Content Marketing Archives

The Definitive Guide To Content Marketing In 2022

May 7, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

If you want to start your online project with good practices, you need to start thinking about how to reach your target customers with the techniques that content marketing offers you. It’s better to know the objectives of content marketing so that you can go ahead and connect effectively with your target audience. In this blog post, you will learn what you need to create an effective content marketing strategy to win your target customers in the digital space.

Content Marketing Guide — Content Marketing

What Is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is a marketing technique that is based on creating content in different formats (blog posts, videos, tutorials, webinars, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, podcasts, product descriptions, etc), to attract the target audience and convert them into customers.

The purpose of Content Marketing is to attract and retain customers by creating quality content that is relevant and valuable to your target audiences. It changes the paradigm of invasive marketing (e.g. banners) with the aim of the consumer who approaches the brand, instead of the brand chasing the consumer.

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and generate engagement with a target audience.” – JOE PULIZZI Content Marketing Institute, Author of Get Content Customers.

Objectives of Content Marketing

Content marketing is a way to build trust and credibility with the target audience. This allows brands to establish themselves as an authority on the subject, which will lead to less resistance with future customers when offering your products.

Building Connection With Customers

One of the main objectives of content marketing is to build a connection with the target user through quality content. Offer them content that is interesting and provides value for your audience. This way your potential customers like your content, identify you, and become your customers when they are actually looking for a product or service in your niche.

This is why it is extremely important to be clear about who your target customers are, what are the characteristics, preferences, interests, fears, objections, goals, etc. Based on these characteristics create a buyer persona.

Brand Awareness

Through content marketing brands can get the customer to identify their brand among the competitors. Positioning the brand as an authority in the niche that interests your audience is another objective of content marketing.

Website Traffic

Another major objective of content marketing is to increase website traffic. The idea is that the content produced generates a higher number of visits to your site and this traffic is more durable because the traffic comes from search engines and drives the targeted audience to the site.

Creating original quality content helps achieve in increasing traffic for 2 reasons:

Google considers websites with the original content more relevant to the users and gives them a better ranking in search results.
If the content is interesting and relevant to your audience, they will share it on their social networks, which will drive you more traffic.

You must measure the performance of your content using analytical tools. For example use Google Analytics, to know if your content strategy is working and the content marketing objectives are being met.

It is essential to know where the visits come from, how many visits you get per month, what is their time on the page, and finally, what is the conversion rate achieved.

Get New Leads/Customers

The key to offering attractive content is not only to attract the attention of potential customers but to add value through the message so that it stays in his mind, and is loyal to your brand.

If the potential consumer receives content that provides solutions, advice, or entertainment, they will see you as an authority in your topic and this should convert into new customers, so you would be adding more content marketing objectives fulfilled in your projections.

For your content marketing strategy to work, implement Inbound Marketing tactics that help identify not only the different buyer persona, but also the stage in which they are, and thus provide adequate content to make them your customers.

Content Marketing Types

Producing quality content with the right format is very important in this digital age. From the last few years, the growth of the internet and mobile devices is high, this leads to a surge in content production. But the attention span of content is very less and the ways we create content have also changed a lot.

Although the text format leads the table in content marketing. The majority of internet users like to read the content on the web, but the other users like to consume other types of content other than the text format. This is why I recommend two ways to present content in a pleasant, dynamic, original, and entertaining way to attract the audience.

Infographics and videos are not the only popular ones and well received by the audience. But the other types of content marketing options are also popular among the users.

Blogging, Newsletter, Webinars, Images, Tutorials, E-books, Journals, Presentations, Podcasts, Apps, Tools, Games, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69buIVgSy5I

Content Marketing Types

Blogging

Blogs and written content is an essential part of content marketing. The blog is the place where you frequently publish relevant and useful content to keep your target audience engaged. You can publish listing related posts, tips with solutions, content-related thought leadership, or any other interesting material for the target users.

Blogging is the first place to attract users and start building trust with your brand. Create a content calendar to consistently publish the content that is relevant and useful for your target audience to maximize the success of blogging.

e-Books

The e-Book is a very useful format when you are publishing very extensive research reports. eBooks are quite longer than the normal blog posts. If you want to publish your own research reports, eBooks are the best option.

eBooks are very effective in the lead generation process. You can offer an eBook for free and generate a higher number of leads for your business. Your users are also interested in eBooks because they are detailed and contain more valuable information than a blog post, so they meet the objectives of content marketing.

Infographics

In the last few years, Infographics are becoming more and more popular, especially on blogs or on social networks like Pinterest. This format has the advantage of being able to include images, which are essential in all current content marketing strategies.

