In the post information age, marketers must now play a different game to drive business results. Which is one reason why companies that understand content marketing post often, on multiple channels and in a variety of forms, all under a unifying look and message.
Content marketing as opposed to conventional marketing, can improve the odds that your company will connect with your ideal customers. This is done in several different ways and we’ve put together a few considerations, as you get ready to launch your campaign.
- Define your voice. If you sell a service, you are selling yourself. Customers want to know what you are about. Having a point of view, related to your products, services, and industry, is a great way to share your unique value to potential customers.
- Offer value. Give people a reason to visit and come back for more. Offer insights on your service through a 1-minute video (you go, girl!) or create a campaign under a singular topic, to align your business with a pain point or problem and follow that up with related, follow up messages to go deeper into how you can help.
- Tell a story. Everyone likes a great story. Broadcast your value in stereo through powerful and well-written stories. Case studies, blog posts, newsletters, videos, tip sheets are all great ways to help your customers consider your services.
- Benchmark progress. Be sure to define a few ways to measure your progress. Consider beginning with “vanity” metrics such as number of likes, shares, comments, open rates, click-throughs, subscribers (and yes, unsubscribes too.) In fact, people that unsubscribe are actually being quite helpful to you since they are offering you free information about their preferences. (Pro-tip! On their way out, set up an exit survey. Useful info to collect while cleaning up your list too.) And it’s ok, not all relationships work out.
- Consistency: Regardless of what platforms your company uses; the look, feel and tone of your messages should all form a cohesive package. And remember, your company does not need to be on every platform, just the right ones that align with your goals.
Take RedBull, the Austrian energy drink company. They do a superb job with content marketing. They’ve created a whole culture around their vision of extreme sports, competition and human performance. They endorse athletes, host tournaments, run their own music streaming service, create destination trips with professional athletes, run a high end apparel shop, share a company newsletter and much more. All under one unifying brand message. Everything, including the content on their LinkedIn page is spot on message. It’s incredibly impressive and takes an exceptional level of coordination and consistency to truly get right.
But you don’t need to be the world’s leading energy drink maker to launch your own content marketing strategy.
Consider who you are writing to, create a profile of them (make sure to write it down) then offer them more than just advertisements about your services. Share with your ideal customers; insights about your business approach, solutions or thoughts on industry trends. Come up with a few assumptions, set goals, post on your channels, see how they perform, re-write and edit, revisit assumptions, re-write and edit some more, then rinse and repeat!
