EXPLORING THE REALMS OF CONTENT MARKETING

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.”

These were the words of Seth Godin, an incredible author, speaker, and entrepreneur. Have you ever thought how far we have come ahead? Today we live in a digital era wherein the internet has undoubtedly transformed our modes of consuming information. You simply can’t deny that the conventional forms of marketing have somehow become less effective in engaging their target audience. Instead, content marketing has been a buzzword for quite some time now.

So what is this content marketing all about?

It is a marketing technique that focuses on creating, planning, and distributing meaningful content to reach a specific pool of people. Now speaking of meaningful content, it should incorporate three important qualities. It should be valuable, relevant, and consistent. Only then can a business reach its desired goals of engaging prospects and improving brand awareness.

Why is content marketing crucial?

Have you heard the proverb Content is king? Content marketing is not just a scope of outshining yourself from your competitors. It has become an important commodity for new businesses. To help you develop a better understanding, let me further highlight some of its key features:

·        Creating a unique brand identity

Source: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/why-is-content-marketing-important/#:~:text=Content%20marketing%20helps%20to%20improve,make%20an%20educated%20purchasing%20decision.

Great content directly contributes to the reputation building of a brand. Moreover, for a business to thrive, it is vital to building trust with its consumers. Content marketing helps you gain this trust. This is perhaps one of the biggest advantages of content marketing.

·        Content marketing boosts the conversions

Source: https://vitalbriefing.com/content-marketing-roi/

If you have a website of your own then content marketing can notably improve the conversion rates. Wondering why so? This is because it provides you with the option of educating your potential customers about the products/services you have to offer. This enables customers to take educated purchase decisions, thus boosting conversion rates.

·        Content marketing is cost-effective

You must be aware that for a business to grow and boost its sales, lead generation is vital. Content marketing not only covers this aspect but it also is affordable. It is especially beneficial for small businesses that want to expand their budget.

Source: https://www.ecommercecompanies.com/ecommerce-marketing-strategies/

Now that you have an overall idea about the importance, let us dive into a few content marketing stats that every marketer must be aware of:

·42% of B2B marketers mention that they efficiently indulge in content marketing.

·According to the 2014 reports, custom content had been the top priority for around 57% of the marketers.

·Traditional marketing is more expensive than content marketing. The latter is 62% less than that of traditional marketing practices.

·Content marketing produces 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing.

·At least one piece of valuable content is created by 60% of the marketers daily.

·48% of the most productive B2B marketers document their content strategy.

Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/38-content-marketing-stats-that-every-marketer-needs-to-know/

Though several brands have incorporated the ideologies of content marketing, not all are good at it. Why do you think that happens? Below are listed four insightful examples of content marketing.

1.     Cisco

Content marketing has always embraced the idea of story-telling. And what better way to do so than engaging your influential customers? Cisco came up with a brilliant technique to enable its valuable audience and encouraged them to express themselves. It invited around 20 ambassadors from numerous locations for an online brainstorming session. They discussed the means to target a specific group of Cisco’s audience i.e. the members of Generation Z. This methodology which targeted the youth helped them express their creative ideas, thus promoting Cisco’s brand story.

Source: https://blogs.cisco.com/wearecisco/creative-techies-designing-the-new-wearecisco-graphic

2.     Pic’s Peanut Butter

Pic’s Peanut Butter happens to be one of the small businesses which implemented an efficient strategy of content marketing to take their brand presence to new heights. When you come across their website, you would find an array of mouth-watering recipes that utilize their products. Even their Instagram feed looks so amazing. The inter-related images along with the well-structured content stand out to be a part of their brand identity.

As per the stats provided by Hootsuite, in one year their followers had increased from just 3000 to a whopping 10,000. Any guesses to justify this hike? Well, one of their masterpieces includes their one-day campaign on an April fool’s day. They utilized their social media platforms and came up with a unique post. It had a snap of a peanut butter jar that had lids on both sides. They symbolized it to give their customers the ease of eating every last bit of the product. Soon their post had a reach of over 11,200 with 2209 clicks, 26 shares, 57 comments, and 456 likes. Pic’s cohesive style of content and its creativity perked the interest of its customers.

Source: https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/small-business-content-marketing-examples/

3.     Superdrug

Let’s talk about an example that combined both social media and publishing placements to engage its audience. Superdrug is one such company that came up with the “Perceptions of Perfection Across Borders” campaign (June 2015) to raise awareness against body image. The company invited 18 graphic designers (who belonged to different regions of this world) and asked them to edit a snap of a woman to make her look more attractive. Now each of the retouched images was distinct. Once Superdrug published the results, things that followed were publications, international coverage, celebrity endorsements, and a multitude of engagement.

There were around 3 million views on their post and over 33,000 people had shared the same on Facebook. Moreover, Superdrug attracted over 1 million views to their website, just in 5 days. How did all of this work? One of the potential answers to this question remains the fact that body image is such a controversial issue. It has an emotional appeal to it which was aptly utilized by the company. Besides, the body positivity movement was gaining momentum in 2015 which means there were more journalists to cover this major issue. Superdrug’s main aim was to highlight that the notion of a perfect body does not exist. And it expressed it well through this campaign.

Source: https://ahrefs.com/blog/content-marketing-examples/

4.     Tasty

You must be aware of Buzzfeed’s food channel Tasty right? Tasty has incurred over 4 billion views and 19.2 million subscribers on YouTube since its inception in July 2015. How do you think it became one of the largest social food networks? Tasty’s massive empire can be related to its content marketing strategy. Starting from a unique video format to consistent quality content and eye-catching YouTube thumbnails, Tasty surely knows how to engage its audience. One of the biggest takeaways from this example is to learn from your target audience and make insightful content based on this knowledge. Coming up with amazing shows like Make it Fancy, Worth It, I draw you Cook, and Making It Big, etc. Tasty has certainly built up a large fan-base.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Tasty/dp/B07BLK7SCR

To sum it all up, content marketing proves to be a powerful tool in the fast-paced digital ecosystem. There is an array of options you can work with when you start exploring this world of content marketing. So get creative and tell a good story of your own!