Infographics are ideal for saying a lot using a few words and providing dynamic material with images, data, and graphics. If you create infographics with quality content, it will attract more users to your service or products. You must consider infographics in your content marketing strategy.

Videos

We already discussed that telling a story is one of the key objectives of content marketing. Video is the ideal medium to tell the stories because audiovisual content allows a wide variety of resources, from words to images, sounds, effects.

Although it is the best content marketing type, it’s true that it requires more budget and a team. The effectiveness that the video maintains in relation to the user makes it worth investing in. This type of format allows you to play narratively, be creative without limits, and tell the story you want.

Podcasts

We can consider podcasts as one of the content marketing strategies. It has a lot of potentials to reach your target audience with a clear and concise message. Podcasting allows brands to tell their stories anytime, anywhere and helps them establish authority in their niche.

Since not many businesses are doing podcasting right now, this also gives your business that extra edge, be an early adopter and take advantage of podcasting content marketing strategy.

Social Media

Successful social media starts with solid content marketing processes. Social media helps brands to listen to their audience and understand what they care about. By listening to your audience you can create content that is relevant and engaging.

Social media can also be used for content distribution. It helps brands to build authority and convert their fans into loyal customers over the period. Consider the top social media platforms for your brand (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube), and see where your target audience is engaging more.

Content Research

Content research is very important before going to implement your content marketing strategy. Content research involves processes like creating your ideal customer avatar, competitor analysis, and keyword research.

Creating Ideal Customer Avatar

The Customer Avatar allows you to know who your potential customers are.

It will allow you to know who your potential customers are, what their objectives are, what their goals are, what their difficulties are, what kind of solutions they are looking for.

The most important characteristics defining a customer avatar are:

Personal profile: name, gender, age, education, hobbies, income, location, etc.
Goals (what you value the most): personal goals, professional goals, other goals.
Difficulties: what difficulties do you usually encounter personally or professionally.
Solutions: how your company solves its problems. What services or products do you offer to solve or overcome their difficulties or problems?
Keywords and weak points: what words do your customer avatar use when looking for information? Are you aware that your services/products can meet your needs? Where do you look for information when it comes to finding a solution yourself (e.g. friends, Google).

You need to address all these questions to build a perfect customer avatar.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis in content marketing strategy is very vital. It helps to understand what kind of content was produced, how often they are publishing, the quality, and quantity of the content. Competitor analysis helps you to stay ahead of the curve in your content marketing strategy and it also helps you to use your competitors’ efforts to your advantage.

What Needs To Be Included In Competitor Analysis Report.

Comp Name	Channel	Quantity	Frequency	Quality	Quality Detail
Comp – A	Blog	100 Posts	2 Posts/Week	Medium	500 Words/Post < 10 Comments20+ Shares
Comp – B	Blog	50 Posts	1 Post/Week	High	1200+ Words/Post >10 Comments 50+ Shares

You can further do the analysis at the micro-level on blog posts to understand the quality of the content and finding the gaps.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is very important to know what kind of keywords your target customers are using while they are looking for a solution. It allows brands to target their potential customers with the right message and stand out from the crowd. Keywords research can be done using various tools.

Some Free Tools For Keyword Research:

Google Search Auto Suggestions
Google Ads Keyword Planner

Some Paid Tools For Keyword Research:

SEMRush
Ahrefs

Content Preparation

In the content preparation step, you must consider that the content should be a quality one, it has to be related to your target audience. It has to be something new, valuable, and entertaining. Your content should get the attention of your target audience.

Creating Quality Content

Create content for humans not for search engines. Search engines evolved a lot and gone are the days ranking for only stuffing keywords into the content. Use the CATT marketing funnel to create quality content.

C.A.T.T. stands for Content, Attention, Trust & Transaction. CATT, the marketing funnel methodology plays a vital role in marketing campaigns.

Whoever your audience is, it’s content that drives engagement, knowledge retention, and positive user experiences. The content can be text articles, videos, infographics, eBooks, or any other type of content. The content is in charge of capturing the attention of your audience towards your brand.

We are creating content to gain the attention of your target audience. It means driving attention through driving traffic to your content using different marketing activities like organic traffic driving, social media, paid media, videos, referrals, and other methods. This leads to trust and finally, a transaction happens.

Content Publishing

Content publishing comes after the content preparation, you can publish your text content on a blog or medium kinds of sites, videos on your YouTube/Video channel, images, and short videos on your social media channels. It’s better to have a content publishing calendar to plan and organize content marketing better.

