Three Content-Related Marketing Questions You Might Be Asking Yourself
Content marketing is about using different forms of content to promote the brand, while establishing its reputation as a thought leader. Succinctly, successful content marketing means speaking to your audience and delivering what that audience needs.
As a brand, you can use blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc., for various marketing goals. The proliferation of content marketing can take place on social media, owned platforms or earned platforms. Typically, there are different types of marketing objectives, like increasing awareness or reaching a targeted niche, but ultimately the main goal is to improve the bottom line. Putting aside the objectives and benefits of content marketing, there are more specific questions you might ask yourself.
How does content marketing differ from typical product marketing?
A lot of content is not meant to be directly promotional — its purpose is to be helpful. Imagine a consumer brand: their content strategy might not be built around blogging, but focused instead on a social network, like Instagram. They aren’t necessarily publishing the latest on their particular product. Instead, they might be looking to engage their audience by giving tips that match the product: e.g. as a wellness brand, it could be tips about eating healthy.
Brand affinity is at the center of content marketing. The customer is more inclined to purchase from a company because the brand is a trusted source of information. Content marketing is less promotional than other forms of marketing. However any other type of marketing, whether it’s event marketing or PR, can be enhanced with content.
How do you decide which medium is fitting depending on a specific goals?
The decision on what medium to choose depends on both, the goal and the audience. Clearly, you want to publish on platforms where your audience is. When you’re not sure, test it out with different mediums. Next, ask yourself what the goal of the content is — what action are you trying to stimulate?
B2B brands can leverage LinkedIn for action-driven campaigns, as it allows serving a sponsored post to the target audience. Consumer brands can take advantage of trends on social media, for example Instagram, especially if the product is visually appealing.
When you have multiple audiences, how do you make sure you’re connecting to each one?
A company that has one type of customer still has to consider other audiences like employees, the media or stakeholders. You want everyone to speak about the company in the same way, but you have to connect to each audience differently.
This is why planning is so important. Planning is sometimes ignored, but it’s a vital part of content strategy that you shouldn’t skip. Planning helps you figure out what to say to every of these audiences and when.
Planning is an on-going process and evolves as the company grows. Analyzing and documenting the content strategy as the company progresses creates a roadmap for planning along the way.
