2023’s Best Content Marketing Techniques For Your Business
One of the best sustainable marketing techniques you can always go right with is content marketing. From time immemorial, business owners have created awareness through content, and it is here to stay.?
However, it keeps evolving and improving with new storytelling methods. And why do you think content marketing only gets better? Because it has never been about selling. Consumers appreciate and reward educative, informative, and entertaining content.
But why content marketing if it’s not about selling? Content marketing actually sells. However, selling isn’t the main goal. The main goal of content marketing is to create awareness through valuable content. In other words, it is telling your story.
There are different ways of telling your story, and the kind of storyteller you are determines whether your audience remains attentive or leave while you are still speaking. So you shouldn’t be surprised that sometimes your target audience just ignores your content.
Like a movie, you can have a 2-hour single movie that turns out so boring that you only watch the first 10 mins or skip parts of the movie. Yet you can watch a movie series with over five seasons and still yearn to watch the next season.
So, which techniques can you invest in to tell your business’s story in a compelling, consistent and motivating manner? We’re going to discuss this. But before then, why would you even want to do content marketing?
Why Content Marketing?
Like the Ocean with different types of fish is the marketing space with different marketing strategies. And content marketing is just one of the strategies. So, before looking into the techniques to adopt, you want to ensure it aligns with your business goals.
Here are some of the reasons for doing content marketing:
You will agree that one of content creators' top priorities is improving the relationship between the business owner and the target audience. But why would improved engagement matter?
Your relationship with your target audience, even your customers, matters as much as every dollar matters. The customer journey heavily relies on engagement, from learning about your business to conversion.
You want to engage with your target audience to understand their pain points, obtain feedback concerning your products or services and adjust to solve their problems. And it’s a different level of engagement regarding potential customers and your customers.
As for your potential customers, you want to understand what makes the difference between your offering and your competitor’s offering. So, you are developing a personalized engagement that addresses the potential customer’s fears to instil confidence and trust.
Customer retention! How about engagement with your customers? You want to understand your customer’s level of satisfaction lest they consider buying from your competitors.
So, while increasing brand awareness and driving more revenue to your business remains a priority, content marketing significantly improves engagement and ensures business continuity.
Undoubtedly, there is no reaching a wider audience if you’re not interested in creating brand awareness. And how will you attract more leads if you are not making your target audience aware of your business?
Inarguably, content marketing is the major challenge to creating brand awareness. The internet is clogged with the content of almost every brand owner trying to create awareness of their business.
Realize only a few businesses rank on top for a particular keyword, and with more than ten pages to scroll, there is little to zero traffic getting to the second page. So, would you choose to avoid content creation because of the competition?
The competition can be intimidating, but the result of increased visibility is worth striving to remain at the top. After all, who will buy from you if your target audience doesn’t know you exist in the first place??
Nevertheless, whether to invest in content creation or not is solely your decision. But if you are ready to dive into the challenge, let’s discuss the content marketing techniques to help tell your business story.
Storytelling Techniques
Telling your story in 2023 differs from what you did in 2022. Everything, including your target audience’s tastes and preferences, is changing. What worked for them yesterday may not work today. So, you want to adopt valuable techniques in the current season.
Here are some of the well-thought techniques to spice your content marketing strategy:
Mapping Content To Your Audience
Before delving into your business, you conducted market research to understand the competition within which you are operating and your target audience. You also identified your target audience’s pain points and the gaps in your competitor’s strategy to invest the difference.
So, you are creating content to reach your target audience based on your research, which is insufficient to justify your target audience’s demands. However, that’s a good start since you can better engage your audience and understand them.
The customer journey from discovery to conversion is quite bumpy, and if you are unsure of the bumps to expect, it can be daunting. A potential customer will see your content today and appreciate that they learned about your business.
However, that potential customer may only make a buying decision after seeing your ad or a friend recommends your business. What does that tell you? That there is more to creating awareness.
When your target audience discovers your business, they understand who you are. But you only get to understand who they are once they subscribe to your email list or newsletter.?
It is critical to understand your target audience well enough to tell their preferences and behavior. Consideration is the second stage of your customer journey that demands personalized engagement for a deeper connection and improved conversion rate.