Content Publishing Calendar

When it comes to content marketing, consistency is the key. Without consistent efforts, we can’t get great results with content marketing strategy. The Editorial calendar and content publishing calendar help you to stay consistent and publish content. Use Google spreadsheet to create your content publishing calendar or use Coschedule kind of tools.

Content publishing calendar helps to organize the content and team better, it helps to reduce missed deadlines, it helps to spend less time on planning and more time on executing. It’s recommended to have a content publishing calendar and strictly follow it.

Publish & Optimize

While publishing the content you need to optimize the content with proper headings, subheadings, images, videos, internal links, external links, and other relevant material. Keep your content relevant, interesting, and engaging for your users to take action.

Content Distribution

Content creation and content publishing are one side of the coin. After publishing the content you need to promote and distribute it among various channels to reach more your target audience. In this section, we’ll discuss some content distribution methods.

Email Marketing

Email is a powerful channel for content promotion. Email marketing is the best channel to distribute your content to your fans. Your email list is your asset, If you have an email list means, your customers already trust you for something you offered them and they submitted their email for it. If you write something interesting and useful for your audience, use your email list to distribute content and get some traffic.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is an important content marketing channel for content promotion. Nowadays social media is used as a primary source of information. If your content is interesting and useful, your social media followers like and share the content with their contacts. It will help your content reach more people, increase traffic and generate more leads.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a strategy that will help you attract potential customers to the business using different content marketing strategies and channels.

The goal of content marketing is to create value for your target audience, build a connection with the brand, generate trust and convert them into customers.

In this comprehensive guide on content marketing, we explained most of the topics from What is Content Marketing, Objectives of Content Marketing, Content Marketing Types, Content Research, Content Preparation, Content Publishing, Content Distribution.

Hope you find this blog post on content marketing informative and useful.

If you have any queries, we’d love to hear from you. Please drop your comments on the below comments box. Happy reading.

How to Write Call to Action Copy That Will Produce Big Results

July 21, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Welcome to Kiran Gutha‘s blog on “How to Write Call to Action Copy That Will Produce Big Results”. An effective CTA creates a sense of urgency and tells customers, “Act now!”

Time is precious in marketing. There isn’t always time to make a big campaign splash for a new project.

But there are other ways to boost your marketing.

A call-to-action revamp is a small, effective change you can make to produce a big payoff, wrote in a HubSopot article titled, “The Complete Checklist for Creating Compelling Calls-to-Action.”

So What is a Call-To-Action?

A call-to-action is an image, text, or phrase that prompts a reader, viewer, or listener to take immediate action. You see and hear them on the radio, television, and the Internet every day, but you may not have known what they were called.

Whenever you see words or a phrase such as “Click Here,” “Call Now,” “Register Now,” “Download Now,” “Download e-Book Now,” “Free Download,” “Get a Coupon,” “Attend an Event,” “Subscribe” or “Sign up for a Webinar,” you are being prompted you to take action.

One call-to-action for a marketing promotion usually will get the job done. But there are occasions when multiple CTAs may be included. In those cases, secondary CTAs, as they are called, are a great way to rescue those lost or missed conversion opportunities. A secondary CTA usually isn’t as prominent as a primary CTA, but it can be an effective way to engage people who were not captured by the primary CTA.

How can a simple sales promotion message, or CTA, be so effective?

Marketers know people love options. By including small tweaks in your marketing, listeners, users, and viewers are empowered to take action or make choices as they see fit.

CTAs evoke a sense of immediacy and something relevant.

As Justine Grey wrote in a blog post for AmericanExpress, “A great call to action creates a sense of urgency or limited possibilities that must be acted on right now. Or, it creates a sense of well-being or offers a solution to a known or perceived problem.

“It also clearly spells out how a customer can make a purchase,” Grey added.

In the HubSpot.com post, Soskey cited an impressive 30% increase in conversions based on the CTAs she used in her marketing. She encouraged other marketers to give CTAs a try.

“If you only have a few minutes in your week to optimize your conversion rates, souping up your out-of-date and gnarly looking calls-to-action is the way to go,” Soskey noted in her blog post.

How to Write Call to Action Copy?

Here’s the CTA checklist that addresses 11 essential elements of an effective call-to-action.

1. Use Actionable Language

Forget what your grade school teacher told you about not writing in the second person. Also, a heavy dose of action verbs will grab people’s attention and garnish the results you are seeking. Verbs such as “discover, unearth, find” are a lot more effective than “be smarter.” Shorter copy also boils down to a more concise call-to-action.

2. Align CTA copy with landing page copy

It is important to make sure your CTA copy and your landing page copy align when you are creating a compelling CTA copy. Whatever name or term you are promoting should align with the name on the landing page. That should be the case no matter whether it is a free e-book, whitepaper, template, guide, crash course, or presentation.

