Content marketing plays a big role in the marketing sphere. But what is it? How is it different from social media and digital marketing?
Let’s take a deep dive into this topic and take a good look at how content marketing can help your business and marketing goals.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a form of strategic marketing used to find, engage, interact and retain users and viewers. This is achieved through sharing content like blog posts, images, videos, podcasts or other forms of media.
Its purpose is to drive engagement, establish your business as a thought leader in your industry, to create brand awareness and loyalty, and to make sure that your potential customers think of your brand first when they need your product or service.
What are the elements of content marketing?
There are certain requirements that need to be met for a content marketing strategy to be effective.
- Brand Identity Guidelines
- Target Audience Outlines
- Goals and Objectives
- Content Pillars
- Distribution Channels
- Tactics and Strategy
- Data Collection and Analysis
Brand Identity Guidelines
Your content marketing strategy communicates information about your product or service as well as your brand to your target audience.
Clarifying your brand identity and what it is that you hope to convey to your audience about your brand and your offering is therefore a core part of any content marketing plan.
Target Audience Outlines
Who are you speaking to? What problem do you solve for them? How? These are all points that your content marketing plan will hope to address, so knowing this is necessary before moving forward with your strategy.
Goals and Objectives
Write down a list of measurable objectives for your marketing plan. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Measure the success of your like, and follow ratio. Want more sales? Look at your lead generation numbers. Set a realistic, achievable goal for each of your objectives. This will acta as a guide when considering what types of content to share, how often to share it and where.
Content Pillars
A content pillar is a specific type of content that supports your brand strategy and forms the foundation of your marketing plan. These pillars will guide your communication with your audience. It is best to set out no more than 3 content pillars for your brand to avoid creating confusion. The easiest way to decide which pillars to focus on is to decide what it is you want your brand to be known for.
Distribution Strategy
This step ties into your audience targeting. Determine where your audience is and what content they consume, then you will know what type of content you should create.
A small tip here: choose at least one type of long-form content. This is a bigger piece of regular content such as a blog post, newsletter or Youtube video. This can then be broken down into multiple smaller pieces of content that can be shared on other platforms like Facebook, TikTok or Instagram.
Tactics and Strategy
This could also be called your content calendar. Decide when you’d like to post, how frequently, and on which platforms. It may take some time to gather enough insights to help you determine the best time for posting, but testing and refining your content over time simply forms part of most marketing strategies.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection and analysis forms an important part of setting your strategy. This is the reason why it may take some trial and error to find the best way to share content with your audience.
Many platforms do include basic insights into content performance. Instagram and Facebook Business and Creator accounts have this as a built-in feature. Many third-party schedulers also offer the same tools, allowing you to make informed decisions when it comes to managing and planning your content.
Look at your numbers at least once a month to stay on top of how well your plan is performing. This will then help you plan ahead for your next content schedule.
Benefits of content marketing
- Better public relations and social media results
- Brand loyalty and trust
- Improved brand perception and identity
- Build trust with your audience
- Increased visibility
- Generate leads
Social Happiness can help you create, implement and refine your content marketing strategy, as well as manage your content and online platforms.
Chat to us about a free consultation to get started.