What is content marketing?

What to know about content marketing? Content marketing is a process of consistently publishing relevant content that audiences want to consume in order to reach, engage and convert new customers.

This implies that brands act more like publishers. They create content on channels that attract visitors (your website). Content marketing is not the same as marketing with content. It is customer-focused, responding to their important questions, needs and challenges. Content marketing creates a financial asset. It allows businesses to reach, engage and convert customers they would never have seen before by using the keywords customers use and creating the content they consume on your own website to respond to these questions.

This type of marketing represents the gap between what we produce as brands and what our audience is looking for. This leads to quantifiable business value. In this article I will give you the definition, the reason why many large companies use it to generate more ROI from their marketing. And why you should start using it right away!

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating content valuable and relevant to attract, acquire and engage your audience. Today's buyers and customers are inundated with marketing messages more than ever. This creates an environment of attention scarcity, challenging marketers to produce engaging content that doesn't get lost in static.

A well-designed content marketing strategy puts your business in the position of a thought leader. It creates preference for your brand while informing and educating buyers. Providing useful and entertaining content can strengthen the connection between your brand and your customers. Traditionally, marketers have had to "paying attention" to other people's media by posting advertisements on websites, booths at trade shows, or emailing to third party lists.

For example, When a brand pays millions of dollars for a Super Bowl ad, it's praising the attention that TV networks have built. Content marketing allows marketers to become publishers.

By creating and distributing content that buyers find useful, marketers increase awareness and preferences by building trust with consumers throughout their journey through the sales funnel. Additionally, this type of marketing is considered a less expensive strategy that others. This may have a slightly slower start while your content library grows and reaches a wider audience.

The Benefit of a Content Marketing Strategy

Unlike other approaches, there is something special that makes content marketing the best modern marketing method: it is sustainable. When done right, it delivers the benefit of exponential growth, building brand awareness and trust, winning leads and convincing leads, and attracting your customers, helping to build a loyal base of brand advocates.

Once you have launched your content marketing strategy, this snowball effect positive is in action. Your brand presence becomes bigger and more impactful. It becomes easier to achieve your marketing goals with future content. This contrasts with traditional marketing. Advertising, even with today's sophisticated digital ads, can create overexposure. Audiences become saturated with brand promotions that offer no real value to the people you're trying to build customer relationships with.

✔️ Content resonates, advertising saturates

A critical factor in your content marketing is relevance. What are the challenges, problems and needs of your customers? This is what you should be writing about, not producing an advertisement for your brand. Well-written, insightful content engages your audience and positions you as a thought leader.

On the contrary, advertising, even digital, leads to overexposure and saturation. You haven't tried to build a relationship with your audience. Instead, you've only captured a story about your brand as the star with no room for the real hero, your customer. To summarize, good content is “a vehicle that can get us out of pangs of disease of the " death by SPAM » which still persists in many marketing organizations.

Common Problems Content Marketing Can Solve

Content marketing is a very unique approach to engaging with potential customers in the digital space. Here are some problems solved by this type of marketing:

✔️ I need to increase the volume of my organic search

Your audience can't buy from you if they can't find you. Today, buying cycles start from a search engine. Furthermore, according to Kuno Creative, 51% of content consumption comes from organic search, so content marketing is a great way to build organic awareness.

When your valuable content ranks well on search engines or is widely shared on social media, you're building brand awareness at no cost. And since your content will only be shared if it's relevant, your audience will be less likely to ignore it.

✔️ I need to create a preference for my brand

Content marketing engagement creates preference through thought leadership by making you a trusted source of information and education. You can also create likes through relationships, which are reinforced every time your content entertains or helps your buyers. People are more likely to buy from companies they have a relationship with.

✔️ I have a content marketing plan, but it's not engaging my customers

Content marketing should help your customers, not sell them. When you freely give something so valuable to your audience that they would be willing to pay for it, you build trust, which ultimately is your most powerful selling tool.

✔️ I need to reach more customers, while keeping my costs low

According to a study by Forrester, today's customers distrust and hate marketing that interrupts or intercepts them. Engaging content marketing should be part of a natural conversation with current and potential customers. It should also be relevant to their interests and behaviors, and build an ongoing story over time. Content marketing pays off over time, this effect multiplies as you grow your content library.

The impact of content marketing on business

Alors, vous vous demandez peut-être encore pourquoi le marketing de contenu ? N’est-ce pas juste de lancer un blog de temps en temps ? Comment savez-vous que le marketing de contenu a un réel retour sur investissement (ROI) ? Il est normal d’avoir de l’appréhension à investir dans quelque chose qui semble de nature hypothétique. Mais les statistiques ne mentent pas. Considérez ces chiffres impressionnants :

Businesses that blog have, on average, 434% of pages indexed more than those who do not have one. In reality, more content equals more traffic. Content marketing generates three times more leads than paid advertising. Additionally, running content marketing costs less than any other type of campaign. Brands that use content marketing can expect higher conversion rates.

