Content marketing can be fun for creative people capable of thinking outside of the box. Clever marketeers engage consumers by delivering information in creative ways. So, when done right, content marketing can benefit your business immensely by creating long lasting customer relationships. The end goal is to create a community of likeminded people who will value your expert advice and suggestions.
Let’s explore how you can introduce content marketing to your business:
Consumers are more engaged with video content than text because of their fun and interactive nature. According to HubSpot, 72% consumers prefer to watch a video to learn about products, resulting in more empowered consumers. It’s no wonder YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google.
Having already established a large userbase, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are great platforms to showcase your videos. They also provide the opportunity to draw social media followers back to your company website. For example, at any stage of the video you can tease the consumer with additional content on your website.
Many retailers, such as Ikea, have successfully increased traffic and time spent on product pages by incorporating videos on their own website. Google loves multimedia so it often pushes videos to the top of the search results leading to higher visibility and traffic.
You don’t have to follow Ikea’s footsteps in creating videos for products or Wicks’ ‘How to’ videos. Video’s can be published to educate consumers on the product, where it was sourced from, or simply the day-to-day life in the company – often the authenticity and relatability of day-to-day activities can earn consumers’ trust and bring them in. So, create videos to showcase the best aspects of your brand.
Blogs are quick and cheap to produce so every company should be creating them to keep consumers engaged in the brand. They are opportunities to be visible in search engines; therefore, more blogs mean more opportunities to be seen online.
Like videos, blogs can be used to talk about products directly or they can give consumers a glimpse into your company’s ethos. Since transparency is important to consumers, information about your company, what you’re doing and why should be provided through your blogs. You can even have conversations with industry experts which will support your company’s credibility and be shared in their network also, earning you fresh readership.
Mr Porter and Superdrugs are examples of good use of blogs. They are informative, directly related to their niche customers, and engaging. By titling their blog homepage “Oh MY Blog”, Superdrugs is adopting the language of their customers making them feel instantly familiar; and having trending tags to narrow down searches makes the user experience much smoother.
If blogging is done right, you will see your newsletter open rate also improve. This is because consumers will be aware of the value of your content and want to read further.
Patagonia and Lululemon’s social media content is effective because it’s immersive and aspirational. Patagonia shares content on aspirational travel while Lululemon posts around fitness, like the Marathon for example. This type of content is interesting and engaging for their respective target audience, which helps build a community of likeminded individuals.
Other brands like Zara and Shein use influencers to directly market their products on social media which also works for them as people aspire to live the lives of influencers.
The opportunities on social media are endless: you can do product showcases, influencer marketing, share user generated content such as pictures, tags, product reviews and much more. Plus, it’s another opportunity to gather data.
As a side note, remember to offer difference types of content to keep followers entertained. Otherwise, you will run the risk of boring and alienating them without fresh content.
Emailing a mailing list or even sending transactional email is an opportunity to sell and upsell consumers. They can also contain links to social media accounts, blogs, or any other forms of content marketing you offer.
Every email you send, whether it be a welcome email, transactional, or just a touchpoint, you can promote products. If they are an existing customer, you can even send personalised product suggestions since you already know their likes and dislikes. Selling to existing customers has a success rate of 60-70%, over 5-20% with new customers. One of the main reasons for this is trust; the higher success rate with selling to existing customers, having higher open rates with emails, more loyal engagement on social media is because the trust has already been built. Therefore, focus on your existing customers.
There’s always an opportunity to shop: birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Christmas etc. Creating gift guides could not only showcase your products, but also suggest products to consumers which they normally wouldn’t consider. It is an easy way for consumers to discover new products.
Coupled with discount codes or a sale, gift guides can really improve sales of particular products.
Quizzes are entertaining for consumers which makes them more willing to share personal data. Here is a good opportunity to ask for name, email address, DOB etc, or even link with their Facebook page which already has a wealth of information on the individual before they begin the quiz.
Collecting data this way will reveal the likes and preferences on your consumers. Adding this information to the customer profile will help you provide a more personalised experience and communicate more effectively with your customers.
A more direct way quizzes can help increase revenue is by allowing you to introduce and suggest products to people who take them. You should have enough information through the quiz to suggest products that are to the individuals liking, which should therefore have a higher chance of purchase.
In summary, get started on content marketing today. No matter how small or big your budget is, get started. The effect content marketing has on conversion is dependant on how robust your content marketing strategy is. However, it is possible to get results from the simplest piece of content, if done correctly. All you have to do is make sure the content reflects your brand.
Good luck!