Written by: Alisha Shibli
Content marketing is about delivering value. One of the most consumed aspects of a business’ branding and communication strategy is content. Small and large businesses work to generate value and leads through content marketing. By promoting itself through blogs, podcasts, videos, social media, eBooks, etc, a business can effectively attract potential customers for a fraction of the cost of a traditional “push” marketing.
By delivering high-quality content that answers your customer’s questions and pain points, content marketing aims to bring customers to you instead of you chasing them. In this article, we’ll dive into six secrets that can help businesses excel at providing true value through content.
1. Map your journey along with your customer’s
Whether you are someone with an editorial background who has to do the marketing part or a high-performing marketer who now has to create content, many business owners fail to marry the two disciplines, and do not work towards content that improves business results. Some have the tools but no strategy, while others have a clear idea of what kind of content will move the needle but don’t know how to create it efficiently.
Many marketers’ first rendezvous with content marketing often pushes them into a content chaos: they start creating content before creating a strategy. They aren’t aligned with the key stakeholders, internal teams and they work without specific goals or objectives. Marketers need to understand where they are in their content journey and areas that need to be improved.
2. Get involved with stakeholders and internal teams
To create content that builds a relationship with all the stakeholders, internal teams and your audience in general, you need to work towards building a long-term relationship with them. Ask questions to get a deeper sense of everyone’s objectives and then work towards creating your own goals that align with theirs.
- What do they care about?
- What are their current problems and how can you solve them?
- What goals are they chasing and how can you set your goals to align with theirs?
Questions such as these will help you get a sense of in which direction to move.
3. Tell a story: storytelling is key to content marketing
Has it ever happened that you are sharing good-quality content consistently, but there hasn’t been much activity on it? Chances are it’s because while your content gives useful information, it isn’t engaging. When creating something, think about consumers. Brands nowadays are starting to shift their focus on how content can be used to build engagement with a number of audiences, including their employees, corporate boards, investors, etc. One of the touchpoints in brand-storytelling is the choice of domain names. Through word-play and creativity in your domain name with the help of new domain extensions, you can give a glimpse of your brand’s story to your customers and lead them ahead.
Some of the new domain extensions that you can consider for your business are .TECH, .STORE, .SITE, .SPACE, .ONLINE, .FUN, .PRESS, etc. Here’s how you can use them:
- If you have a tech business, you could use a domain name such as breakinto.tech. Owing to its meaning and message, the customers will already have the brand’s story in mind when they land on the website or the blog
- If you have an online store, you could use a name such as thatmerch.store. This will help your customers understand the brand’s persona and purpose even before they get to the website.
- If you have a brand name in place and need to find a domain name that matches it exactly, you could consider .SITE. Let’s say, the name of your business is ‘Corner Bakery Cafe’. With .SITE, you can get cornerbakerycafe.site as its domain – it’s neat, memorable and graceful. When customers, who might have seen or heard about the cafe, wish to look it up online, they are likely to search for ‘corner bakery cafe site / website’. Therefore, www.cornerbakerycafe.site works in favour of the business because, as a meaningful domain, it easily permeates in the customer’s mind.
4. Create high-performing content with high-performing content marketing tools
Having a platform that keeps your strategy documented and goals defined helps you keep them on top of mind. It ensures that the content is optimized for maximum engagement, SEO and most importantly, business revenue. A good platform helps you foresee opportunities and challenges so that you can make the most of the opportunities and address the challenges. Content performs best when it supports the overall strategy, build relationships and improves purchase considerations.
5. Align content Marketing goals with business goals
For content marketing to work, it needs to be a part of the overall marketing strategy. As a factor, content must play a vital role in achieving the business’ overall marketing goals. Understand what the business wants to achieve in a given period of time and then plan your content strategy in a way that supports those objectives.
For example, a travel website can share blog posts on travel destinations, tourist spots, holiday checklist etc with a call to action that encourages people to either visit the website or book a vacation.
6. Small businesses can take small steps with content marketing
A mistake most small business make is that they try to launch their content marketing programs by giving the entire project from planning and strategy to creation and execution in the hands of a few people. There is an expectation of content creation to start immediately and the people involved are forced to play catch-up as soon as they start. An approach like this can rarely ever succeed. For content marketing to give results, it is important that a solid foundation is in place. One substantial piece of content that is thoughtfully produced can be repurposed and used as a base for additional products.
Now you know the secrets, so get cracking!
Whether it’s one long, well-researched piece, or multiple small content pieces, by ensuring that whatever you create is of the highest quality you will increase the chances of achieving maximum results for your team and your business overall.