The offer on both the CTA and the landing page should match. An example of viewers, readers, and users being asked to download a “crash course” on Facebook advertising on the CTA. It would lead to confusion if the copy on the landing page called it an “e-book.” The CTA copy and landing page copy must be consistent.

3. Include a clear value proposition

Each call-to-action you create is unique, but users may not perceive it that way. It is the obligation of markets to provide clarity “by making the benefit of clicking on the CTA super clear,”. “On your CTA, give a quick description of what happens when they click on it – Will they magically become better at their job? Will, they save time? … Regardless of what you want them to do, it should be very (clear) what is going to happen when people click.”

4. Play up its time-sensitivity

Time is precious, so getting users to focus on clicking your CTA requires special attention. We suggest tapping into ‘the element of urgency” by telling users and viewers to do something right now. It is good to add words such as “now” and “today” to your CTA button to increase the chance of them actually doing it.

5. Make it big

Effective CTAs are big and bold. Placing a tiny button at the bottom of the page may not get the clicks you desire. Make sure your CTA is large on the site, so there is no doubt it will be seen. A CTA should be the full width of the blog post body column, about 650 pixels wide.

6. Create a highly contrasting design

A compelling CTA requires an impressive design. It is acceptable for the call-to-action to blend with fonts and colors used on the rest of your website design, but make sure the actual design of the CTA button you want people to click pops out from the rest of the page.

7. Make the button look clickable

If you want your CTAs to be clicked, make sure they look like something people are accustomed to clicking. An extra design finish with special shading and contouring of the button should look functional and like something users could actually press.

8. Add alt text

Alt text allows you to display text whenever a CTA does not appear properly on a website or an email. Consider it a necessary backup plan when you have problems displaying images in your browser. Another advantage of alt text is search engines will also read it, providing an additional SEO boost for you.

9. Place your CTA prominently on your website

You can place it above the fold, where a CTA generally will get more clicks and conversions.

Or you could put it below the fold, where you can get a higher quality of leads converting. Either way, you want the CTA in the best spot to get noticed. You may want to add directional cues to get more clicks and conversions.

10. A/B test multiple CTAs to find the best performer

Don’t forget multiple CTAs as an option to engage more people. They offer more opportunities to convert leads and customers through your CTAs. “So keep tweaking copy, design, sizing, placement, etc., until you find a CTA that performs above the rest,” Soskey said in the blog post.

11. Personalize CTAs for different segments of your audience

Besides A/B testing, you can also tailor CTAs to only appear to select audiences. With the right software, personalized CTAs could be designed for your visitors to see one thing, your leads to see another, and your customers to see something else altogether.

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What Makes Content Go Viral?

June 29, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Welcome to Kiran Gutha‘s blog on What Makes Content Go Viral? Content that gains viral traction broadens your online marketing reach.

What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing is the information age’s word of mouth. It involves using digital vehicles such as social media to engage online communities, allowing companies and individuals to reach audiences potentially numbering in the millions.

This occurs when a strong, digital message is created and passed along through different online channels. Once the message picks up traction, it’s passed from individual to individual, at blinding speeds.

With viral marketing, the message carriers become brand ambassadors and a free source of publicity for content creators. Viral marketing works because it penetrates online communities while incurring little, if any, cost.

How Viral Content Helps the Community

Here are some other benefits of creating content likely to go viral:

It promotes goodwill.
Successful viral content drives a positive reputation and brand recognition.
It reaches interested viewers, in turn leading them to your brand.
It is the fastest way to build backlinks to your web properties and increase search engine rank.
It pays for itself because of the negligible financial investment associated with marketing your message.

Qualities of viral marketing campaigns

Here are some of the qualities unique to viral marketing campaigns:

Problem-solving: The most effective campaigns include helpful content, aimed at solving customer issues.
Branded: Branding a campaign gives it a unique identity. It sets businesses apart from others, improving audience recognition and perception.
Promotable: Simple ideas are easy to promote and using them ensures campaigns include content people won’t have difficulty seeing and understanding.
Seamless sharing: Content should be multi-platform compatible. The more media it can be added to, the easier it will be for people to share it.
Immense utility: Content needs to benefit or excite audiences in some way. If it’s boring, it won’t go viral.
Mass potential: Appealing to potential customers outside the target demographic always is a great strategy because it could unlock a previously untapped audience base.

Creating a Viral Article

There isn’t a how-to guide for creating vital content. Following these steps, though, should put you in a better position to create content that gains viral traction.

