Content Marketing Campaign Guide
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This document provides an overview of content marketing strategies. It notes that traditional advertising is becoming less effective as consumers avoid ads. Content marketing is presented as an alternative, creating useful content to attract and retain customers while educating them about products and services. The document outlines several content marketing tactics including developing a strong brand identity, starting a blog, creating diverse content like videos and ebooks, and leveraging email marketing and social media to distribute content.
Content Marketing Campaign Guide
- 1. A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
- 2. 2 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns What was the last great television commercial that caught your attention and stuck with you? How many banner ads have you clicked on recently? Print ads? What’s “print”? The fact of the matter is that traditional marketing is just not doing the trick anymore. Consumers are savvy and through technology and new media platforms they’re becoming adept at removing or avoiding commercials and ads altogether. DVR and streaming video allow consumers to skip television commercials, banner and button ads online. They are hardly registering with today’s well- trained web surfers. A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Content Marketing sells the idea of a product Traditional Marketing aims to sell a product
- 3. 3 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns One response has been to become more aggressive with traditional content. More and more websites and businesses are featuring intrusive video commercials or pop-up ads that appear before the website’s content can be accessed. It might be too late though. The genie is out of the box, and putting it back in – returning to traditional ad formats – hardly seems like an effective way of getting the attention of today’s consumers. Instead of the traditional ad for content approach, smart businesses and marketers are recognizing the power of content as advertising. That’s the underlying premise of content marketing, creating and distributing engaging and directed content that’s relevant to your business’s products and services and useful to your target audience. A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
- 4. 4 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns It’s non-interruption marketing that is meant to attract customers and retain them by offering valuable content that they’ll find enriching and that will also educate them about the importance and uses of your products and services. The value of this approach to your business is two-fold. On the one hand, it trains your target audience to think about issues and information related to your products, services and your industry, thereby creating an intelligent and savvy consumer. Secondly, it builds a relationship with your customer. Content marketing is an investment; it functions on the belief that delivering consistent and valuable content to consumers will be rewarded by consumer trust and brand loyalty. A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
- 5. 5 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Content marketing is based around diverse online and digital marketing approaches; it’s reliant on tried and true strategies to get online traffic, and social media shares and virality to fuel it. The great thing about that is it means even small businesses or startups with limited ad budgets can pursue effective content marketing strategies. So let’s dig into how to go about establishing your content marketing campaign and building your brand and business through effective communication with consumers. A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns
- 6. 6 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Before embarking on a rigorous content marketing campaign, you want to make sure that your brand identity is distinct, consistent and well defined. Integral to this is having a clear design to your website and marketing materials. Have a strong logo and a well-designed and easy to use website. Settle upon the type of aesthetic you want to impart to your audience: do you want to have a professional and serious appearance? Or maybe you want a handmade and low-key look? Take the steps to ensure that your business has the appearance that matches how you feel about it. Start by Developing or Solidifying your Brand Identity
- 7. 7 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Next, make sure you have a clear understanding about your view of the importance or use of your products and services and why they are beneficial for consumers. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, any product or service is meant to satisfy or engage a need. Depending on the type of business you’re running, you might consider a mission statement or an “about us” section on your website that details why you think your products and services are important and what they mean to you. Tell the story of your brand, or your vision or understanding of it. Appeal to both the rational and emotional sides of your audience. That’s the first step toward communicating your own pride in your business and expressing your desire to meaningfully engage and benefit consumers. Start by Developing or Solidifying Your Brand Identity
- 8. 8 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Blogs have become a ubiquitous part of a business’s identity and they’re one of the foundational elements in an effective content marketing campaign. By having a blog on your business’s website or affiliated with your business, you establish a space in which to present information that you consider relevant and beneficial to consumers. Have your blog match the character of your website and company and start to establish what kind of content you want presented on your blog. Do you want information and statistics related to your products or industry? Think pieces? Explainer Start a Blog
- 9. 9 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns articles? Testimonials? All the above? Whether you’re producing the content yourself, or having others do it, make sure the content is high quality, informative and well written. You want the language to match the identity and character of your brand. Make sure and include snappy and attention grabbing titles and headlines for your posts. 80% of readers never make it past an article headline, so you need to entice your audience to read on. Headlines that incorporate numbers (“10 Ways to Make Doing Your Taxes Easier”) and directly address readers (“Ways You Can Make Doing Your Taxes Easier”) have been shown to be especially effective. While they can vary in length, aim for 500-700 words per post, which is long enough to provide useful and engaging information, while not deterring your audience by being too time-consuming to read. Start a Blog
