What is Content Marketing?
We could talk about content for days, it’s Fenti’s bread and butter. As a digital content marketing agency, we always aim to be transparent with our clients about what goes on behind the scenes – so, we thought an essential content marketing guide would give you a little helping hand!
Research has shown that a whopping 82% of businesses are actively investing in content marketing – with the other 18% unsure whether their company does or surprisingly not investing at all. Which category do you fall into?
In this fundamental guide, we’re touching on all things content marketing strategies, let’s dive right in!
Persona Power: Defining Your Target Audience
One of the first and most important steps for marketing your content is narrowing down your target audience (if you haven’t done so already). Although it would be handy for ‘everyone’ to be your target market, unfortunately, this won’t help guide your content marketing strategies.
But luckily, for many products/services, your primary audience can be pretty obvious, especially if your brand is niche. If you’ve not pinpointed your audience just yet, here are a few handy tips:
- Ask yourself – What problems does your product or service solve? What needs does it address?
- Create a buyer ‘persona’, think of it like an avatar – what is their age demographic, interests, behaviours, challenges, etc?
- Take advantage of website analytic tools to gather specific information for you, e.g., where they live, what content they engage with, and how they use your site.
- As part of your content marketing strategies, use current customers’ data to analyse if they have any similarities and preferences.
- Listen to your customers – what are they saying in reviews, social media, and groups related to your industry?
Why is content marketing important? Once you have refined your audience, it will allow your business to design clear goals and KPIs – meaning more clicks and leads!
Content Crafting 101
There’s a whole world of content types you can delve into to engage your customers and achieve the goals of your content marketing strategies. The most common content choices for brands include social media posts, blog/articles, infographics, videos, podcasts, case studies, press releases, user-generated content (UGC), FAQs – the list goes on.
Steps for planning your weekly/monthly content include:
- Decide on what content types you want to utilise and what your audience will interact with – Did you know, it’s suggested that 70% of consumers now prefer to get their information from blogs over traditional advertising?
- Assign staff members who will be responsible for each task.
- Develop themes that relate to your brand and industry.
- Use a calendar template that works best for you – e.g., Google Sheets, Excel sheets, or specialised platforms.
- Establish a posting schedule – this could be daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Food for thought: 51% of businesses using a content marketing agency publish content daily!
- Include promotions, newsletters, seasonal ideas, and current trends in your content marketing strategies.
- Write killer copy and design scroll-stopping visuals.
- Stay flexible and adapt to any new events or opportunities.
- Choose your distribution channels – Such as social media, email marketing, and website.
What is Content Marketing in SEO?
In today’s day and age, content marketing strategies without keyword and SEO optimisation are like fish without chips. Specifically on websites and with paid advertising, search engines and social platforms aren’t going to get your content to the right people unless optimisation efforts have been performed during the process.
Why is content marketing important in collaboration with SEO? Well, it’s crucial for many reasons, including increased visibility and traffic, enhanced user experience, credibility, cost-effectiveness, data-driven insights, and plenty more. In fact, it’s so fundamental that 78% of B2B marketers are suggested to utilise keyword research when creating their content!
Beyond Content: The Analytics Advantage
The final step in your content marketing journey is using analytical tools and interpreting metrics. By analysing your content’s engagement and conversions, you’ll be able to review if you’ve fulfilled the KPIs of your content marketing strategies.
Website traffic, conversion rates, social media engagement, bounce rate, lead generation, and lots more are all metrics you can measure. From these results you can adapt and refine your content, identifying what your audience loves and what is falling behind.
We hope to have answered plenty of your questions, from ‘what is content marketing?’ to ‘what is content marketing in SEO?’. If any more queries come to mind or you’d like to chat in more depth, we’re just a phone call or email away!
