and adjust your strategy through the information your data analytics provides to find out what attracts your target audience and engages their attention. Clicks are all very well, but how long are the audience staying on your page? Are they there long enough to read the article? Analysing the data and adjusting your offering will help you to improve your traffic and your SEO. Targeted, effective content marketing, does just that — and therefore, increases conversions, improves brand awareness, boosts revenue, and establishes you as an industry leader.
Keep the content fresh, don't just rehash previous articles. Keep looking at what you are doing and how you can keep it current, and always be thinking of new ways to create and share content. Remember, your audience is busy with many competing claims on their time and attention, so it is important to catch their interest with compelling story lines, catchy headings, colourful infographics and well written articles.
Infographics are a useful tool when trying to catch your potential customer's attention, as they display content, information, and data in an easy-to-understand, graphic format. With a mix of simple wording, short statements, and clear images, infographics are a great way to effectively communicate your content.
Video marketing is becoming mainstream, but if you are going to go down that route, be sure to use a professional video marketing company. View work they have done for other companies in your sector, and pick someone who takes the time to learn about your company, the message you are trying to send, and who will coordinate the video with your other marketing to present a cohesive, professional picture of your business. Just because Fred in accounts made a really lovely video of his daughter's wedding does not qualify him to produce a professional video! A poor quality or amateurish video will cost you far more in lost reputation in the end, than a professional offering.
But it is always all about content, as far back as 1996, in an article titled "Content is King", Bill Gates wrote:
"If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines".
His closing words were:
"Those who succeed will propel the Internet forward as a marketplace of ideas, experiences, and products – a marketplace of content."