Bring Significant Changes To Your Business
There is no need for a convoluted definition. Content marketing is a cost-effective way to connect with potential clients and retain present clients. It is a broad spectrum; it is way beyond blogs and articles. Let us have a journey back from the 90s to the advanced era.
The History Of Content Marketing
As a content writer, my curiosity drives me to learn a little bit about the history of content marketing. Long back, the time computers and the internet began to gain popularity across the world. The business got an innovative channel for marketing. Here, the design of content marketing was born.
The word originated way back in 1996. The American Society for Newspapers Editors led a discussion among journalists. While saying this phrase, "content marketing," John F. Oppedahl was aware of the hype he was going to get for this buzzword. As his vision, the phrase "content marketing" became a dominant term in marketing. However, the concept of content marketing existed since the 19th century through writing and advertising.
Later on, marketers began to adopt various digital platforms, such as emails and websites for marketing. The early 21st century has witnessed the wave of social media; it has turned into another marketing channel. Now, we are beholding the wonders of content marketing through various platforms.
What Is Content Marketing For Small Businesses?
A few months back, I had a conversation with a couple of energetic, young content writers. I asked them the above question. Most of them said blogs and articles. But let me make it clear: Content marketing is not bounded to articles or blogs; it is much more than that.
As I said earlier, it is an effective method to connect with the targeted audience, engage them with the appropriate content, and capture their attention. It can be a blog, an article, a video, social media posts, infographics, interviews, and webinars. You can choose the right channel for your marketing based on the business needs and the budget.
Blog Posts
Most of us love blogs. A good blog can interact with people. It gives the same experience as a one-to-one conversation. I have seen many start-up companies using blogs as a powerful weapon to discuss current business topics and engage customers with engaging content. Reading interesting blogs never made me exhausted or tired. This is a better content marketing strategy for small businesses.
Many marketers strongly believe that blog posts can do wonders during the initial stage of the business. You should know how to use blogging as a technique to reach your business goals. Blogging improves your SEO. It is a great way to hit the Google algorithm if you give unique and fresh content. Regularly revamp your blog with trendy topics and keywords. Let me explain how the marketing team of a company filled their website blog with quality blogs during the pandemic: They have illustrated the effect of the pandemic in various industries and the ways to tackle it. At the same time, the company promoted its services by hyperlinking the service pages and the blogs published on the websites.
Be very clear about the topic you choose for a blog post. It should directly relate to your service. In simple words, you shouldn't slide from the service or product you are going to sell. For instance, if a travel agency website published a blog post on public transportation, it wouldn't make sense. Instead, their blog posts should focus on various places to visit during particular seasons or interconnect the latest technologies that influence the tourism industry. A slight change in the topic might take you away from achieving your marketing goals.
Grab The Attention With Videos
It's a fact that we don't forget the things we have seen. Then why can't we use it as a marketing tool? The thought made the marketers use video as a strong point of content marketing. Indeed, everybody can understand a video. You don't need to be an expert in any language to comprehend the content portrayed in a video. It is one of the most appealing and effective marketing methods to reach many audiences in various populations.
55% of your audiences are not going to skip a video. A product demo or product launch, a chat with the experts in your company, anything can be a topic for your video. Make sure the video can influence your audience and it should be clear and audible without any distractions. While writing content, my research works always takes me to videos that are relevant to the topics. Interestingly, YouTube is the second largest search engine. We don't need any other evidence to prove the popularity of videos.
Video captures more versatile and real-time content. Viewers like it because there is nothing complicated to digest. It can ensure you more return on investment (ROI) since you can post it on many kinds of marketing platforms, like social media and other websites.
Podcast Ideas
Podcast!! Many of the content writers I spoke with think a podcast is the most innovative idea to connect with the audiences. During a workshop, we asked the content writers to explore podcast write-ups. The feedback we got from them made us believe in podcasts. They all said, "Podcast talks to the customers. We can crack a joke without a second thought, we can have a one-to-one conversation with the listener." The power of the podcast is not limited to anything. It is budget-friendly and effective. There are multiple applications where you can create podcasts without spending too much money.
Do not make it dramatic. In the initial stage, the writers have to put extra effort into making the podcast write-ups more natural. Podcasts hold loyal customers. It's your responsibility to ensure fascinating podcasts for the listeners. Approximately 51% of the people above 12 years in the US hear the podcasts (Edison Research). Create fascinating podcast episodes to engage the audience.
Infographics
It's just human nature to get attracted to colorful and charming things. Why can't you make use of this human psychology for your marketing? Hence, infographics grab customers' attention since they are eye-catching, include solely specific information, and are not bombarded with a lot of texts. Our freelance writer's team has created infographics. The result was mind-blowing. We were able to post them on our website and other guest post websites. They enabled us to get more backlinks for our website and got subscriptions from new customers.
An average human's attention span is shorter than a goldfish's. Here, the infographics turned out to be a player. The contrasting colors, images, and laconic texts grab a reader's attention within a fraction of seconds. We need more creativity and color sense to develop astounding infographics.
Spread Brand Awareness Through Social Media
Undoubtedly, I would say we live in a digital era. Social media is one of the most exciting and popular media to connect with people across the world. Interesting fact!! As of 2020, it's estimated that 3.81 billion people use social media in the world. The most cost-effective method can be harnessed by small businesses too. Fascinating content and images drive the customers to your social media pages. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram are playing a prime part in lead generation and customer retention.
We never fail to post captivating content on our social media pages regularly. We have shown our deliberation by taking the opinion of the customers on various topics. Instagram and Facebook polls assist us in recognizing the needs and interests of customers accurately. Ask questions and the point of view of your customers through social media by sending messages or polls. In the mid of the pandemic, we had a poll on our social media pages. We asked about the significance of email marketing during the pandemic. We got a surprising result. The majority of the customers stated it is high time we began email marketing. It made us understand the thoughts of our clients. Make use of social media wisely and creatively to get connected with the customers.
Email Marketing
Email marketing cannot work without content. Both of these are working together. You need to come up with an interesting subject line to catch the attention of the readers. Trust me. Your customers get hundreds of emails per day. Hence, there should be a reason for the customers to open your mail and read it. Recent reports have stated that over 69% of email recipients report the email as spam as soon as they read the subject line.
These reports show the importance of the subject line in an email. Coming up with a creative subject and body copy is an easy way to grab the readers' attention. It consumes more time for your email or content marketers to design a template that can catch the readers' consciousness.
The question is here now! What is the point if the emails do not reach the right audiences or are not delivered to your potential prospects? If you're planning to align your organization's content marketing and email marketing together, then leveraging targeted email lists is the basic need. It directs you to the inboxes of the right audiences and engages them with engaging content.
Explore The Content Marketing Empire
Content marketing is bliss. You never find it worn out. Content has been designed sharply to achieve many marketing goals, from ranking the website to lead generation. Brush up the hidden creativity of yours and come up with fascinating content. Choose any of the above channels for your content marketing. These cost-effective methods can bring glaring changes to your marketing. They increase brand awareness, brand loyalty, customer retention, and build new networks. What else can make your business an utmost accomplishment? Indeed, content marketing ensures all these within a short span.
