Building awareness and generating sales for your business depends heavily on integrating marketing into content creation and making it seem less ad-like. Getting a hold of this knowledge is the key that unlocks the success of your business web marketing.
Content marketing is essential for any business. Studies have shown that 72% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement and another 72% say it has increased their leads.
So, doing content marketing, and doing it well, takes expertise. It’s easy to come off as too salesy, which can scare people away. This is why in this article, we want to show you how to seamlessly integrate marketing into content.
WHAT IS CONTENT MARKETING?
Content marketing is a type of marketing that leverages content to create attention around a product.
The evolution of technology has resulted in the increasing use of Content Marketing as a lever in several marketing strategies. It is indeed a huge task, and if mastered, could be the solution to poor marketing skills.
When it involves the roadmap to enticing, retaining, and converting readers, marketing is the tool used to enforce this since its rise in 2017.
According to a report by Content Marketing Institute, 70% of B2B marketers use content marketing to promote their products.
Startups and small businesses value content marketing, but it will be best that you do not just go right into it without getting the correct information, understanding the people, and knowing your competition.
Your competitors might be into blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, or any other form suitable for content marketing. You might find these all too heavy and overwhelming for you to handle.
So, you must first know the idea to make it less ad-like, more relatable, more information-filled, and better.
That said, how do you then seamlessly integrate marketing this idea into your content?
CREATE AND ADJUST YOUR CONTENT MARKETING GOAL
There has to be a purpose, a goal, a reason for creating your campaign, and it should be reflected in your content.
Your content marketing strategy begins with a clear goal and true purpose where you can measure the process of your campaign, whether it’s traffic, downloads, frequent visits, new subscribers, video views, sales, podcast downloads, conversions, engagement, and social share.
This is your space, and all freedom to make decisions depends on how much work is put into it at the beginning will determine how far it goes or if it will fall flat again.
Set your goals and if you have done that already, make realistic adjustments to them. Your goals will be the guide to how other important decisions will be approached.
Your goals can revolve around these questions: What will the campaign be about? How will it be distributed? How long do I wait before putting up another? And so on.
Your goals should also determine and include what you want your average conversion rate to be on the first release, how many listeners, readers, and users you aim for.
The steps you need to attract your target audience and the progression in which posting your content will follow should also be included while setting up your goals.
The most important goal content developers go for is the Traffic Goal. Your traffic goals are responsible for your conversion rates. You need to promote your content by landing pages, getting your content advertised on other platforms, having influencers share your posts, or any different style supporting and promoting your content and increasing its traffic.
Build a portfolio of contents, set it into motion, promote it, and as the conversion rates flow in, you see your baseline returns, and you can tweak it to make improvements.
RESEARCH ON YOUR AUDIENCE AND UNDERSTAND THEIR NEED
After setting up a goal, your content should revolve around who will hear, see, read, and watch your content because their presence, reactions, and reviews are just as significant.
Compelling content is not produced out of thin air. It involves several lists of topics you have written out and expatiate on and requires feedback and direction from past content you have posted.
Integrating marketing into content is a strategy to answer questions target audiences are curious about; the purpose could be to educate, transform or/and enlighten them.
People will respond less when they feel they are communicating with a bot; an example is a content creator who uses Instagram, and the comment section, post, and responses are programmed already. The traffic on that page will turn out to be very low and eventually lose followers.
For such a reason, it is best to relay your content with so much understanding and empathy to the audience; that way, it seems less like a bot or an ad and becomes more relatable. The more people who relate to your posts, the more they share them on social media.
How do you understand your target audience? By understanding their demographics and psychographics.
Demographics include quantitative traits, i.e., things you can measure like age, job, location, position, title, gender, etc.
Psychographics, on the other hand, is the opposite of demographics and can’t be measured. They include belief systems, attitudes, interests, and standards.
Make a balanced survey, interview several people on the street and online if you can, or you can use your close associates for a test run.
CREATE YOUR AUDIENCE PERSONAS
After setting up realistic goals, researching your target audience, and understanding where they are lacking and where you will be filling up, the next important thing to do is find your target audience.
These personas of your audience are the keys to getting them to your content. Their personas are constructed to integrate and internalize who the ideal customer is. Their personas also give you a surface detail on communicating and relating to your audience as humanly as possible.
These fictional characters you will be creating should have their demographic and psychographic attributes listed out; that way, you can visualize exactly who this person is, what they need, and how you can help them.
Give each character identity and an environment. You can then add photographs to bring them to life. By doing this, you can predict the reactions, emotions, desires, and wants of your characters that potential audiences can relate to.
A well-developed character is to produce a replica of your audience. Its purpose is to help you craft the proper messaging and nailing the perfect information while integrating marketing into your content.
KNOW YOUR MOST RELEVANT CHANNELS
Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the places your audience spends most of their time, and you should take advantage of those places by using them as a channel of engaging your potential audiences.
Pinterest is used to distribute visual content pieces from infographics to schemas and even original illustrations; using this will attract traffic to your website. While Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can be used to tell the story behind your brand development and other content, no matter your Niche.
If you are going for a younger presence, Twitter and, most significantly, Snapchat are key channels your brand should use. If your content is directed towards the millennials, getting a more suitable medium where you can promote your content without seeming like an ad is very important if you want those traffic and conversion rates.
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