What is Content Marketing and 5 Ways You Can Integrate It Into Your Next Campaign
If you caught our how to create a brand blog post, you would've got the memo about us dropping the 'content marketing' buzzword #sorrynotsorry. And while it may be trending, this cost-effective, easy to implement strategy is a total game-changer when it comes to your online marketing efforts. Plus, it's kind of our specialty.
So what is content marketing?
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as "a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."
Sounds like a worthwhile exercise, right? We think so too. And whilst the 'content' in content marketing can mean a lot of different things – pretty much anything that can possibly contain a message is considered content nowadays – here are five effective content marketing tactics you can integrate into your next campaign:
1. Video
We know we don't have to tell you this one cos this highly impactful medium is all over our news feeds. Whether your business' content marketing strategy is to deliver traditional products or services, relevant newsworthy information or promotions, or simply to direct people to a landing page for lead gen, video brings a serious return on investment for your campaign. According to MarketingLand, 62% of Google searches feature video, and it drives an average 157% increase in organic search engine traffic. A nifty trick to extend your video's shelf life is to release mini-teaser videos in the run up to your campaign launch to drum up interest and excitement.
2. Infographics
Humans are visual creatures and infographics can be a powerful tool to help your content cut through the information jungle and catch your target audience's attention. We're curious by nature, drawn to facts, figures, stats and, most importantly, visuals, so infographics are almost made for social media. These highly engageable pieces of content do particularly well on social sharing platforms. Use beautiful, well-designed, easily digestible infographics to pique your consumer's interest in your service offering, product or promotion. Because who doesn’t like to look at a nice image, right?
3. Long-form Content
Be it a blog post, article, white paper, newsletter or ebook, long-form content is not only a good way to build out your content bank, it's highly effective in showcasing your expertise, building authority in your sector or helping you shine in a crowded online space. Plus, you can extend your content's reach by pitching it to publications and influencers for a collaboration or guest blog post.
4. Crowdsourcing
Always know your why before you fly. For your overall marketing efforts to be successful, it pays to do a bit of research. Use surveys, polls and quizzes to learn more about your target audience. Tap into their beliefs, problems and desires and create content that resonates with their specific needs and shows them how you will solve their problems better than anyone else.
5. Social Media
Just because you can share something at the click of a button, doesn't mean that you have to. Knowing when, where and how to distribute your content on social media is an integral part of your content marketing strategy. Determine what the desired outcome is for each social platform that you use, develop a campaign that will engage most with each platform's user, and customise your content, tone and message for each channel.
