Content That Wins In The Digital World

You are a wealth manager. You are one of the speakers at the wealth management conference. Your competitor company has sponsored the event. They have put up banners, standees and a stall to create awareness about their services. The participants of the conference are high net-worth individuals.

During your talk, you shared some of the case studies of how you managed the wealth and benefited the clients.

After your talk, the participants gathered near the podium to get your visiting card. Your competitor who is the sponsor of the event struggles to get the footfall of the participants at their stall. People are gathered near your stall to know more about your offerings.

Just because you gave a talk which is quite insightful for the audience, they are attracted towards you and your stall. This is a pull or inbound marketing. This is an example of content marketing.

You have added value to the participants’ life before seeking any return favour in the form of sell. You have created a trust and authority among your target audience

Your competitors might be spending lots of money as a sponsor of the event. But their focus is only selling. This will not yield the desired result. This is the difference between digital marketing and content marketing. This is the difference between traditional marketing and content marketing.

“These days, people want to learn before they buy, be educated instead of pitched.” Brian Clark

Digital Marketing is creating signposts on digital platforms making people aware of the company product and services and bringing people to the company website.

• Content Marketing is about a restaurant teaching recipe.
• Content Marketing is about an insurance company teaching the target audience about retirement planning and risk management.
• Content Marketing is about a bank educating the target audience about money management.
• Content Marketing is about a hospital creating health and wellness awareness with rich educative content.

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When a company does digital marketing, they aim to bring people to their website by creating awareness. There are two possibilities.

1. A company which does only digital marketing without content marketing, website visitors will see only about the company and its offerings. They will only see marketing messages.
2. A company which does digital marketing along with content marketing, website visitors will not only see about the company, its offerings but also educative /interesting and valuable content which the visitors are interested in.

Visitors may not be interested to buy immediately but would be attracted by the interesting and relevant content. They would be happy to share their visiting card i.e. email ID. This is a very important achievement for any website.

Visitors would think the company is interested in solving the target audience’s problem and not just selling.

The content-driven website would have a free ebook or valuable downloadable for the visitors whereas only sales driven website would have product and demo related downloadable.

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The content-driven website would think about the buyers’ journey and buyers’ persona to create targeted content valuable for them. Only Digital Marketing driven company focuses on immediate buyers.

The content-driven company thinks what their target audience is interested in.

Content Marketing and Digital Marketing both are important aspects of marketing. But content-driven marketing focuses on the target audience whereas digital marketing is only about the company and its products.

Here is the example of the leaders of content marketing.

Why a Hospital is creating content about a recipe? They also educate about the health conditions and possible treatment. This is Cleveland Clinics leader in the healthcare content marketing.

Ally Bank is creating content about Healthier living. They are educating website visitors about money management. They are the pioneers of content marketing in the banking industry.

Lemonade an Insurance company is creating content about the Weekend in Portland and healthier relationship with your phone. They also create content about their purpose-driven initiatives.

Johnson & Johnson is creating content on various subjects which include healthy vision, about cancer, stroke and various other relevant subjects.

Mr. Porter online retailer is creating content about culture and gift guides. They have a weekly online journal where they create valuable content.

Liberty Mutual Insurance has tied up with Howstuffworksto generate content about various things target audience on the site would want to master.

Santander Bank is heavily focused on content marketing. Their website has blog posts on the subjects like home renovation, how to downsize your lifestyle, gift buying, and money management for the newlyweds.

The above examples indicate where the leading companies are investing to grab the attention of their target audience in the online world. Heavy reliance only on digital marketing is not going to help is it isn’t backed by relevant, contextual, and valuable content.

It is time you review your website to make it content and target audience driven from product and company-centric content. Remember you are competing with the competitors who are creating valuable content.

“Stop selling. Start helping.” Zig Ziglar, Author and Motivational Speaker

Fortunately, unlike in the physical world, in the online world, you don’t need to be invited as a speaker at the conference to establish trust and authority. You can do it on your website itself by creating content which interests your target audience.

Digital Marketing is an invitation to the target audience to your website to make them aware of your offerings, generate interest and leads.

When you invite someone to the party, you make sure the guests would have a good experience. Your focus is on guests’ interest. Your preparation is with this sole focus. You don’t do what you like but you do what your guests like.

Your digital marketing invitation has to match with the onsite content to create the desired impact on the website visitors. This is possible only when they see you as a company interested to solve their problem and not just pushing sales. Your content marketing initiatives can create this remarkable difference.

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SEO audit is necessary but before SEO you need to have TAFO i.e. Target Audience Focused Audit of your website. This is because most company websites are self-focused neither adding any value to the visitors’ life nor ready to capture their contact details.

“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” Tom Fishburne, Founder of Marketoonist

In this attention and trust deficit world, when a company does something for the target audience which is valuable and help them solve their problem, yield better returns than any other form of marketing.

Remember in the online world, marketing is not about company talking to the people but it’s people talking about the company. They will do it when you do something remarkable. Remarkable content and remarkable experience.

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