Les internautes lisent des blogs quotidiennement. Plus vous publiez sur votre blog, plus vous augmentez vos chances de vous faire remarquer. Les internautes préfèrent en savoir plus sur les marques par le biais d’articles plutôt que d’annonces. La vérité est que les acheteurs B2B consomment three to five contents before making the purchase.

Developing a library of credible content that signals your authority and expertise attracts decision makers. In fact, thought leadership convinces buyers to buy a product or service they never thought of before. Numbers don't lie. Ceci n’est qu’une courte collection de ce à quoi vous pouvez vous attendre lorsque vous donnez de l’élan à votre marketing de contenu. Vous pouvez profiter de ces avantages et plus encore. Cependant, vous devez commencer par une stratégie, discerner ce que le marketing de contenu signifie pour votre entreprise et comment vous allez vous y prendre pour être intentionnel avec ce que vous produisez et disperserez.

The components of content marketing

Content marketing can take various forms. To get it right, you'll need to figure out what type of content your potential buyers prefer to consume.

✔️ Blog posts

Distill your content marketing strategy into your blog timeline or strategy. The company blog can and should be used to cross-promote other content. Which will help keep posts on a consistent schedule. If you don't have a marketing team member familiar with search engine optimization (SEO), this is an area where you may want to consult a professional.

✔️ E-books

Le contenu du livre électronique doit suivre une structure narrative et inclure beaucoup de bonnes conceptions visuelles. L’objectif d’un ebook est d’éduquer, mais il est important de garder un langage cohérent avec la voix de votre marque.

Videos. The trick to using video effectively as part of a content strategy is to keep it as timeless as possible so that you're not forced to spend time and money creating more. High-quality video content can also be used to expose your brand to the large and active audience.

Infographics. Use as little text as possible and let the images tell the story. If you don't have an in-house graphic designer, find a freelancer who can create something beautiful and informative.

The cheat sheets. These are short, two or three pages to the maximum. This means there won't be much room for large images. So you will need to use text formatting to make them easy for a reader to skim quickly.

Workbooks and templates. These resources are great ways to keep your brand in front of buyers while continuing to educate. They should be designed for print and made as interactive and convenient as possible.

White papers and reports. These materials are similar to an e-book in that they are primarily educational. But white papers and reports are generally less graphically designed and use a little more professional language. They can also create partnership opportunities with other organizations.

The slides. Slide decks are a great format for breaking down complex ideas into simple steps or chunks. Keep the slides simple: use minimal text in a single font and large graphics throughout.

Distribution channels

Possesses : sharing your content on the brand's social media channels is a fast, customizable and free opportunity to connect with your target audience.

Organic : incorporate some of the best SEO practices into your content. This will help you make a good impression with Google and move your website up in the rankings. The strength of a good marketing strategy The goal of content is to provide the information and answers your target audience is looking for, so make sure they can find them.

Paying: most social networks allow some sort of paid advertising. Matching a network's demographics with your brand personas will help you determine where to invest.

Won : It is the most valuable, but the most difficult to create. Earned social media promotion happens when your audience chooses to share your content with their network.

What content marketing is not

When using content marketing, it's important to understand what it is. With that in mind, content marketing isn't just about pieces of content, there are many more.

✔️ It's not more "trick"

Where a lot of brands go wrong with content is that they fail to get the strategy part right, triggering content campaigns without the direction it should take the business and without understanding who the content is for. destined.

Sans stratégie, vous pouvez vous retrouver avec une vidéo promotionnelle qui resemble plus à une annonce promotionnelle pour votre entreprise. Une vidéo promotionnelle, aussi haute qualité que puisse être la production vidéo, n’est pas un élément de contenu vidéo utile, conçu pour résonner avec le groupe cible à une étape spécifique du parcours de l’acheteur, et qui est connecté à l’autre contenu au sein de votre stratégie.

✔️ A blog is not a content marketing strategy

Yes, Blogging is very important in content marketing, but just having a blog doesn't make you a content marketer. It's part of the equation, but not the only aspect. Content marketing is about providing information, and this can happen in many formats and channels. The central theme of this information is that it is useful to its target.

Only when business blogs are structured like publishers – with 3 to 5 key themes and a consistent publishing schedule – that they can be considered the key delivery mechanism of your content marketing. Content goes way beyond blog posts. It also goes well beyond the digital world. Content is information, but it can be delivered through a myriad of channels. What makes this information different as content is that it is designed for a specific audience, for a specific purpose.

✔️ This is not an advertisement

The mistake many businesses make is that they think all they have to do is create content without direction. In turn, they start to develop things that go back to the old ideas of advertising. A video that should explain how to make a customer's life easier turns into a feature ad. This is not the kind of content that will engage your audience.

