Content Marketing is one of the most mistaken skills of our century. The primary reason is, that no one actually knows what Content Marketing is and how to go about it. Is it just about making reels or just writing blogs? How to create unique content every day? I am here to answer these all today. I am confident that this is the ULTIMATE and ONLY Content Marketing Guide you will ever need.
What is Content Marketing?
Before we actually dive deep into the Content Marketing Guide, let’s break down Content Marketing word by word to know what it actually does in the simplest words. Content means Information and Marketing mean Promoting to Buy.
Therefore, Content Marketing is where information related to the product is shown to the audience, promoting the audience to buy the product.
The end goal of content marketing is conversions. Businesses across the globe have seen many benefits of investing in content marketing. These include –
- Communicate the company’s USP
- Show the value of the company to the customers
- Increased sales
- Brand awareness
- Brand loyalty
- Increased engagement
What is a Content Marketing Guide?
A Content Marketing Guide will bring clarity as to how to create content that gets the brand maximum of the above benefits. This particular content marketing guide involves types, strategies, scope, and future of content marketing which will help you create your annual content marketing plan.
- Types– What types of content can you start with?
- Strategies– What are the best practices in content marketing?
- Future– How can you make your content relevant for a longer period of time?
- Scope– Should you invest your time in content marketing?
All these questions will be answered in this content marketing guide so do read till the end.
Types of Content Marketing
Next, let’s know what kinds of content are there for you to market. Every content needs to follow a different road of marketing as it is for a different audience, market, and goals. These are the types of content-
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Blog Articles
Blog posts are published on websites usually. They are a great way to boost your SEO efforts by using relevant keywords. Tools like WordPress are free of cost, hence it is cost-effective as well. Check out this WordPress online course.
The average length of a blog post is about 1200 words but longer blog posts over 2,000 words rank better.
Must Read: 18 Hacks to Make You a Pro Blogger!
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Videos
Videos generate great results! They might need more budgets, effort, and time but they bring in great ROI (returns on investment) as it leads to higher conversions and trust in the consumers.
Over 80% of marketers said they were satisfied with the results of their video marketing efforts and 48% of customers trusted brands with videos on their landing pages.
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eBooks
eBooks such as e-brochures give out essential information about your company. This kind of content marketing can easily communicate the USPs of your company and why the customer should make a purchase from you.
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Case Studies
Case studies are a great way of portraying your company as an expert in the field. It also builds trust in the industry as well as customers as it states hard facts.
Read about Zomato’s surprising Business Model that made it one of the most successful startups in India.
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Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to reach out to the right target audience. If executed the right way, email marketing campaigns can generate leads and get you many conversions as well. Online Courses on Email Marketing can boost your lead generation and eventually convert to sales.
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Podcasts
Compelling and engaging audio can reach your target audience and can be used for broader marketing campaigns. Podcasts are a great way to start conversations about your brand.
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Influencer Marketing
Collaborating with influencers can ensure that your leads convert. Ensure that the influencer has the right following and a great connection with their audience. This has been a new addition to this Guide, especially after Instagram introduced the Reels feature.
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Testimonials and Reviews
Testimonials and reviews instill confidence in the customer about your brand, especially if they are interacting with it for the very first time. Request your customer to share their experience and leverage it. Getting more Google Reviews can indirectly help your SEO practices.
Fun Fact: According to Oberlo, 9 out of 10 customers make the effort to read reviews before they purchase a product.
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Tutorials
This type of content is engaging which is the essence of content marketing. Tutorials in the form of text, infographics,s or videos can help your leads reach the last stage of the funnel where they finally decide whether they should buy your product or not.
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Viral Content
Creating viral content such as memes can increase the shareability of content and increase brand awareness. It needs to be smart, funny, relatable, and not objectionable.
Check out these Content Marketing Tips That’ll Help Grow Your Business.
How to Make A Content Marketing Strategy?
Making the Content Marketing Strategy is the single most important part of the Guide as it will decide whether your digital campaign has the potential to make it BIG or not.
