To many, content marketing is complex to navigate, but streamlining online customer experience is a great place to start – it may even give you content to adapt into something impactful. After all, a successful customer experience means higher satisfaction and retention, providing you the space to create content that fosters new relationships. Content marketing strategies encompass creating, publishing, and promoting content.
These steps are further supported by:
Focus on content that is personal, high quality and prioritises human connections. Branded content should place emphasis on mimicking real life situations instead of being extravagant, resource heavy and unsustainable.
Once content has been created, we step into the second phase – optimisation. A consistent optimisation strategy makes sure your content remains relevant and results driven. This ranges from incorporating high-value keywords, updating your metadata, testing user experience and better understanding audiences’ online intent. The opportunities to improve your approach are abundant – and often ignored.
Online communities share huge amounts of content online daily, from photos and videos, to online reviews. This abundant stream of content circulates within the online communities, but what consumers actually engage with, is changing. Brands need to immerse themselves in these communities to monitor changing expectations, help consumers feel heard and help brands strengthen existing relationships. Investing time and effort into your online community will position your content strategy for long term, sustainable success.
Content is key in the consumer’s purchase journey. High quality content can drastically increase the likelihood of someone taking action and converting. When your audience perceives content as valuable, it increases the chances of them sharing it – the equivalent of someone subtly vouching for your brand online.
Simply creating content is no longer enough to attain your desired goals of reaching people far and wide. The evolution of content marketing requires us to participate in targeted content distribution in order to achieve tangible results.
As consumers’ online behaviour continues to change, constant testing is important to confirm your current approach garners the most favourable response. Monitoring and understanding search intent and content consumption can help guide experimentation and establish how to effectively resonate with your audience in future.
What works today might not work tomorrow. Adaptability and willingness to learn-as-you-go will allow you to leverage emerging trends, ensuring your audience is always getting something of value from your brand. Invest time into your online communities, create high quality content and promote and distribute your content in a way that resonates with your audience. Don’t succumb to the pressure. Rise above it by being flexible in your approach.
Lisa-Marie Roos – Social Media Intern at Mark1
