Content marketing is basically essential for any business in the modern age – it’s creating valuable and relevant resources which customers consume and use, in order to sway them towards then using your products and services. While it does serve to create sales and interest, it can also craft a relationship between the customer and your business, making them see your business as a reliable and helpful source of information, increasing the likelihood of loyal customers and repeat purchases – but how can you make sure that your business is making the most of content marketing? Are you receiving the full benefits which content marketing can offer? Well, this article will walk you through the basics of what you should do with regards to content marketing, getting you started with content marketing!
Stand Out
Your content marketing will be the voice for your business – it will be what customers think of when they think of your business, and the tone, style and quality all matter greatly due to this. If your content is bland and boring, or cluttered with technical jargon that your ideal customer (more on that later!) wouldn’t understand, then you’ll either get lost in the crowd of other businesses striving to make an impression on their audiences, or you could even alienate your audience and drive them away from using your business. In order to keep above the rest of the competition, set about your content marketing with a clear idea in mind of what your business should sound like, and how you want to talk to your customers. Otherwise, your content marketing will just sound the same as every other business’, and you don’t want to become unremarkable in a world full of businesses just like yours.
Appeal To The Ideal Customer
“Your content isn’t going to appeal to absolutely everyone, and that’s okay!” Carrie Mayton, a content marketer at UKWritings and Essays Services, laughs. “Not everyone is your target audience, because your products and services themselves won’t be targeted at everyone. Do some research, if you haven’t already, on the finer points of your ideal customer, and make sure that your content appeals to that customer. Age groups, gender and even location are factors in this, so some thorough work might need to be done, if not by yourself (surveys, questionnaires, feedback forms, etc.) then perhaps building on the work already done by others in your area of expertise also appealing to the same demographic. As long as, at the end of the day, your content appeals to the customer who you know is interested in and using your business, then you know you’re doing something right.” If you don’t already have a good idea of who your target audience is, that’s definitely something to work on, since it’ll be difficult to do any marketing at all if you don’t know who you’re marketing to, so any kind of research on who’s interested in your business is beneficial to you, especially before you make the leap into content marketing.
Adapt
There are many different platforms for your content nowadays, from email and texts to social media like Facebook and Twitter, or even a blog on your website (and your website itself, in fact!). Not every platform should be approached in the same way – texts should try to be concise and exact, since no one wants to scroll through paragraphs on their phone when a few lines could have the exact same effect and be less time-wasting. Also, images generally aren’t sent via text, so you’ll have to emphasise your written content and utilize every word. “For social media,” says Steven Goldsmith, a tech blogger at Academized and BoomEssays, “you can rely more on images, since most platforms welcome the inclusion of images alongside text, but the word limits can be a factor (think Twitter) and some platforms will be more focused on the images (Instagram) or even completely different demographics (Facebook is often used by an older demographic, while other social media welcomes a younger generation). In general, stick to the formats that you and others in your team know well, or do research on them before you try to put any content out there.” One piece of content won’t fit every platform without some editing, so be ready to cut out parts, add in images, and layer up the hashtags before sending your content out for the world to see.
