Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of marketing in the digital world. Gone are the days when content was associated with blogs posts for a company. Instead, today content marketing has many new ways in which a business person can market the brand.
It is no doubt in saying that you are already using social media for marketing. If yes then you are already exploiting content marketing to an extent. However, it is also important for an entrepreneur to understand content to strategize a successful marketing plan for execution. This article is a simple guide in which you will get some insight into the basics of content marketing so you can plan your marketing strategy. However, before we do that let’s discuss what content marketing really means.
What is Content Marketing?
To begin with, content marketing is the management of content—visual or textual—which can help an organization gain visibility in the global village using various forms of new media in the digital age.
Where content marketing is essential for business growth, you need a solid strategy to implement to gain optimum results. If you have a successful strategy, it means you have planned out your goals, audience, and content distribution channels.
A typical marketing plan should be able to answer the following answers:
- Who is your target audience? moreover, what type of content best suits their needs
- What channels do you use?
- What metrics are you using to measure the results?
- Do you have the resources—capital, professional and experts?
- What pain points can you solve with your product?
If you have all the answers, you are ready to implement your content marketing strategy. However, if you are still confused, keep on reading until you find your answers.
Types of Content
Before you strategize your marketing plan, you need to understand that there are many different types of content out there which can help you in your business growth. New marketing channels are developed every year and are an expert at content marketing; it is necessary that you learn the new types and experiment to achieve better results. For example, business nowadays is taking advantage of Wikipedia as a marketing platform and providing their audience with information to gain the trust of potential customers. These businesses hire Wikipedia writers to compose a well-research article so it can be published on Wikipedia.
Some other types of content that your company can use are:
- Blog posts/ guest posts
- User-generated content like Facebook Feeds
- Videos (animated, live, etc.)
- Podcasts
- Whitepapers
- Infographics
- Case studies
- Pictures
- Webinars
- News and magazine articles
- Wikipedia articles
Remember that research is the key to strategizing a successful marketing plan. If you have understood the types of content for marketing, you also need to know the different channels used to publish the content.
Types of Channels
Getting the word out about your content is important. You can publish whitepapers if you want to, but if you are not talking about them, how will it get the attention of the audience? You need to consider the different types of channels such as your own business website where you can publish the content so it can be found on the search engines.
Some of the popular marketing channels include:
- E-mails
- Social media
- Search engine ads
- Websites
- Pamphlets and more
If you are just starting, focusing on one or two channels to get stable, measure the results to analyze the effectiveness of the content and gradually expand your reach for better results.
Consider Your Resources
This is one of the most crucial steps you need to consider before you consider all the opportunities it has to offer. Consider your budget, your team and exerts you have for content marketing. Does your marketing budget have room to hire professional for content writing? Don’t limit your resources to the marketing team. Every professional writer has the expertise and style of writing. For example, professional Wikipedia writers cannot write blog posts and video scripts or vice versa.
Similarly, time is also a resource and considering a new type of content for marketing can take some time to learn, experiment, create and implement. So choose the type of content that best suits your resources so it can help you to achieve your marketing goals.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be said that content is the most important part of marketing which may vary from business to business. You must realize the importance of each marketing tactic and work accordingly to achieve your marketing goals.