You’ve probably heard the famous phrase “content is king”. Yes, when it comes to marketing, content is superior.
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your products or services. As opposed to paid advertisements or push marketing, content marketing by nature is organic, helpful, valuable, and entertaining.
An effective content marketing campaign can help you build trust, generate sales, and cultivate loyalty genuinely without interrupting your audience.
People nowadays want to see more informative emails, blog posts, videos, or any other type of content from brands.
84 percent of consumers anticipate businesses to create more compelling content. People are content-hungry and they expect a lot more out of brands on social media.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 96 percent of the most successful content marketers agree that their organizations have built credibility and trust with their audience through their content.
Based on the study, content creation is the area of content marketing where there has been the most reported increase in spending.
It means that business leaders and marketers are investing in content marketing to gain impact and to establish their brand.
Here are more reasons why your business needs content marketing in 2020.
Content pulls people in
People always look for content on newspapers, TV, and especially on social media. Everyone is always checking their phones, constantly looking for articles, photos, or videos that are worthy of their attention. That’s why content marketing is an essential part of every business.
Whether it’s a blog post, Facebook ad, or a video, content should be a big focus of your brand.
Every piece of content that you release can provide some sort of value, entertainment, and knowledge to the consumers. It’s the easiest way for you to get your target market’s attention in this fast-paced world.
But of course, as marketers, we also know the value of time. You cannot just post anything you want, anytime and anywhere. You need to make sure that you’re creating great content for your target market to capture their attention quickly.
In 2018 KFC had a chicken shortage crisis. Who would have thought that this will happen? But instead of panicking, the public relations and marketing team of this popular fast-food chain took the opportunity to release a witty content strategy – apologizing for what happened.
KFC handled it like a pro. Instead of just releasing a straightforward statement, they launched an online campaign that included a comic reordering the initials of their brand to spell out “FCK.”
By using a pun, KFC was able to catch the attention of consumers through a single piece of content. Internet users even shared it on their social media accounts and said that it’s the “best apology ever.”
KFC’s initial excuse for its shutdown, ie “delivering chicken is complicated!” was so weak. But this apology advert is good pic.twitter.com/7dbph6IRZB
— Elaine Moore (@ElaineDMoore) February 23, 2018
Always remember that whenever you’re publishing any piece of content, it’s gotta be really good to get your consumers’ attention, to make them stop scrolling, click on your post, and convert.
Aside from publishing single catchy posts, one of the best content marketing strategies you can do is creating a Content Pillar.
A content pillar is an informative piece of content on a specific topic that can be broken down into a lot of derivative materials. It can be a video, a blog post, podcast, it can be anything that has a longer form of content with lots of information.
This is what TED Conferences is doing with their content. TED Talks – that’s where they grab their pillar content. They post it on YouTube and their website, then out of this content, they create micro-videos, grab important quotes and create some shareable graphics, transcribe the episode and now they have an article, and the list goes on.
With a single-core content, you can produce various types of content. This system is perfect for any business, small or large.
If you have a good content marketing strategy and you get creative, it can bring in a lot of customers for your business.
It helps increase your brand’s awareness
Content marketing is a great tool if you want to target new clients or you want to reach out more often to your existing audience.
There’s an incredible amount of noise out there because all the other brands, that are smart enough, are also running a content marketing campaign.
Take it from Netflix. The company uses content marketing as an effective instrument to promote their upcoming movies and TV series.
They take advantage of using all the major social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, to market their shows. And they make sure that they are getting the interests of the consumers.
As of writing, Netflix already has 18.9M Instagram followers, 60M likes on Facebook, 6.8M followers on Twitter, and 11.7M YouTube subscribers. Take note that this is only for their US accounts. They have their separate social media pages for other countries.
The streaming giant garnered so many followers because they use content marketing to create noise by posting videos, posters, interviews, and behind the scenes footage. They don’t just rely on a single post or platform.
These various pieces of content encourage their customers to continue their subscription while attracting potential customers at the same time.
If you create tens or hundreds of pieces of content and distribute it across different channels, you can encourage more people to support your brand.
It allows you to maximize the use of technology
Let’s be real, our lives now revolve around technology. It allows you to create an incredible amount of content without spending too much time.
Gone are the days where we spend a lot of effort, time, and money, just to produce and distribute a couple of contents.
Tip: if you don’t have enough equipment, you can use your phone to easily create whatever content you want for your brand.
As a content marketing example, personally, I create content every single day for my LinkedIn and YouTube channel. After filming, I use an app to create micro-videos and share them on my social media channels. It’s that easy. I do it in less than an hour every single day.
On top of that, we also have these produced shows that the Good Monster team edits. So it’s like creating content on top of another content and technology allows us to do that easier than ever. Check the video below.
By setting up an analytics system, you will further understand what the consumer wants, how they feel, and what do you need to change to improve your business.
You’re probably worried about the cost of setting up an analytics system. There are free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and there is also other softwares that may cost you money, but it’s an asset and a real game-changer.
Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been doing business for quite a while, you’ll eventually need to start measuring what’s working and what’s not. The data or information that you can gather will give you an idea of what platforms are performing well with your content.
With the advancement of technology, it’s much easier now to gather data that will improve your brand’s effectiveness.
It’s the 21st century and technology will always be there to help us create content, distribute it, and analyze what’s working. It plays a huge role in the world of marketing and if used efficiently, it can make a big difference.
