Category: Marketing

Content Marketing: The smarter way to promote your business.

Let‘s start with these statistics published by some agencies. Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing & generates 3x as many leads, says@demandmetric. Almost half of the 18-49-year-old people get their news & information online, says@pewresearch Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog, says@impactbnd 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog, says@blogher The most effective SEO technique? Content creation, says@Techclient

Ok, to make things easier, they are all referring to digital contents published on the web. There are plenty of different types, you sure have heard of them but perhaps not very clear about how they will matter to your business.

Content marketing is the evolved form of the print media marketing methods which has come to the fore due to an exponential increase in Internet and online users. The maximum online presence of the people brought about the opportunity to catch their attention using various types of online contents.

The USP of content marketing is that it works on a personalised level with the readers and directly influences their thoughts. If they like your content they may share that with others or choose to start dialogues with you.

This is a technique of marketing that aims to strike the right chord with the audience through relevant and valuable contents – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

The challenge lies in making your content valuable and relevant, How can you tell that your content is valuable and relevant?

The simple answer is if the content is valuable and relevant then it will have many likes and shares. People will actively seek it out by visiting your website. But for that to happen your content must be disseminated to the right type of audience.

Your content is valuable when it is relevant i.e. if someone has an interest. You can greatly increase the viewership by identifying the target market and putting up the right type of content

What is the success chance of content marketing?

It is a proven fact now that Content Marketing works better than traditional ad-based marketing firstly because a content carries more information and addresses buyers’ concerns in a simple manner. What are the advantages of content marketing over other channels?

• Higher visibility of the brand name and the products at a much lesser time.
• Much faster conversion probability because all required steps of purchase ( awareness, product info, research, dialogue with the company, order placing and payment ) are online and help faster decision making.
• Offers lower upfront costs and deeper long term benefits.
• Target region and audience are possible to be specified.
• Multiple metrics are available to measure viewership and assess the interest level in the products.
• Feedbacks from the readers give the opportunity to personalized attention for direct as well as reference marketing.
• An easier way to learn if there are negative sentiments about your products and take measures promptly.
• Much higher performance/price quotient.

What are the common types of contents that are doing best?

Blogs – Relevant well-written pieces that connect with your target audience can be very effective in building authority, trust, and relationships that consequently drive conversions.

Videos – Very impactful form of content. Current data shows almost 75% chance of conversion if a perfectly made video is watched by the right demographic.

Infographics – They present the figures that matter, in attractive visuals. Various statistics, research, and other data provided in understandable, engaging, and sharable formats highly influence decision making.

How-to guide – Well written instruction or How-To guide is a great way to brand development that can help generate a loyal community of users and enthusiasts.

E-mail marketing – Very effective way of enhancing business or brand relationship by sending attractive graphics and short texts to current and previous customers. This is a proven practice to encourage loyalty, repeat business, and acquire new customers.

Online Writing forums – Popular online writing platforms such as Quora and Reddit are very effective channels that boost your industry authority and traffic to your site. These are also very useful for research because writers exchange independent views.

Wrap up Human psychology has more trust in something expressed in writing which is not reversible. Consumers will look for clarity in the concept which symbolizes the authenticity of the company and the product. It is a psychological process of confidence building.

Topline and Bottomline, both play crucial roles in the running of a business. Likewise, if scaling up of publicity is required for a product then it is also necessary to address the grievances. The success of a business is a function of how well it is perceived by the people. And in that context, isn’t there a striking resemblance when one thinks about how the brand values of the celebrities rise or fall in the eyes of their followers?

This is how the two concepts – branding and reputation management come together to form the two arms of marketing in modern times. If branding is aimed at strengthening the topline i.e. earning more revenue through sales then damage control becomes equally important in terms of sealing the leakages, thus maintaining a healthy bottom-line.

The traditional approach – turnover only

If we look at it in hindsight, marketing then, before social media happened, seems like a bonsai tree, bereft of qualitative growth. That is to say, not much knowledge about the actual audience and almost zero engagement.

Businesses then would revolve around branding through media advertising. Crores of rupees would go into it. Advertising was (it still is) everywhere – TV, newspaper, billboard, and on so many other media. In fact, traditional marketing generated more profits for the media than for businesses themselves.

But the net effect? No way to measure. It’s more like shouting into a mike from a tower to reach as many people as possible, then sit, wait and hope. If sales picked up, it’s a big relief for the marketing – people liked the campaign. But no way to learn how many people rejected your product, went to your competitors, or it may not be your product but something else that is hurting them. Never mind, marketing is about gaining new ground and not about looking inward – would be the common answer.

Old beliefs fell apart

Digital technology emerged and took the world by storm, making impossibles possible. Marketing could no longer remain elite but became more inclusive. Engaging with customers suddenly became realistic and occupied the centre spot in the evolution of marketing. We took a quantum leap in creating perception.

The issues of grievances started pouring in and forced the companies to look to it as a major source of setbacks due to their lightning spread across networks and boundaries and building formidable negative sentiments. The power of influencing gained recognition for the need of defending the bottom line.

Smart marketers soon discovered the enormous potential of the power of Influencing and rechristened it as soft power which soon became a mainstream marketing method, a better alternative to traditional marketing that takes care of top line and the bottom line both.

Is traditional advertising a dead concept?

Not really, but it is not on the driver’s seat. Digital platforms are becoming stronger with every passing day, taking the game of perception to new heights. Targeting and reaching the right audience and learning their thoughts are becoming precision tools. Traditional advertising is slated to continue as a supplement to the more sophisticated digital outreach.