In 2016, 88% of organizations responded that they use content marketing. What should you and your team do to get in on this trend?

Times are different now. So is consumers’ views and acceptance of business’ marketing and advertising activities.

Decades ago, consumers are exposed to brands through limited manner like printed advertisements, TV commercial, brochures, etc. Their understanding and perception of a certain brand are often manipulated by these marketing movements.

But that has changed. Technology has advanced and consumers are taking advantage of that. They’re blocking ads, they’re making direct communications with the brands they prefer, they’re choosing their own online platforms for information, and they’re filtering out content that they don’t want to read.

Now, consumers are obviously taking charge of the steering wheel on the marketing and advertising road.

The market now is pressuring companies more than ever to change their practices, driving messages to be more communicative and pushing brands to be more authentic.

According to Inc.com, brands that are authentic when marketing online are more prone to be rewarded by consumers.

Not too long ago, many business leaders would have disregarded the significance of digital marketing for their business, let alone brand authenticity when they’re online.

But it’s different now: online marketing, more specifically, content marketing is now more of a direct business marketing approach to establishing brand authenticity that consumers can believe in.

Can content marketing really hold the reins of a consumer’s perception towards a brand? It has to! As long as mobile devices are still available for sale to the public mass, content marketing is, and should be, one of the (or the main) business’s marketing practices.

If you’re at a loss of what is content marketing, here are some things for you to take into account before venturing into this new arena:

#1 Don’t shrug off content marketing

You could very well be on social media platforms trying your best to communicate with your customers. But depending on social channels alone to engage with your consumers can be fatal. Instead, a more comprehensive content marketing execution should be the foundation of your marketing activities.

Consumers who have real problems wants solutions. And they want to know that you’ll be able to provide them. Consumers are smart — they are less likely to deem companies that produces more superfluous contents than valuable contents that they genuinely need as trustworthy and a brand they’d go back to.

Furthermore, social media pages can become stagnant when there are less useful contents for consumers to engage with, which could flunk your entire social media marketing efforts. Or worse, make your brand look bad.

In a nutshell, content marketing is important because consumers’ intake of information have changed in this electronic era. Consumers on social channels expect to be entertained and educated. But social platforms have limited space for sharing useful content.

So, if most of your social media posts doesn’t lead them to an external platform for contents that can help solve their problems, they’ll simply turn their back on you. The process goes on until they find the contents that manages to answer their challenges. And chances are these contents are probably produced by one of your competitors.

#2 Think from a consumer POV

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, you need to convert prospective customers into buying customers to sustain the business.

Today, it’s so easy for consumers to go look for answers to their problems through search engines. You’d probably want your content to be at the top of search results ranking, making sure consumers click through, stay within your site, and convert on.

To nail down this process, you need to always think in the way a consumer will before creating content. You don’t need to be in the sales department to know this: don’t sell your products, services, or company to your consumers, sell how your products, services, or company will bring value to them.

Let your content do that for you. Tell consumers what they want to know, answer their questions through your content, solve their problems. You’d be amazed at how often they’ll come back to you because of them.

What’s more, relevant content that provides solution to consumer’s problems puts you at the top position of trust and authority.

It’s a win-win situation here: consumers get hold of content they need and your company gets more revenue opportunities and even a new set of would-be customers down the pike.

#3 Are you branding your company well?

If your company is on social media platforms, are the published content cohesive? Are your viewers responding to your posts? Do you often get sales enquiries? Did you manage to get the amount of qualified leads you want?

If your company has a website, are they receiving regular traffic? Do people sign up for your email subscriptions? Are people sending in enquiries? Do people read your blog?

These are the basic questions to answer to know if your content strategy are working.

But whether your contents reflects your brand aspiration — that is the desideratum.

In the past, corporations (usually larger ones) adopt advertisements for branding purposes. Think print advertisements in magazines, bus and taxi advertising, TV commercials etc. These usually doesn’t come with content that consumers yearn, so basically they’re believing what they see.

But today, like what we said, times have changed. Corporations are no longer in a favoured position of maneuvering consumers’ viewpoint. Consumers are now fully capable of gathering information about the company themselves, and they’ve become independent on fathoming the brand’s image.

The good news is, you can still build your brand image as you want it. Just devise a content marketing strategy! Through your contents, be it on your website or your social channels, you can share things deeper than just what you sell.

Rethink the relationship between your company and your consumers. Treat them as a friend, be transparent about what you do, how you do, and why you do it. Basically, exemplifying your company’s mission, vision and values to personify your brand.

Conclusion

As a business these days, it’s never a loss to shell out your fair share of expertise. When you give your consumers what you can, you’re paving the way for more profitable relationships. Caring for content marketing means youre caring for your audiences. As long as you stay transparent and authentic, you should be able to gain the deserved trust from your prospects.

Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash