Top 10 Useful Tips for Strong Content Marketing from mila eryomina's blog

Content marketing is a super hit in digital. Everyone talks about how important it is to promote brands and products - and for good reason. What it takes to create and implement a strong content strategy. 

In friendship and relationships, we appreciate those people who talk to us not only about themselves, but also about us. The same applies to successful communication between business and user. You can win the heart of the audience only by helping in solving the problems facing it. Now the consumer market is overflowing with brands that want to get regular and loyal customers. And two years of reforming markets and purchasing power due to the pandemic only tighten competition. And the victory in it will be for those who deserve the strong sympathy and trust of the buyer.   

Designer advertising creatives, serious discounts and tempting bonuses - all this does not work if the main message does not “catchy” the user. The main reasons are listed below.

• The amount of advertising online and offline is so high that users do not have time to perceive and assimilate information. 
• In connection with the quantitative factor, the qualitative one also changes. To capture the user's attention, brands use controversial hype topics to the point of being acceptable. This may cause a reaction of rejection and a financial boycott on the part of Central Asia. 
• Selective blindness in viewing ads on the streets, in the press and on TV has long been supplemented by banner blindness on the Internet. Therefore, the effectiveness of any direct advertising today is not as high as advertisers would like.

The task of promotion really needs to be solved somehow differently. This “different” is content marketing. Its meaning is to attract people not so much with advertising as with the similarity of values ​​and interests of a person and a brand. As well as a demonstration of expertise and the benefits of content for the consumer. Many people think about real estate, learn more about it.

In essence, content marketing is an element of a marketing strategy that aims to:

• involvement of the consumer in long-term relationships - while the "regular" advertising is based on short communications within the framework of a separate promotion or seasonal offers;
• making a profit progressively and regularly, by supporting the user's interest in a brand or product;
• providing for the needs and closing the "pains" of the audience, and not the implementation of the "wishlist" of the company or brand.

Effective content marketing is impossible without a strategy that is based on the long game. Attracting the consumer with useful, entertaining and informational content, the brand forms a deep and versatile self-image. 

Content marketing leverages the knowledge, expertise, and values ​​that matter to the consumer without selling head-on. It creates and cultivates in the user the feeling that this particular brand can:

• talk simply about the complex;
• timely throw significant news;
• give instructions for the use of products;
• laugh with the audience. 

Such communication is unobtrusive and does not cause sharp resistance. And when the moment of making a decision comes, people more easily “ripe” for the purchase. According to some studies, if a person has interacted with a brand 5 to 9 times, they are more likely to make a purchase. After all, he already treats the company as a friend and trusts her.

To achieve the desired conversion and sales rates, put them on stream, it is worth developing content promotion according to current rules and schemes. For example, using inbound marketing technologies. Below are 10 tips so that you can systematically develop the direction of content marketing and get tangible results from your efforts. 

To be truly valuable to the target audience, you need to fall into the user interests. That is, you should know the maximum about your potential customers. For this, a brief description like: “25-34 years old, mostly Muscovites, 68% men” is not enough - you need to deeply delve into their needs, communication style, language, set of values. 

Only then will you be able to generate content that will resonate with the audience, be in a suitable format and presented in a language they understand. For example, by creating memes with Morgenstern, you can interest a younger audience. But if she is not your potential buyer, you will simply waste your time and resources in vain. Or you promote a beauty salon without taking into account femme trends. And you post Instagram posts that compare an unshaven female leg to a cactus. The feelings of some users are hurt - you lose one of the segments of your audience.

Content marketing does not sell directly, but ultimately works for sales. Therefore, everything that is inscribed in the brand's content strategy should fit into the sales funnel. For each of its stages - awareness, interest, purchase and retention - different types and types of content must be thought out and planned.

It is worth noting that content marketing does not contradict or oppose classical advertising. Rather, context, target, and native should work as additional tools to warm up the audience at certain stages of the sales funnel. 

Many believe that good content will find its way to the consumer on its own. This is not true. An important part of content marketing is  getting content delivery right . If you neglect it, you can wait indefinitely for the consumer to get to your materials.

Sometimes it seems like a content marketing strategy means “add hot/useful topics/fill a lot of memes to what is already there”. Often the result is writing long articles that users are not interested in. After all, they have read them a hundred times already at your competitors. 

Content marketing starts with revisiting topics that are important to your audience and brand. It continues by assessing the relevance of these topics and finding common ground between users and the brand. Complemented by topics related to seasonal or direct advertising. All this often leads to the creation of a new content plan, which is flexible in case of sudden, but relevant newsbreaks. And this plan is being progressively implemented. In addition, its relevance to the needs of the audience is constantly analyzed. Based on the data received, the plan is regularly adjusted and updated. Do not understand how find fast people, learn more by clicking on the link.

Your content plan should include topics that are of interest to your audience. However, it is not necessary to be limited only to them. You can expand the topic through the use of social, seasonal or cultural newsworthy events. This is not only about the seasonal promotion “Get a discount for the New Year”, but also about something that can fit well with your brand and be interesting to everyone at the same time. A conditional example: a film premiere expected by millions of people, for example, the upcoming Matrix-4, can be integrated into the content. If this event is in the interests of the audience, it can become a point of contact with your business for new, previously unfamiliar users.