✔️ It's not about posting on social media

Vous ne possédez pas Facebook, YouTube ou LinkedIn. Et bien que ces plateformes puissent être utiles pour partager votre contenu et diffuser votre leadership éclairé sur les plateformes qu’elles utilisent, la publication sur les réseaux sociaux en soi n’est pas du marketing de contenu. La valeur des médias sociaux réside dans le fait de ramener les gens sur votre site Web. Les plateformes sociales décident quel contenu est présenté à quel public. Sauf si vous les payez pour cibler des personnes spécifiques. It's just advertising. Consider social media as the effective distribution channels in your content marketing strategy.

✔️ It's not pay to play

With content marketing, you own the distribution channels, from your website to your social media profiles to your email list. You can formulate how the story will unfold and build relationships with your target markets. Advertising, on the other hand, is paid for. You don't really control where it will appear or who will see it. You simply hand over money to a third party for the rented space.

✔️ It's not meaningless

Think about it. What problem does your Facebook ad solve? How did your company's latest AdWords campaign make a positive difference for your customers? The content is supposed to solve a problem. It’s this genuine intention to help your customers that provides the authenticity that consumers are so drawn to. Take it one step further, from creating value for your buyer to creating value for society, and you've landed on the future of content marketing – purpose-driven brands.

✔️ This is not a rented space

Where content stands out is that a brand owns the distribution channels. Advertising, on the other hand, is rented space – you constantly have to buy a media channel to market.

Why content marketing is important

You may be carefully rethinking your content right now. Big changes have disrupted virtually every industry. Content marketing is not new. It has grown in prominence over the past decade and its acceptance as a critical strategy is growing. This is particularly true with respect to to the “failures” of traditional marketing, which is now more ignored than watched.

Désormais, les règles du jeu sont plus équitables. Elles n’ont pas à investir des millions dans des publicités pour se faire remarquer. Elles peuvent plutôt utiliser le marketing de contenu pour créer une communauté et offrir une nouvelle version rafraîchissante des anciens problèmes à leur public.

Content marketing is important because your customers say so. Maybe not verbally, but the statistics and data on the amount of content consumed by buyers supports this statement. No one wants to be sold out, no matter the makeup of the audience. They want to be informed and engaged. They respond much more to a story that shows them how to overcome their challenges than to a dry, disjointed approach that can play on fear. Buyers are always looking for valuable content.

A buyer's journey maps a buyer's decision-making process when making a purchase and will help you determine what content you need. Different types of content appeal to different buyers at different stages of their journey. By mapping your buying stages, you will better understand the process by which buyers consider your product or service.

Planning and creating new content is about more than mapping and metrics. THE brainstorming and asset planning can be one of the hardest and most important parts of content creation. To find inspiration when it strikes, you need a receptive environment and the whole team's willingness to try new things.

An editorial calendar isn't just where you track, coordinate, and share your upcoming content. It's a strategic tool that helps your team run integrated programs that include your content.

If you start with original, high-quality content that you have invested real time and money to create, you'll want to get the most out of each asset. You'll also want to make sure your content stays up to date. Obsolete content, which is no longer relevant, harms the credibility of your brand. To ensure you get the most out of your content marketing, remember the three Rs :

Rearrange: ce n’est pas seulement un moyen efficace de diffuser du nouveau contenu, c’est aussi un moyen intelligent d’atteindre les membres de votre public qui aiment consommer du contenu de différentes manières. Certaines personnes à qui vous faites du marketing peuvent aimer les livres électroniques, tandis que d’autres préfèrent les infographies, et d’autres encore apprennent mieux à partir des diapositives. Trancher et couper en dés vous permet d’atteindre plus de personnes avec moins d’effort.

Rewrite : whenever an asset shows consistently high performance, reserve it for a future update. Eventually, the number of engagements will start to drop, a good sign that it's time to update.

To retire : even the best content doesn't last forever. If a piece of content needs help beyond a design refresh or simple update, it might be time to retire it. Content that's past its expiration date hurts your company's authority and credibility, undoing all the good work your content has done.

Content Marketing Strategy Tips

When researching what content marketing is and how to leverage it, it comes down to executing your strategy. Maybe you already have one, but it was derailed by the pandemic. As noted, your content marketing strategy should be agile, no matter what. Most disruptions aren't predictable, but here are some things you can do now to use content marketing to continue cultivating connections with your audience.

✔️ Use LinkedIn to support your B2B content marketing

LinkedIn has cemented its position as the social media site for B2B businesses. Its importance is supported by the fact that 94% of specialists B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing. But how can you use LinkedIn more effectively in your content marketing strategy? LinkedIn has advantages over other social media sites. These benefits are just as essential today as they were in 2019, including:

Better targeting

Ce who is great with LinkedIn, is that it's a place where you can find decision-makers at all levels of a company. You can target based on both job titles and demographics. Across its millions of users, LinkedIn even breaks down influence levels, allowing you to focus on those who ultimately determine purchasing decisions.

