Marketing in the digital world is an essential tool to any business, helping distinguish yourself far apart from any competitors and winning loyalty from consumers. Yet for the consumer, it has become overwhelming with an onslaught of sales pitches and irrelevant ads. The only way in today’s market to be considered is to break away from this noise through useful content relevant to their lives. 

Due to this fact, content marketing has been recognised as a vital strategy for businesses to draw in, engage, inform, and, most importantly, convert this intended audience. 

A content marketing strategy must establish expertise; conveying this through videos, literature, emails, or podcasts is essential to raising the correct brand awareness. Instilling in your audience the reputation of your brand as a thought leader in the industry, building trust with your quality and opinion. 

As this is one of the more effective marketing strategies, the difficulty with content marketing is that it’s competitive and ever-developing. To achieve an effective strategy, marketing executives must consistently review their efforts & the market to ensure they are generating the correct relevant content that gains actions from their target audience.  

Content Marketing Strategy: What Could It Possibly Be? 

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Put simply, it is a plan for researching, creating, publishing, and then distributing content that must be useful/valued by current and potential customers. There are many varying types of content: 

  • Blogs posts 
  • Guides 
  • Social media posts 
  • Emails 
  • Books 
  • Videos 
  • Talk shows/podcasts 

This may seem daunting and overwhelming to devise a strategy using so many possible tools. To investigate these forms of content more and see which stand out best for you, please click here. While there are many tools to use, a good content strategy focuses at its core on the following: 

  1. Defined Objectives: What results should your content achieve? What are the goalposts? I.e., a growing audience, better customer retention, or improved brand authority? 
  2. Audience Research: Who is your content for? Their lifestyle, interests, and demographics. 
  3. Form of Content: The forms of content you will produce to increase your business’s visibility. 
  4. Promotion: How you will publish, distribute, and promote this content so it reaches and is shared by your target audience. 

The Benefits of Content Marketing  

Content marketing builds a relationship with the consumer in the first instance, as it provides value to them without a transaction, cutting through the noise of advertisements and spam by offering information or entertainment in their interests. 

The benefits offered: 

  1. Adding to your authority: Content has drastic effects on improving authority and reputation as a thought leader; these are beneficial to improve your presence on Google and build trust with consumers.
  2. Generating loyalty & relationships: A core goal for any marketing strategy is to generate repeat orders. Producing content that consistently informs the consumer earns trust in your expertise, quality, and goodwill. 
  3. Increase in conversions & leads: Providing easy-to-access & understand information influences potential customers greatly as they can make an informed decision & continue their journey immediately. Publishing content that understands the customer’s needs and pain points translates to higher conversion rates. 

Why have a marketing strategy? 

Ensures that your content is constantly aligned with the business’s goals. Content that is produced must provide value; do not waste resources or time. 

Having a plan streamlines the project: production and publishing schedules, setting KPIs, promoting worker accountability, & budgeting. 

Analysis and improvement: the key to any campaign is the ability to review progress, evaluate its performance, and optimise the content you are publishing through research with content adjustments.

Content Marketing Types & Examples of Successful Strategies 

Red Bull’s Extreme Sports Campaign  

Red Bull to become synonymous with the lifestyle of their target market, athletes and adventurers, began a content campaign so successful it created a subsidiary media company. 

Creating a strategy of videos & posts of their stunts, pushing the limits of what is possible, or simply answering immature questions such as can a world rugby team win a scrum against an F1 car? Can you surf using a motorbike? Can you skydive from space? How cool would a wingsuit flying through London Bridge look like?

All this content established Red Bull’s goodwill and trust in the market as bold adventurers loyal to the extreme sports lifestyle, greatly increasing their brand awareness and market presence. 

Spotify Wrapped 

One of the most successful cases of content marketing that generates brand loyalty & increased market share yearly is Spotify Wrapped, a report on user’s top genres, artists, years, and their own personalised playlist of their top songs. This drove people to use their service as they wanted their own report; it also became a trend to share these reports on their own social media, which made Spotify trend organically on all social media platforms, pulling in traffic and generating sales. 

 

These are examples from prominent brands, but small to mid-sized organisations globally are implementing similar strategies to promote brand loyalty to their consumer base and gather more potential customers. 

Content Marketing Strategies – The Bottom Line 

Content marketing strategies, aside from the usual project management & protecting your investment, keep your published content useful and relevant. 

Read that again, useful and relevant. 

Regardless of the form of content, keeping it relevant and useful to the consumer is the key component needed for success, differentiating yourself from the thousands of other companies only looking to sell instead of build. 

This marketing strategy aims for your emails to be received with interest and your content to be engaged with/shared amongst like-minded consumers. Content marketing is one of the strongest strategies available to a business, as the only way to reach your target audience these days is to reach them in a manner that interests and serves them. 

Developing a Content Marketing Strategy 

Content marketing is a valued strategy for nearly every business online, but getting started is the hardest part, so it is crucial to take your time developing a strategy. If you are ready to plan your content marketing strategy, we can help. Check out this guide where you’ll learn from our experts on: 

  • Creating and Developing a Content Marketing Strategy 
  • Useful Resources 
  • Useful Tools for Content Marketing Strategies 
  • Developing a Winning Strategy 

If you would rather an experienced agency handle your content marketing strategy, saving you time and helping you improve leads, then use our strategy services offered page or  request an audit to find out how POLARIS can help you. 

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