Once you have understood your audience, you want to develop targeted content based on the following categories:
One of the most effective ways of establishing the different categories of your audience based on the customer journey is creating a customer avatar that resembles the example given here;
But why would you want to map your content to a target audience? You want your target audience to know you can connect with their fears and questions. By mapping your target audience to specific content, you are creating a personalized experience.
Evergage found that 92% of marketers say customers and prospects expect a personalized experience, and 99% of marketers found a personalized experience to advance engagements and strengthen customer relationships with the business owner.
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Hence, creating targeted content for a personalized experience and advanced customer engagement is one of the most effective content marketing techniques you can adopt in 2023.
Here you can learn more about mapping your content to the customer journey and how to drive a personalized experience at each customer journey stage.?
Use Social Media?
Another way to do effective content marketing is by using your social media accounts to tell your story. With social media, you can achieve one or all of the following forms of content marketing:
While 38% of consumers trust branded products on social media, 61% prefer influencer recommendations to make a purchase decision.
Influencer marketing adopts top content creators in a specific niche to create awareness, increase traffic and drive more revenue to your business. Besides word of mouth, influencer marketing uses social proof to add credibility to a product or service.
There is a difference between a brand influencer and a brand ambassador, and both are a great way of doing content marketing when responsibly exploited.
While a brand influencer has a large following with a vested interest in a specific niche, a brand ambassador is hired to represent a company’s products or services through their lifestyles on a contractual basis.
Significant brand influencers include:
You can engage in a wide range of activities with brand influencers on social media to drive more traffic and hence more revenue to your business.
Thankfully, every social media platform is dedicated to a specific use. Depending on your business goals and target audience, you can choose the best social media platform to invest in and meet your content marketing needs.
You can interview key opinion leaders to gather honest views and their thoughts concerning an area of interest from your target audience that aligns with your business.?
Though the content can be solely informative rather than selling, it establishes credibility for your business and instils confidence and trust.
Blog influencers can be useful, especially when you want to create brand awareness, whether you are new in the market or you want a wider audience reach.
It can be risky working with influencers since some large followers are purchased accounts which may not reward your investment with the desired ROI. Hence, it is important to research and establish your goals before investing in influencer marketing.
You can learn how to work with influencers to drive more revenue to your business through your social media accounts.
Besides influencers, you can also create informative, educative, and valuable content on social media. When your target audience finds your content valuable, they can share it with friends and attract more visibility.
Doing Video Marketing
Video marketing continues to gain prominence with the introduction of new platforms such as TikTok and new technologies such as Google Bumper Machine.?
Since large videos can be demotivating, short clips are valuable in communicating the important details of large video or textual content. Such clips convey the message in the shortest time possible and ignite the user’s curiosity to learn more about the highlights.
Short videos are also easy to remember, and if your target audience had come across your content earlier but didn’t take action, they can serve to remind them of the desired action. YouTube Shorts, Instagram and Facebook Reels and TikTok videos are such clips.
You can spice your video with an aspect of influencer marketing and Search Engine Optimization to effectively reach your target audience.
Podcasting
The last technique I am sharing with you in this article is podcasting. Whether you are the host or have partnered with a host in your niche, you can create awareness and build credibility for your business.
Think of influential leaders in your business niche, experts in your industry and thought leaders. These people can influence your audience’s perspective concerning your business, and you can engage them through interviews.
Your target audience wants to establish the credibility of your business. If you can invest in sharing valuable content more than marketing, your efforts will finally sell on your behalf.?
Also, based on FAQs from your target audience, you can use podcasting to answer all the questions concerning your business and keep your target audience alert of when you will be addressing their concerns.
Final Highlights
Whichever technique you invest in for your content marketing, consistency is important. The internet is a small space where almost every business competes for visibility. So you want to ensure that you remain outstanding.
If you are inconsistent, you shouldn’t be surprised that your competitors are miles ahead of you. Your prospect’s email list could be similar to your competitor's, and the consistency and personalized experience make the difference.
Again, flexibility is significant. If your techniques don’t seem fruitful, you can find out what could be failing and adjust. The only way to establish your performance is through measuring. What are your KPIs?
If you don't measure your performance, you will never know when your marketing technique is failing. And if you are unsure how to measure your performance or need help with your content marketing techniques, we can help you tell your story.