Such newsbreaks can be planned in advance, or you can leave a small “reserve” for them in the content plan. Vizit, a brand of intimate products, is an excellent example of building content marketing based on public newsworthy events. The company ironically reacts in posts and creatives to significant events — the coronavirus pandemic, the resignation of the Government, etc.

It is clear that a shipyard or a supermarket chain will not be able to promote itself in this way. But it is for this type of products that the chosen topics, provocative style and memetic presentation are suitable. This is the art of content marketing - to respond to the expressed and unspoken requests and needs of the audience in a language they understand. And at the same time to warm up future customers, constantly being present in their information field.

The greater the coverage, the greater the traffic, engagement, and opportunities for researching user behavior. If you know exactly where your target audience lives, use these channels to broadcast your content. And don't stop there.  

Always ask yourself - where else can our customers be? Maybe you need to supplement the promotion of an innovative IT startup on Facebook with the creation of a group on Twitter or the generation of articles for Habr? After all, a select audience sits there, eager for the latest news and reading in foreign languages.

Do not immediately discard platforms that at first glance seem inappropriate. For example, many believe that TikTok is still a school-youth hangout, and serious brands have nothing to do there. However,  as we already wrote , this site is a pretty good choice for medical clinics. Marvelous? The point is low competition and the absence of strict prohibitions in terms of medical content. 

Clickbait is a good idea, especially if such a headline includes keywords or phrases.  

• A well-written title is very important. You have about 30 seconds to grab the user's attention - while he reads the title of the article, and decides whether to leave the page or stay. 
• A title with a key will allow users to find your content faster through search engines
• A media headline will immediately identify topics where your brand is particularly strong. The wording “10 best ways to fix an old refrigerator” really conveys the message that the author of the article is an expert in his field. 

But don't get too carried away with clickbait. Not only because on many sites you are threatened with bans or pessimization for it. The audience of Runet has already learned to calculate headlines-enticements, and associates them more with yellow press than with a serious brand worthy of trust. 

The main rule is that clickbait should reflect the essence of the content. If you wrote an article “How to lose weight without diets by 30 kg in a week”, and there is no declared solution in the text, then the user will have a feeling of deception. And for that particular person, your content marketing will no longer work.

One and the same topic can be presented in several forms: 

• text in an article, website or post;
• a picture or a carousel of images on social networks or on third-party sites from Yaplakal to Reddit;
• videos on the website, social networks, TikTok, Youtube and Youtube Shorts;
• audio on the air on the radio or in a podcast, on a website or on Youtube.

It is worth recalling: the text will be more interesting if you dilute it with pictures and videos. By the way, it is important to adapt the content for each platform for placement. Everywhere you need a different style and presentation.

Sometimes it seems that it is irrational to resubmit old content - they say, users will immediately decide that we have run out of topics, pictures and letters. In fact, old content must be repackaged and re-posted. For example, split an article into several parts and submit it as a cycle of posts on social networks. 

This is necessary in order to:

• repeat and consolidate important topics in which you are an expert;
• update topics taking into account changes in the environment, consumer behavior, the world situation and anything else;
• demonstrate the dynamics of a business or brand in relation to a specific topic - how you have grown and progressed in solving certain problems;
• demonstrate flexibility - how you were able to prove your case over time, or admit your mistakes and approach the problem in a new way.

In other words, repackaging content immediately creates depth for your brand. This is especially important for those users who are just getting to know you and do not know about your experience and cases. But this only works when it’s not about rewriting content, but about changing its format, updating and upgrading. 

Having created a brilliant content plan for the year, you can’t just implement it and reap the benefits of your genius. Content delivery methods and technical capabilities are changing, new digital trends are coming, new social platforms are flaring up and dying down, newsworthy events are constantly arising. All this needs to be tracked, analyzed and, if necessary, integrated into the content strategy. In order not to become obsolete and not cease to be relevant.

Evaluate the effectiveness of content - not only in terms of sales, but also in terms of driving traffic to the site, increasing the number of subscribers or leads, the number of article reads, the number of views, etc. Track the involvement of users in certain topics, draw conclusions - which formats and presentation "shoot" and which do not. Adjust your content marketing with this in mind, monitor what your competitors are doing and learn from them. 

Creating content that would attract the user is not easy. And only those who do this all the time know that it is most often difficult to do what seems obvious and easy. 

But, perhaps, this is the special interest of content marketing. It is necessary not only to be in trend, take into account technical and SEO issues, fill the site or regularly maintain social networks. 

You need to create unique, innovative, smart and useful content. Which:

• brings the brand closer to the consumer and takes into account his needs,
• saturates the digital and offline space with live, expert and useful information about a brand or business, contributing to its promotion; 
• skillfully integrates direct advertising and can perfectly interact with a personal brand, for example, a business owner;
• brings the brand closer to real life — sincere and not always formatted.