Why is it even more important now? Because people still use the site a lot to find answers to new problems – problems they hadn't considered until now. Think about the business that now must transition to a remote workforce. They have a lot of worries, and companies that can offer them technology may be the answer.

✔️ Strategy alignment

Before you start trying anything new on LinkedIn or getting started, you need to make sure that how you use it matches your content strategy.

• Why do you use it? Opinion leadership, lead generation, awareness?
• How do you use it to drive traffic? Where do you want them to go?
• How will you interact with customers, partners and industry experts on site? And how will it help you achieve your content marketing goals?

✔️ Optimizing content marketing for e-commerce

E-commerce retailers are now in a new boat. Even though they had physical locations, online shopping demand is now the only channel for most. Although it may seem like ecommerce and content marketing don't mix, many online sellers are taking advantage of them. They discovered that optimizing content for their ecommerce brand can lead to success.

This is also true for B2B e-commerce. B2B e-commerce is expected to reach 1,8 billion dollars by 2022. Why this growth, which could actually surpass B2C e-commerce? This is largely due to the evolution of a B2B buyer. They are digital natives and value the convenience of shopping online and seek content to support their purchasing decisions.

Evaluate the performance of your strategy

Now that we've discussed what content marketing is and how to implement it, it's time to talk about how you can measure its performance. Once you have a strategy that makes noise and you're rolling out meaningful, high-quality content, you need to pay attention to these content performance metrics.

✔️ Define content marketing KPIs

When you define your key performance indicators (KPIs) for content marketing efforts, it's different from answering the question of ROI. KPIs focus on the operational side of content marketing. The most important aspect of KPIs is your “ Why ". Why do you do what you do? This is what people buy – ​​not what you do. Here are some KPIs to consider:

Measure the impact of a content marketing campaign on the productivity of your sales team: does your sales team understand the objectives of the campaign and why it would provide them with leads? If you have a disconnect here, leads won't turn into conversions.

Understanding the percentage of customers generated by marketing: knowing what new business has been won through content marketing shows its influence.

Revenue Generation Timeframe: how long does a campaign need to generate interest? If the time seems long, you need context (i.e. is your solution buying cycle long, have you built urgency into your campaign?).

Customer acquisition costs (CAC): calculating the CAC for each campaign provides key insights on how to streamline operations to reduce them.

✔️ What metric indicators for performance evaluation?

After defining the KPIs, you should pay attention to these key metrics:

Trafic

Regardez les utilisateurs, les pages vues et les pages vues uniques dans Google Analytics. Découvrez d’où vient votre trafic et apportez des modifications en fonction de cela. Par exemple, si le trafic de référence provient de votre page Pinterest, vous devriez envisager de développer plus de contenu pour le site.

Conversions

Is your content generating conversions? It's a simple question, but not a linear answer. You can see from the traffic that your content is getting more attention, but what do they do next? Figure out how you can tie conversions, however you define them, to content to understand its sphere of influence.

Commitment

Traffic is excellent; engagement is better. Engagement happens when people spend more time on your site and the number of pages they view during a visit. These are all metrics you can find on Google Analytics. Another element of engagement is what you do on social media. Does your content generate reactions, is it shared and commented on ? The more this happens, the more likely it is to generate more credible traffic.

SEO

Organic search rankings are essential to a healthy content marketing strategy. Keywords are important because that’s how your audience searches for answers. You need to constantly monitor your keyword performance, including your current position for each keyword you have targeted. At least check it all 30 days. See where you go up and down and find out why. It is also imperative to optimize each piece of content, including having correct metadata, as well as a good keyword/content ratio.

Authority

Authority is not easy to measure, compared to the other measures described. The goal is for your website to have a strong domain authority (DA), which is a number between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the greater the authority. Building Authority improves SEO and conversions and is measured by Google. Google looks at things like backlinks of sites with good DA, as well as the quantity of content shared, which Google would consider as an illustration of the quality of the content.

In short

Content marketing is one of the techniques used to make a website appear among the first results in search engines. This is the principle of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. The concept is to distribute quality content related to user requests. By positioning yourself on keywords and responding to the topics sought, your business stands out more easily on the internet.

Better referenced, you then gain visibility. The strategy helps build your brand image; you must produce original, non-duplicated content. Other issues lie behind the optimization of your content. They allow you to generate more traffic on the website, develop your online notoriety or even acquire new qualified prospects.

Do you want to get into practice? I leave you with this formation premium qui vous permettra de mieux référencer votre site web ou votre boutique en ligne. Leave a comment to tell us about your experience