What is needed to communicate with potential customers and clients?
Yes, content is needed in different forms.
Without content, how will we talk to our target audience?
Why is content marketing so important?
If you think about it, it's no wonder that content marketing has become so big in recent years. In this blog post, I'll tell you why content is such an important ingredient in marketing. Because there are several different parameters to consider and take into account.
In recent years, our shopping habits have changed somewhat enormously. Thanks to or because of digitalisation (depends on how you look at it), we have changed our behaviour when it comes to buying things. We are now more willing to find out things for ourselves (research) before we decide to contact a seller or a company. With information so readily available, this has become a natural part of our buying journeys.
Content Marketing and Search Engines
According to research, 90% of all shopping trips start with a Google search. That's an incredible amount! This means that presence on Google, for example, is very important to have an opportunity to snap up potential business. Having said that, let's not forget Youtube, the second largest search engine owned by Google.
So what does it take to have the opportunity to rank well on Google or be seen on YouTube? Well, you need content. Really good content that helps your potential customers make the right decisions. So what kind of content is needed? It depends on your target audience. Who are they? What are their pains? What are their needs? How do they consume content? Do they read texts, do they like videos, do they listen to podcasts or do they look at images etc... The search engines out there really like really good content that helps users who are out there searching and looking for different things.
Social Media and Content Marketing
Social media is growing like wildfire. Or at least some channels such as LinkedIn. According to Swedes and the Internet, 83% of the population uses social media on a daily basis. That's an awful lot! Hello! A bit scary when you think about it actually. So apart from cute cat videos and keeping tabs on what our mates are up to, what are we looking at?
Well, we follow different people/companies and consume their content. We follow companies and people who inspire us in our personal and business lives. Many consume content that is educational and inspirational. Something that most of us have in common is that it's really fun to learn new things. I think it's when we stop learning that we die a little inside.
So, what does it take to maintain a strong position on Social Media? Exactly, it takes content! Different types of content such as educational articles, videos, images, animations and more.
But before you start producing a hell of a lot of cat videos, find out what channel your target audience is on and what triggers them.
A good idea is to look at statistics from Swedes and the Internet. It will help you a lot when setting your Social Media plan.
Ads and Content Marketing
Even if our buying habits have changed in recent years, we may actually be affected. Traditional advertising in both old media and digital works. Okay, if we disregard the likes of Coca Cola who spray advertising everywhere to get into our minds, it is actually possible to reach out with your message.
Here it's just a matter of thinking and adapting the content as best you can to the target group. It is better to target smaller audiences with a spot-on message than to shoot broadly. Whether you advertise in a newspaper, on a news site, on social media, in a search engine such as YouTube or in another channel, you need content. It requires images, text, video and more.
Account Based Marketing and Content
What is Account Based Marketing (ABM)? That's a good question :-) You probably have a list of companies you'd love to work with. This list certainly contains various decision makers who are most often involved in a purchase decision.
If you are selling more complex services or products, there are bound to be several decision-makers involved in a future deal. The idea of ABM is to find out what challenges these decision-makers face. What are they thinking about these days? What are their pains? What are their needs and from this develop content that talks about this but also provides a solution to their problem.
For example, a CEO may be struggling with how to increase the efficiency of employees. You might sell a tool that helps increase employee engagement and then increases efficiency. Then you should develop content that addresses the CEO's challenges and then suggest solutions to the problem.
This can be created in the form of an article or a video that is then advertised to the selected decision-makers. For example, you can advertise on LinkedIn to a specific company and to specific decision makers at these companies. This way you can target the message and open the door to your dream customers.
Social Selling and content
You've probably heard about Social Selling and how it's great for sales people to sell more. In my world, Social Selling is like putting the icing on the cake. Hardcore selling will always work, but as it gets harder and harder to reach decision makers, you need to use multiple channels to reach them. In this case, LinkedIn works very well.
However, what I hear very often from sellers is. What should I share and when should I have time to write this? Very good question. Of course, it's challenging to maintain a good activity and presence on LinkedIn but that's where the marketing function comes in. If the marketing department develops posts and articles for the sellers to share and send to various decision makers then their Social Selling will be able to flow smoothly. But this requires content :-).
If you want to learn more about Social Selling, I've recorded a 30-minute course with lots of tips and tricks here:
Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing
I don't know if you know what Inbound Marketing is? So I'll pull it out a little quickly here. It's about people finding you through, for example, a Google search or via Social Media. This person then ends up in a so-called Marketing Funnel. If you want to know more about what a Marketing Funnel is, click here. This means that a person ends up in an already set process with different steps.
The idea is to lead the person through a journey filled with lots of interesting content and then at the end help them to convert in different ways. Either by downloading a guide, booking a demo or buying something directly. In order to succeed with Inbound Marketing, you need lots of content in different forms. Blog posts, white papers, emails, ad copy, landing page text and thank you page text.
Measurement, Data and Content Marketing
When it comes to digital marketing, it's incredibly important to collect data, measure and analyse. Without data we have nothing...NOTHING! It's data that allows you to measure the ROI of different efforts, see what's working and what's not, and provides answers to how you can best optimize.
But what does it take for us to capture the data?
Well, you need content in the form of ads, blog posts, articles, videos, images, guides, white papers, etc. This content needs to be posted on your website and pushed out on social media and advertised so that you can start to see things happening and for data collection to begin. Without content there is no data!
Summary of Content Marketing
As you may have gathered, getting your digital marketing off the ground requires content of various kinds. If you, as a marketing manager, can get really good production of ongoing content, you'll have a much easier time getting your marketing up and running in a good way.
If you need help with content production, check out our template calculator here: Build your own MaaS content!
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