Since launching our Content Marketing service, we've been busy blogging about how effective content can be for a company.
But there's a lot of opinions out there on this marketing method, so how can you be sure that it's right for you?
Take a look at these 6 questions you should ask yourself, to find out whether you should be creating content for your business....
1. Do you want to build your brand?
So there are various ways to build your brand, but Content Marketing is the stand out way to do this in a refreshingly creative way. Your brand is essentially everything you do as a company. From your sales and marketing messages, to your logo and colours - everything you put out there will be associated with your brand.
The way to build up your brand is to consistently create different types of content such as; blog posts, infographics, videos, ebooks and anything that would be of interest to your audience. So long as you stamp it with your brand, you'll get people to emotionally invest in your company because they'll keep coming back for more.
Check out our 'How to Market a Business on Facebook' infographic. It's not about selling our service, but instead it's an extremely useful and shareable piece of content that helps to build up our brand's reputation.
2. Do want to educate people of your service?
No matter what your business may be, you always need to educate customers about your service. People don't have the time to sit and learn about everything you can offer them. You need to explain it in a very simple, digestible, creative way and Content Marketing is the way to do that.
Once you capture a prospects attention, you don't have a lot of time to keep their attention. That's why a video is perfect solution because it keeps people engaged from start to finish. It's so much easier to watch a video, than to read text on a website, which is why many people choose to create a video to tell their story. It also makes for great, shareable content too - just check out the video below that we made for Khan Tools as a perfect example:
3. Do you want to keep the customers you already have?
Sometimes in business, it's not always about trying to get new sales. In fact, Bain & Company actually found that by boosting retention rates by just 5 percent, it can raise profits by a whopping 95 percent! Yes people will shop with you again if you offer them loyalty discount, but sometimes there isn't always enough money in the budget to be doing this. So what do you do?
Create valuable content that keeps your audience coming back for more. Blogging is an awesome way to do this. Updating your blog at least twice a week with content that is targeted to your audience will help get those shares up. And Google loves websites that post content - so it will help with your rankings too!
The Innocent blog is a great example of content done right. Their blog is filled with 'daily thoughts', 'tweets of the week', stuff that they get up to as a company - and plenty of posts that make you go back to their website time and time again.
Image captured from innocent.com/blog
4. Do you want your social feed to be interactive?
Social Media is another valuable tool to help bring more exposure to your company. There is a lot of rules out there with different ways on what you should do to get more followers. Keep it conversational. Engage with your followers. Show off your personality. Don't focus on sales. But do you find that you run out of thing's to talk about on your feeds?
That's where Content Marketing comes in. If you create quality pieces of content then you can link back to this and really keep your followers engaged. To make sure you aren't posting the same stuff, you need to mix it up and offer your followers something new to look at. Infographics are perfect for sharing on social. Not only do they look good, but they offer a bunch of stats that your customers will find useful. This again sets you apart from your competitors as the expert in what you do.
We made some shareable videos during the Wimbledon tournament and one features Rufus the Harris Hawk who looks after the Wimbledon grounds. We tweeted him and he got back to us - giving our video plenty of likes and shares!
5. Do you want to generate more leads?
So we've talked about keeping the customers you've got, but content can help you bring in new ones too! Leads are the golden ticket to getting more sales on board, but acquiring leads can be quite a task. How do you know where to look? How do you know if anyone is actually interested in what you've got to say?
Yep you guessed it, Content Marketing is your solution. Creating content will not only bring leads to you, but it will help you find out who your audience really is. Try giving away an ebook to get email sign ups. Or take a look at your analytics to find out who is sharing your videos, blog posts, infographics any other content you put out there. Then use that as a way to find out what your audience likes and what they don't.
6. Do you want Google to be your best friend?
Hmm, who doesn't? Achieving page 1 of Google is something that we all dream of - and guess what? It's totally possible! Gone are the days where you have to spend hundreds of bills on an 'SEO expert' who will attempt to get your website higher up the rankings. Sure optimizing your website can help drive traffic to your site, but what's the point in traffic if you having nothing to show them when they get there?
Truth be told, Google loves content. The more content you create, the more people you'll attract, the more traffic you'll get - and the higher your website will appear on Google. It really is that simple. The key to doing this right, is by making sure your content is of a high quality. Don't just ship out any old thing, thinking that more is better. It needs to be useful enough for your audience to like and share.
Did you answer yes?
If you've answered any of these questions with a yes, then you need Content Marketing. There's many different types of content that you can be creating to help your company stand out. But if you don't have the time to focus your efforts on this, then check out our Content Marketing services to see how we can help you.
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