05/05/2021
Content Marketing is a collection of information in the form of image, text and video. Also, we can say that it is a strategic marketing in which we provide relevant, valuable and consistent content to retain customers in our business to drive more traffic and sales.
In the definition mentioned above, relevant imply to give the customers exactly what they need or at least provide them with information valuable to them at a regular interval in order get them interested in your business.
Now talking about Rules of content marketing, following are some of them:
Put your customer first: Putting the customer first, in simple terms, means that a business puts the needs and requirements of a customer ahead of anything and everything else. They are oriented towards serving the client’s needs, and measure customer-satisfaction levels in order to determine the success of their business.
Tell a good story: A good story is about something the audience decides is interesting or important. A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting.
Help do not sell: Taking a ‘help, don’t sell’ approach means that the power of the sales process will be shifted back into the hands of the sales person.
Give knowledge for free: Defines open resources offered freely and openly for all to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research. There should be trust and transparency in the content you provide.
Think niche: To think niche means that your content should be unique and different from others. It includes the 90:9:1 theory which implies that 90% of the people copy, 9% of them curate or edit the copied content and only 1% create their own content.
Write from heart: To write from the heart requires you to write about something you are passionate about. Your heart, your passion, and your emotions are very closely linked to each other.
Commit to quality: Commit to quality lays out your working practices and commitment to providing a good service to your users. It explains how effective and efficient your methods are in order to give customers what they’re looking for.
Let us talk about Advantages of content marketing now. Below are the same.
With a good content you get maximum traffic on search engines. Before making a purchase, people take time to search and decide which information is significant for them. Therefore, it is important to interact with your customers in a friendly, helpful and positive way.
Followed by increased followers on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. That is why it is important for you to provide a valuable content in order to gain user’s trust.
Hence more leads. With increased number of followers on social media, you get more more leads i.e. new customers apart from your customers you already have. Lead generation is a process of gaining interest of customers in a product or service for the purpose of developing sales. It can be useful for any type or size of business.
Building trust of the users. By building trust between us and our customers, we establish better work ethics in our employees, improve our business’s reputation and most importantly, we provide something of worth to our customers.
Eventually helping in achieving more sales.
Types of content
Blogs: Blogging is one of the most popular types of content marketing for small business. It is the collection of detailed information on particular subject or any product, service or topics regarding any business or company.
Videos: Customers today are viewing more video content than ever before. This fact makes video is one of the best types of content marketing for reaching and engaging your target consumers.
Case Studies: Case studies are basically customer stories that illustrate how your business has helped a specific client or customer become successful.
E-books: Also known as an electronic book, it is a book publication made available in digital format consisting of text, images, or both, readable on electronic devices.
Check-lists: Check-lists are a type of worksheet that provide a list of things to do in a step by step process in order to achieve some type of desired outcome.
Interviews: Interviews with industry experts or even your own customers are another one of the most high-performing types of content marketing.
Social Media Posts: Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Help businesses reach new audiences and nurture relationships with customers.
GIFs and Memes: They feature images that have gone viral online or screen shots from films, along with a caption that says something entertaining, insightful or relatable.
Building blog ideas
Lists: Posts that includes titles like ‘top 10 ways’, ‘20 reasons’ etc.
News: Post about company & industry update.
Opinions & Product Reviews: 3rd party or direct reviews of certain products or services.
How Tos: Step by step guide to solve a problem.
Interview Posts: Interviewing key industry people, clients and staff.
Round up posts: A summary post that itself links to previous written posts mentioning the key highlights of each post.
Summary
Content marketing is pretty much similar to normal marketing. Only difference is its visibility as content marketing is visible mostly online and it is the most effective for business plans. As a consumer, there are a lots of moment when we’re being asked to consider a product or service. As a business on the other hand, you’ve got to fight through this noise to get your message heard. To make sense, you need to realize the fundamental mistakes of traditional marketing. Your customers do not care about your product or your service. Customers care about themselves. This is content marketing – a new marketing approach that gives you the power to grab your customer’s attention. Therefore, we need to go beyond conventional methods to communicate directly and in a relevant, useful and creative way with users.