Make it visual: Items that go viral usually are visually appealing. Even if the majority of your message is text-based, adding videos or photos can make a world of difference. Be careful with image and video selection though. You never want to put your brand in a compromising position.
Plan it out: There aren’t reliable ways of predicting whether your content will go viral. What you can control is the clarity of your message. Utilize carefully planned scripts for videos so that your intended message is clearly received by your audience.
Know your audience: What do they look for from you? Is it entertainment, information, or even a unique perspective? Figuring out these triggers lets you work them into your message, creating one that’s tailor-made for your audience.

Viral Content Taking the World by Storm

Social feeds across the country were loaded with videos and photos of participants, from celebrities to CEOs and almost anyone in between, taking the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

The Ice Bucket Challenge focused attention on the ALS Association, an organization that raises awareness of and funds for research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The Ice Bucket Challenge was a successful example of viral content for reasons that can be applied to viral marketing in general:

The goal was clearly identified: The objective of the challenge was simple and clear. Participants could go online to donate to the ALS Association, pour a bucket of ice water over their heads, or both. Simplicity is key to viral content.
It was fun and easy: Laughter brings people together, so funny, engaging videos will help keep your audience entertained. Humor breaks down the barrier people have with organizations and allow them to connect on a personal level.
It had urgency and immediacy: There was a 24-hour window for participants to complete the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Giving your audience a deadline makes it more of a priority, creating a greater sense of urgency. Content with higher priority to the audience spurs people to take action (whether that’s completing a task, or sharing the information).

Success is directly linked with the ability to captivate audiences and their ever-dwindling attention spans. Viral marketing has direct ties to audience emotion, and the better you stir up those sentiments, the quicker your message will get passed along.

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What Is Your Content Strategy?

June 3, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Welcome to Kiran Gutha‘s blog on What is Your Content Strategy? Identifying the target audience lets you craft content that helps solve problems or answer questions.

Content Strategy For Content Marketing

Content marketing is creating valuable information for your audience as a way to sell your brand without people realizing you’re marketing to them.

When you create great content, people view you as an industry expert and return for more.

An effective content strategy focuses your efforts and helps generate the best results.

Many Varieties of Content Strategy

Just as there are many types of content, there are a number of ways to relay a message.

The content strategy encompasses a number of very diverse disciplines, including:

Editorial Strategy: sets the standards for all types of content distributed by an organization.
Web Writing: creates content specifically for use on the web, a technique very different from standard copywriting.
Metadata Strategy: categorizes what metadata is used and its structure to help organize content in a way that makes sense to readers.
Search Engine Optimization: the act of writing content in a way that helps move it higher on search engine rankings.
Content Management Strategy: the technology needed to properly maintain a company’s content that includes the life cycle of content, how workflows, and the infrastructure of its publishing.
Content Channel Distribution Strategy: the plan outlining ways readers can access the content.

While most content strategists are familiar with these different aspects, it can be difficult or even impossible for one person to be an expert in all areas.

Organizations may employ a team of professionals to create and maintain a content strategy.

Content Strategy Basics

The content strategy umbrella covers text, graphics, video, and audio material distributed through mediums that include blogs, social media posts, email marketing, infographics, website copy, podcasts, and more.

A primary element of a successful content strategy is to identify your target audience so you can structure content that fits the audience’s needs.

This includes what you’re saying, how it’s said, and what platforms you use to disperse your message.

The best content in the world is of little use if not directed at the proper audience.

Identifying your target audience enables you to create content with them in mind such as information that solves a common problem for your audience.

Think about and anticipate the questions your customers might have. They could even be problems you’ve encountered and solved but others will face.

Do your best to address your audience’s questions. This builds trust and positions your company as a subject matter expert people look to for answers.

Planning is Everything

Maintaining a content calendar helps diversify your material, publish time-sensitive topics, and identify gaps so you’re never left without something to say.

A well-organized plan makes it easy to send content out at appropriate times to have the most impact and largest audience.

Your content strategy should also include looking for content assets that continue making an impact long after you post them.

Evergreen content assets blog posts, white papers, webinars, case studies and infographics that have no time element or outdated information can drive traffic for weeks, months, and even years without additional effort from you.

When developing content, think about adapting it for other formats or ways to repackage it.

This opens the potential to reach a larger or different audience segment without creating new content.

A podcast could be transcribed into a blog post or lines from a case study could become social media posts.

These planning steps help ensure your content is of high quality.

Also, the importance of diligent proofreading cannot be emphasized enough.

Someone will catch even the smallest errors that diminish your credibility and make your audience wonder if you’re really a professional, so be sure to only post pieces you’re proud to stand behind.

One way to create credibility is by using sound data to add substance to your content and data visualization to present the information in an interesting way.

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