Content marketing is the newest form of advertising. Advertisers realized a while back that people were becoming unresponsive to traditional marketing methods. The lack of response was especially notable when they were using these methods online.
It happened because in the online setting, the targets had many ways of evading or ignoring the sales pitches made. To address this issue, the marketers developed content marketing. It involves the use of published media content to educate and inform the target audience. The prime consideration to be kept in mind in content marketing is that the target audience is being educated and not given another sales pitch.
There are several golden rules of content marketing that serve as best practice guide everyone should employ. The first rule, which must be stressed, is that the published content should be informative. It should not mention the company producing the content. If you mention the company, the content is reduced to traditional marketing. The logic behind this rule is: where you educate the potential client, you equip him with tools for better decision making. Additionally, the business providing the informative content builds a rapport with the person consuming this content. The end result is that the audience, which is better informed and trusts the company, is likelier to become clients.
The second rule: The content produced must be engaging and entertaining. The company using content marketing must make its content as entertaining as possible if it is to capture the attention of a large audience. The company can source outside creators as long as it maintains proper editorial control over the content produced. The availability of a wide variety of content publishing methods makes this quite easy to do.
The third rule: The company must have a strategy for content marketing. It should not be assumed that all you need to do is publish content and ride this train to the bank. The content that is published should tie into the company’s objectives. Furthermore, it should meld well with the other marketing methods already in use by the company.
The fourth rule: Be consistent with the content you publish. The content produced reflects on the image of the company. A lot of this content is going to create the audience’s first impressions about your business. That first impression is next to impossible to undo. Consistency ensures that the business is highlighted in good light. It portrays stability and a sense of purpose about the business. Content marketing in this aspect is a lot like a company motto. While a company motto may evolve with changing circumstances, the vision it reflects must be consistent.
The fifth rule: Collaborate you with your target audience. Content marketing is aimed at engaging the customer base and the general public. No one can inform you better on what they find to be engaging than the clients. Therefore, if your business is to succeed in using content marketing to generate conversions into sales, the process must be collaborative between your customer base and you. Some companies have found that clients produce better marketing content than they can. In line with this, create strategies that include your client in the creative process.
The sixth rule of content marketing is, create content only when you have information to give to the audience. This is not a social media interaction, therefore, do not create content for content’s sake. In line with rule number one, you must always seek to educate and inform your target audience. This means that the content should provide fresh information or at the very least, strive for a new angle on available information.
The seventh rule: Monitor the response of your audience. Like any good entertainer, the business doing content marketing must seek to understand your audience, their preferences, and what they respond to. The only way to do this is to invest in analytical tools that measure your audience’s response to the information provided. The monitoring and evaluation process are a cycle. Furthermore, it must be undertaken periodically to ensure that your business always has the latest in actionable market intelligence.
The eighth rule: Use all the available methods of publishing that fit within your platform. Do not be afraid to mix things up. Online publishing provides a truly staggering array of content provision methods, from videos to blogs, to status updates and tweets, to pictures, and infographics among so many others. By using different content publishing methods, you reach a wider audience. An audience that may not be able to see a picture on their mobile device will read a blog post and so on.
Lastly, content marketing is one of the few truly enjoyable forms of marketing a company can engage in. Keeping in mind your company targets and objectives, have some fun with this tool and your audience will too. In the end, a happy customer is a buying customer.
An avid blogger, Sandy Pardal leads the team of creative people at WebStartToday, which is a free website builder that helps users to create a free website. Online marketing comes to him as a deep passion. He likes to experiment with websites, track their performances and share his insights with readers.