So, you are wondering what is content marketing in concrete
terms?
Basically, for those who are a little less comfortable with
the definitions in English, content marketing represents a strategic marketing approach
that emphasizes the creation and distribution of relevant content, quality and
offering real value to the target audience, with the aim of attracting and
retaining them so that they ultimately become an active and profitable client
or consumers for the company.
In order to bounce back on this definition, many wonder what
is the difference between content marketing and inbound marketing. Is there
really one? The answer is yes, although these two terms are still intimately
linked.
Content marketing represents all the tactics linked directly
or indirectly to content while inbound marketing encompasses the marketing and
sales process from the first contact with the visitor until he becomes a
customer. That being said, it can therefore easily be said that inbound cannot
operate without content marketing.
Conversely, content marketing can work completely without
resorting to inbound. Indeed, a brand can decide to create content to increase
its notoriety or even improve its brand image without having the objective of
generating visitors, leads or even customers.
What is content marketing?
Now that you have a better idea of what content marketing is
in terms of definition, what is it for? What are the objectives behind this
marketing approach?
There are a few like:
Increase brand awareness or strengthen its image;
Increase subscribers to an email list;
Increase traffic to a website;
Generate leads;
Convert consumers into brand ambassadors;
Increase the average shopping basket or the company's sales;
Promote recruitment.
Indeed, there may be other objectives behind this approach;
the important thing is to know yours well in order to keep it in mind when you
develop your content and distribute it. If you do not know why you are
marketing content, it is high time to sit down and ask yourself this question:
how will this project support the business objectives of my organization? If
you realize that the content created will not meet these objectives, perhaps it
is not a priority for your business.
The 4 commandments of content marketing
Now that you know what content marketing is for and you've
figured out the possible goals behind this approach, what are the things you
shouldn't forget?
1. Your audience, you will know at your fingertips
Your audience, your target, your audience, your personas,
call them whatever you want; all that matters is to know them well. In fact, if
when you are asked who your target is and the only answer that comes to your the mind is "everyone", you will not reach anyone or at least no
qualified person. It is, therefore, preferable to take the time to develop your
personas by asking yourself the right questions and doing a little more
research to find the missing information, whether by looking for primary data
(surveys, discussion groups, observations, experiments) or secondary (official
statistics, studies, reports, directories, websites, press articles, existing
customer data).
If your business is in the coffee industry, you will likely
target coffee lovers. However, if you specialize in a latte, you should bet on
content that will interest fans of latte coffees.
By knowing your target audience well, you will be able to
offer them content that will meet their needs and expectations. The key is to
be focused on your target customer rather than your brand or product. This will
make it easier for your business to find out what message it wants to
communicate to its target customers and how it can get there.
2. Best practices for creating content, you will follow
39% of B2B marketers plan to increase their investment in
content marketing in the next 12 months, as do almost 42% of B2C marketers. In
total, that's a lot of companies who believe in this approach and who decided
to invest time, money and effort in 2019.
Do you also want to take part in this trend? In this case,
it's critical to follow the best content creation practices. To start, you
absolutely must use these three tools:
1. A document presenting the content strategy and including
a writing guide;
2. An editorial calendar;
3. An online content production and monitoring tool.
To get started, you need to develop the content strategy
that will help you align all of the content that needs to be created. Most of
the time, in this document, we find among others:
A reminder of the personas;
Goals;
Content types (blog post, newsletter, video, Instagram
posts, etc.);
The tone / editorial line;
The themes to be addressed according to the interests and
issues of the target;
The frequency of publication;
Diffusion channels (platforms);
A list of keywords;
Targeted stages of the purchasing process (awareness,
consideration, decision).
Then, once your content strategy is worked out, it's time to
develop your editorial calendar. This will allow you to position your titles
and types of content over time. You can create one every month or make one
every three months. It can also be created in a collaborative tool like Google
Drive or HubSpot, which allows everyone involved in your project to see what is
coming and comment if necessary.
Finally, an online content production and monitoring tools
such as Gather Content or HubSpot, for example, is a great way to plan your
content, write it, revise it, approve it, and then publish it.
What is especially important to remember in terms of good
practices is that you have to put constant efforts in creating content
otherwise you will experience a failure at one time or another. You should not
think only in terms of campaigns, but rather in terms of relationship with your
customers and consistency. The long term brings results here, even if some
tactics can be implemented in the short term and will nonetheless bet on
maintaining a viable relationship.
3. Quality, you will advocate
One of the most important elements is the quality of the
content that will be produced. It's always better to focus on quality than
quantity when it comes to content. In fact, the more useful and relevant the
content is for your target, the more it will find real value. What is more, the
more your target will have confidence in your brand and your content, the more
you will see growth in terms of acquiring new customers, but also in terms of
their loyalty.
4. The dissemination of content, you will not neglect
One element which is unfortunately often overlooked is the
dissemination of content. Take, for example, a whitepaper developed by a B2B
company. It spent 15 to 20 hours developing it so that it was perfect and that
it helped the target. A landing page was created and the company made a
Facebook post and a LinkedIn post to share it. I regret to announce that this
resource on which you have spent so much time may not generate many results or,
at least, not those you would have thought of.
To honor this resource on which you have put your time and
money, you must promote it in the right way. Indeed, an advertising budget for
Facebook and LinkedIn should be planned and several dissemination efforts via
company employees as well as by sending an email could be deployed. So when we
said earlier to bet on quality and not on quantity, this is a good example.
Focus on creating a good piece of content and promote it as it should be
putting even more effort into broadcasting.
So why should you do it?
The answer to this question is simple. You should do content
marketing in order to have a source of traffic and leads that are much more
profitable, predictable and scalable than other traditional or so-called
outbound marketing tactics.
Furthermore, if you integrate your content marketing
approach into an Inbound Marketing methodology, you will be more profitable. Eh
yes! By doing so, you make sure to integrate visitors or generated leads into a
conversion funnel in order to feed them (lead nurturing) until they become
customers or consumers.
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