The Power of an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Would you believe it if we told you that the first recorded content marketing was from the one and only Benjamin Franklin? You read that right: it started when Benjamin published his Poor Richard’s Almanack, a magazine-style collection of weather forecasts, puzzles, and other amusements, wherein some believed that it was a way to advertise his printing business.

Source: benjamin-franklin-history.org

 

 

Another recorded piece of content marketing evidence from the early times was “The Furrow,” a customer magazine by John Deere. It was strategized to inform farmers about the latest farming advancements. This, in return, became one of the most iconic content marketing strategies even to this day.

Source: artplusmarketing.com 

 

What is content marketing? 

According to Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach to attract and keep a clearly defined audience. The approach includes creating, distributing, publishing, and sharing content in reaching the target audience and increasing sales, brand awareness, and loyalty. Eventually, the goal is to motivate consumer action and draw in and keep a well-defined audience. 

Your content is highly vital in improving your brand. This covers blog posts, long-form articles, videos, infographics, e-books, whitepapers, images, and many more. Not only does content generate quality leads, but it also promotes brand visibility, helps establish brand authority, and expands business understanding, to name a few.  

Here is an example. 

Let us just say that you need creative services, and your colleague recommended RipeConcepts. You start searching “RipeConcepts” online and find the website at the top of the list. 

Afterward, your interest leads you to the blogs section and read insightful articles about diverse topics from digital marketing to creative services the company offers. Then, you decided to check the portfolio and other content they have on the website and even their social media accounts. 

Finally, you were 100% sure and got a quote.  

That is how important an effective content marketing strategy is—guiding your audience to their customer journey. Your content holds great power to influence them whether they are planning to buy something or just looking for good reads. 

Content Marketing is divided into two steps: 

 

• Content Creation 

Here, the steps include conceptualizing topics you want to relay to your audience, generating strategic ideas, keyword research, to writing the copy. Furthermore, content creation serves as the foundation of your digital marketing efforts. Thus, it is important for your content to be top quality while hitting everything you want to relay to your customers and prospects.  

For content creation, ask yourself these questions: 

• Who is my audience?  

• • This will help you identify the tone you’re going to follow to fit the audience’s age group, niche, and other factors. 

• What message do I want to relay to people? 

• • You could follow an educational, inspirational, or sales approach. 

• What type of content should I make? 

• • You have several types to choose from like blog posts, infographics, and videos. 

• Content Distribution 

Content distribution is the method of distributing, disseminating, and advertising your material. It is how your content is shared across all your channels. Under this step, you can promote your content through owned, earned, or paid content distribution.    

Some channels you could take a dive into content marketing: 

• Facebook 
• YouTube 
• LinkedIn 
• Instagram 
• Websites 

Owned content distribution pertains to giving out your own content to your own channels. Earned content distribution is where third parties like customers or other bloggers share your content. Lastly, paid content distribution is where you pay to distribute your content in front of your target audience. 

How can effective content marketing strategies help your business? 

• Direct all marketing efforts to the target audience. You would want to narrow down your customers and prospects when it comes to content marketing. The last thing any business owner would want is to waste money on unnecessary marketing processes. When you can narrow down your preferred audience, then from there you would be able to concentrate efforts—including cost only them. 

 

• Establish brand identity. The tone of voice, messaging, and overall theme define how you want your audience to view your business. Your brand identity brings more value while keeping in line with the audience’s preferences. 

• Improve conversions and generate leads. If done well, an effective marketing strategy attracts people by helping them make decisions and thus influences the ROI (return on investment).  

 

Seeing these statistics about content marketing would spark your interest more: 

• The global content marketing industry has an estimated revenue of 66 billion US dollars and is projected to reach 137 billion in 2026. (Statistica) 

• 40% have a documented content marketing strategy with a 62% success rate of content marketing marketers. (B2B Content Marketing 2022 Report) 

• 74% said that the value of the content that they provide to their audience was the top factor for successful content marketing. (B2B Content Marketing 2022 Report) 

• 81% say their company sees content as a core business strategy. (Content Tech | Content Marketing Institute) 

Make your guideline SMART. 

The S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant/Realistic, Time-Bound) framework allows you to develop goals you want to achieve in terms of marketing. This kind of goal setting can help you toward settling daily and long-term decisions. 

Let us break down each goal below for better visualization: 

• Specific - Specify your overall goal and define it as clearly as possible. 
• Measurable - Evaluate or use hard metrics to assess the goal if it is met. 
• Attainable - Line up your decided goal with consideration of your resources and time constraints. 
• Relevant/Realistic - Set up a challenging but realistic target while making sense of your job function. 
• Time-Bound - Set up a deadline and be specific with its timeframe. 

Proven by a lot of companies up to date, content marketing strategies have helped brands expand in the market. Breaking down your processes from planning, creating, and publishing content are some needed steps to a content marketing strategy. If you understand your content, finalize your intended audience, and choose a distribution channel; these marketing tactics can bring tremendous success to your business. 

 

If you need world-class digital marketing services at a fraction of the cost, you may contact us at connect@ripeconcepts.com. 

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Content-marketing , Digital-marketing