In business we are always seeking ways to win market share and stay relevant. When considering marketing strategies and tactics that will lead to new customers and drive business growth, content marketing has taken a leading position. The long-term strategy of using content to build stronger relationships with a target audience has gradually improved over the years. Consider that 70% of customers would rather learn about a company through an article over any kind of advertisement. This requires us to be more creative and get personal with the content we share to stay ahead of our competition and top of mind to customers and prospects.
The best way to begin the process is to start with a strategic planning session that outlines a list of target prospects and customers and a list of features and benefits that will resonate with both. Second, we prepare content to educate potential customers about products and services are an effective way that will influence them without using a direct selling method. Third is to focus on content marketing that encompasses four primary business goals.
- Maximize ROI
- Build brand awareness
- Obtaining new customers
- Retain current customers
By attracting and retaining customers with compelling content your brand will drive profitable customer actions. To ensure your content endeavors help your brand meet marketing and business goals take a look at the below list of best practices to help you get the most from your content marketing efforts.
Best Practice
Effective marketing happens when your content connects to the right target audience. Well-written content (marketing efforts) will support online marketing activities including SEO, social media marketing and e-Commerce sales. The better your content is branded the more engagement you will have which leads to new opportunities to win new customers.
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing constantly update their algorithms, which are used to crawl the web and improve the quality of organic search engine results (SEO) in order to create the best experience for the end user. By posting high quality and relevant content you can increase business results by improving SEO. Your creative content can also fuel social media marketing copy, back links, and hyper links all having the ability to get you new customers.
If someone is searching online for a product or service that you have optimized in your content strategy around a “key word or phrase” and your business has established a high authority online for this search term, your business will land on the first page of the search engine results.
Once you get your content marketing strategy rolling your target audience will want you to deliver valuable, relevant, and consistent content often.
- Valuable –Prospect should walk away feeling like they’ve learned something.
- Relevant – Your content must address consumers’ wants, needs, and interests.
- Consistent – Effective content, delivered over a period of time.
Want to learn how to drive sales with content? Schedule a call with our team.