Here’s the pattern that you must follow to create a strategy to create VIRAL Content-
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Goals
The first step has to be deciding on the Purpose of the content that you wish to create. Is it for lead generation or brand awareness? While deciding on the GOALS, always set achievable and practical ones as the team may be disappointed when they don’t match up with it after the content is published.
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Content and Channel
Choosing the right type of content to match the goals is very important. For example, if you are planning to launch your product through a video, you can choose video content and Youtube as your medium. This is the stage where you plan the content part of the Content Marketing Guide.
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Budget
A Budget involves 2 parameters- content expenses and advertising expenses. Shooting a professional video requires a lot of outsourcing (equipment, talent, etc) which requires a budget.
Also, if you wish to run Ads on the content, you should set out finances in the budget for that parameter as well.
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Execution
Till now, you must have planned in detail the content marketing strategy but now it is time to execute it. At the appropriate time, you can upload or publish the content for the audience to view.
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Analysis
Was your content marketing strategy successful or not? Analytical tools like Google Analytics are very useful as they give you the numbers that are necessary. The number of impressions, likes, comments, bounce rate, engagement, etc are all available for your content on various Analytical Tools.
This also gives you room for change. In case, a part of your strategy is not working or being engaged with, you can always tweak it from the data that you get.
Pst, Learn the A-Z of Google Analytics in just 5 hours!
This strategy of Content Marketing involves these 5 steps which are crucial and important for review.
Scope of Content Marketing
Last but not the least, as a part of the Content Marketing Guide, you must know why in today’s day and age it is relevant and important.
The scope of content marketing has been increasing with each passing day, in India. With the growing reach of social media alone, today, companies can reach a target audience of millions online with consistent efforts. More than 9 billion businesses use Facebook to connect with customers.
- B2B businesses– B2B marketers make use of social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn and also invest in PPC campaigns to reach target audiences with small budgets as well. Know more about PPC advertising.
- B2C businesses – B2C marketers have started focusing on increasing brand awareness and increasing their customer base through their content marketing efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
The scope of content marketing encompasses much more than only social media as it includes other mediums as well such as email marketing, podcasts, SEO efforts, etc.
Future of Content Marketing
The future of content marketing is bright. Some of the upcoming trends in content marketing include –
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Optimized, High-Quality Content
With the markets saturating at a fast rate, relevant, highly optimized, and regular content will be prioritized to stand out. Newer content formats will also open the way for innovation and creativity.
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UGC
User-generated content will become more popular as the audience is more likely to trust a person who has used the brand than brand ambassadors. It acts as a word-of-mouth promotion. According to a study, Gen Zers prefer authentic content.
Read on to know How to market your brand to Gen Z.
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Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence will rise in content marketing in the coming years. It will revolutionize how customer interactions take place. Today, we can see the advancement, with many companies using chatbots to interact with customers. This enables real-time interaction and also makes the customer feel valued.
Check out the Future of artificial intelligence and digital marketing.
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Visual Content
Video marketing will become more and more popular. In 2019, 80% of internet content consumed was video content. Even though it is difficult to produce, the results are well worth it.
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Voice Optimization
In 2020, there was a drastic increase in voice optimized searches. For marketers, it means identifying the right keywords and making the content comprehensible to the listener.
We have some of the best content marketing tools along with other digital marketing tools, just for you!
FAQs
Q. Is content marketing effective in 2022?
Yes, content marketing is very much effective in 2022. The onset of the pandemic has pushed millions of people to consume content online. More people have started spending time online.
Q. Is content marketing a good career?
Yes, content marketing is a good career with the digital boom in recent times. Digital marketers today understand the importance of quality content.
Q. What is the goal of content marketing?
The goal of content marketing is to create engaging, impactful, and sustainable content.
Conclusion
We really hope you enjoyed reading this blog on content marketing and you gained some valuable insights into your content strategies. Let us know in the comments below how you plan on applying them. If you wish to specialize in Content Marketing in just 8 hours, we have a course that may help you!
Don’t forget to check out our online comprehensive digital marketing course for a short crash course on digital marketing. We even have an 11-month MBA-level Post Graduation in Digital Marketing for students, professionals, and entrepreneurs from different streams who wish to specialize in digital marketing.
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