What you need to know about content marketing

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Google has been working on the infamous BERT update for over a year and it is still evolving. The fact that this digital giant is making such efforts to better understand what searchers are looking for further demonstrates the importance of content marketing in any digital strategy.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is an art. In the most simple terms, it involves sparking interest in a product, service or topic without necessarily promoting a brand.

It requires an in-depth understanding of what your target audience is looking for and building a relationship with that understanding in mind.

Once that relationship is formed, and trust is built, your target audience will be more inclined to invest in your brand.

It is important to note that content marketing is not limited to words on a page. It includes visuals such as images, graphs and videos; all of which should complement your writing for greater effect.

How to use a content marketing strategy

Content marketing should form the crux of your website, social, PPC, video and PR campaigns.

The way content marketing is executed will vary depending on what you are hoping to achieve. Below are just a few suggestions, backed up by our own experiences.

Increase brand visibility

One potential avenue to increase awareness of your brand is through digital PR. If you can find a hook that will interest your target audience, are able to back it up with reliable data and format it in a way that is interesting and easy to digest, you have the recipe for a winning PR piece.

Sweet Digital was tasked to increase awareness of a fitness brand. The audience was extremely varied so it was important to find a topic that would connect a wide spectrum of people who wanted to feel better about themselves by taking on a healthier lifestyle.

The client offered 24-hour gym access and a range of classes so that there was something for everyone. The brand was passionate about fitness but didn’t invest in an overly serious tone. We created a PR piece detailing how many calories are burnt in a range of different sex positions. The piece was light-hearted, fun and was picked up by several newspapers.

Newspapers have a large national reach which was perfect for our national client.

Educate potential customers

When it comes to educating potential customers, a featured snippet content strategy may work well. Featured snippets are nuggets of information that Google places above organic results. They are a great way of educating potential customers so that they are closer to converting once they land on your site.

A featured snippet strategy provided an excellent opportunity for our online education client, following a steep increase in the number of featured snippet opportunities available on relevant topics.

The audience for this client included people with busy lifestyles preventing them from attending a traditional college or university course, or perhaps don’t hold the relevant qualifications to be accepted onto such courses.

Whilst we are still implementing our strategy, the initial results already look promising with increased visibility of just under 20%

Increase revenue

Increasing revenue can be accomplished through a broad range of content marketing strategies. If a large proportion of your target audience uses social media, there is a great opportunity to win their undivided attention.

With attention-grabbing visuals and catchy wording, you have an opportunity to grab their attention and make a sale without waiting for them to come to you.

We took this approach with one of our football club clients who were already active socially and had a considerable following. After analysing the audience we separated them into two groups:

  • Season ticket holders
  • Hospitality and company followers

Different video ads were created to target both groups, the results of which saw ticket sales increase by 25% and engagement that led to several commercial deals being agreed.

Successful content marketing

These are just a few examples of how content marketing strategies can give businesses the boost they need to hit their KPIs.

The fantastic results demonstrated above would not have been possible without a strong understanding of the brand, target audience and industry first and foremost.

If you would like to take your content marketing strategy to the next level, get in touch

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