- 10. 10 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns While it’s simple enough to start a blog, you need a strategy for increasing traffic to your blog and for engaging your audience in a variety of ways that they consider useful. There are many fundamentals to running a successful blog, but there are some basics to keep in mind from the get go. Above all, maintain high-quality content and post consistently - at least once a week. Learn about search engine optimization (SEO), keywords and tags so that you can ensure that your blog posts appear high on Google and other search results pages. Cite prominent figures in your industry or social influencers, which both adds credibility to your post and also may result in those individuals promoting your blog at some point. Develop a Diverse Array of Content
- 11. 11 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns One of the most effective ways of increasing traffic and appealing to a broad array of consumers is to include images, infographics and especially video in your posts. They’re proven to increase traffic significantly. Explainer videos or animations are an especially popular and well-received kind of video content. They explain your services or products or confusing aspects of your industry, which increases brand trust with your audience. You might feel that longer form writing with in-depth coverage on a specific topic is the most effective way of communicating the relevant content that you want to disseminate. More and more companies Develop a Diverse Array of Content
- 12. 12 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns are publishing Ebooks as part of their content marketing strategy. Ebooks tend to be substantial pieces of content (over 1,500 words) that are detailed and highly educational. You can format and design your Ebook texts and offer them on your site, or for download as a PDF. Offering a substantial piece of content that your audience can download signals to your audience that you take them seriously and are invested in them. Content should be taken seriously; it should be high quality and contain interesting information, otherwise, no matter how many strategies you employ to get traffic, the return on your time and investment will be miniscule. A popular, thoughtful and informative blog Develop a Diverse Array of Content
- 13. 13 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Successful content marketing is all about distribution: getting people to view your content and to continue circulating it. One of the easiest methods to get visitors to look at your content is through email marketing. Include a place on your blog or website where readers and consumers can sign up to be on your email list. If you offer an Ebook, have readers sign up to be on your mailing list before they can download the text. Take Advantage of Email Marketing
- 14. 14 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Weekly or once a month, send a newsletter that informs subscribers about new blog posts, videos, Ebooks and interesting news or articles related to your industry. Keep your emails short and attention grabbing and ensure they focus on promoting useful content rather than attempting to advertise your products. Just like with blog and other content posts, use engaging headlines and make sure your emails are personable and polite. Inform subscribers how often they’ll receive emails when they sign up, and even make it easy for them to opt out if they so choose. Take Advantage of Email Marketing
- 15. 15 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram: these are all distribution networks that you can capitalize on for as part of your online marketing strategy for free. Social media sharing is one of the primary ways businesses get attention and expand their consumer base. It has been shown to improve brand recognition, brand loyalty and brand authority. It increases inbound traffic to your site and leads to better search engine rankings. Social media platforms are also a great way to gain information and feedback from your customers by seeing how they respond to Get the Word Out Through Social Media
- 16. 16 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Get the Word Out Through Social Media your posts and the type of chatter that develops surrounding your products and through social listening. The key is to be active on these networks. Promote your own blog posts with multiple tweets with different teaser quotes from them. Retweet and share interesting articles or information or tweets or posts that you think your audience will find interesting and relevant. Include social media widgets and buttons on your website and on every blog post or piece of content that you publish. That way people who find your content relevant or useful will share it with their networks leading to your content going viral.
- 17. 17 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns Success in content marketing should be based around a few metrics: page views, which is the number of pages viewed on your website in a given period of time, average visit duration, and bounce rate, the percentage of users who visit your website and quickly leave. If these numbers are improving and you’re gaining more unique visitors, then you’re content marketing campaign is succeeding. Just note that even if these numbers are increasing, they might not translate into higher revenue right away. Don’t Automatically Expect Higher Sales
- 18. 18 | A How-To Guide for Content Marketing Campaigns It can take time for you to see the fruits of your content-marketing labor, but if you’re pursuing this alongside other online, digital and traditional marketing you’re likely to find that you’re retaining your customers and growing your consumer base. In addition, content marketing forces you to really reflect on what you consider meaningful and useful to your customers, which will help you continue to shape and improve your business. It takes a lot of work and effort to run an effective content marketing campaign, but the results will be good for your customers and good for your business. Good luck. Don’t Automatically Expect Higher Sales All images are subject to copyright.