Content Marketing is a parallel approach to digital marketing. I am saying that I have been running a content marketing agency, and many of my customers often considered content marketing as a sub-set of digital marketing. Some customers do not want to call digital marketing and prefer to use content marketing in the marketing approach. They say the term ‘digital marketing’ has been overused, so let it be a different approach.
Some call it as strategy, though the world 'strategy' is often misused or overused for
explaining a simple concept. They can call the content marketing strategy.
Whether is an approach, or planning, or a strategy, what really matters is whether
it is giving business results, not just impressions and likes!
Content marketing as a strategic advantage:
If you apply competitive intelligence and differentiate your marketing approach, then Content marketing is a strategic advantage. or else, it is just another routine activity.
In simple terms, Content marketing is about planning, creating, and distributing engaging content to your audience.
Marketing and communication are not new. It is there ever since humans started exchanging goods. When marketing became digital, content went digital.
What really works is the data and intelligence. It is the marketing intelligence with data, that will decide the proportion of outbound and inbound digital marketing. The same intellect will decide on what to focus? or what type of content? Is the content high value to the audience or not?
Your content plan must cover the strategic positioning of your business, products, and services, followed by competitive intelligence and address the content approach with the answers – Why What, Where, Which and How”
Content marketing adoption:
For the last decade one decade, I have seen the content marketing approach is in place for vegetable sales online ( Retail eCommerce) to an Aircraft Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul. ( MRO)
What does it result?
We need to plan and create content to educate, entertain, and compelling messages to your audience. Over some time, you will become an authority on your topic. This can be capitalized by building a brand and converting as sales-ready leads.
Take a simple example of content marketing. It can be about having you own a blog and write blogs consistently. Focus on a subject or topic. Choose catchy headlines that are attractive to your audience. Have a tone such as advisory or consultative or informative or explanatory. Provide engaging, personalized, and high-value content; over some time, you will give genuine followers. Ensure you provide factual information as capsules, step by step, get recognition, and become an authority over time.
Content Types:
Now, similar to the blog example given above, there are 100s of content types.
List of 101 content types from addKraft
Selecting content types:
In your marketing planning, have a content planner. Based on your budget and the behavior of your target audience, choose the content types.
Both for b2b and b2c, companies, apply content planning and strategies. Success depends on its impact. The results that we can measure out the work we execute. The Return on Investment ( ROI) is measured to check success. There is a saying, ‘It is not about quantity; it about the book’s quality. How effective it was!. There will be a difference in the approaches we have taken for each campaign. The success depends on the course and the plan we decide to execute.
Everything starts with the plan.
The plan will have goals. The goal is to build TRUST. Goal to build a brand for your business, develop a standard, and maintain that standard. This content campaign will provide an identity for your brand, business, and products. The plan can have revenue goals, as well.
Sample Content Marketing Goals – Organizational goals – Credit to Content Marketing Institute
Sample content marketing goals for B2C – credit to Content Marketing Institute
Content for specific stages.
This is about the marketing funnel. The success depends on the intelligence of your content manager on choosing the RIGHT content types for the EACH stage of the FUNNEL. IN the planning stage itself, you need to define and plan the specific stages of your customer journey.
TOFU- Choose Content types that suitable for the TOP of the funnel.
MOFU- Choose Content types that suitable for the MIDDLE of the funnel
BOFU – Choose Content types that suitable for the BOTTOM of the funnel
Our Experience with B2b Content marketing.
We at addKraft, a content marketing agency have many successful campaigns as well as failed campaigns. Success and failure depend on many aspects. Most of the reasons for failure is due to the planning and changing the directions in between. The majority of our customers are in b2b, who are into technology products or services.
Our approach to tech business space is that we have hired content creators with domain knowledge and creative minds. We follow 4 stroke principles in content writing and creation. We started that practice with a customer who is into eCommerce or SaaS applications and sold as eCommerce, it worked well.
As a technology product/service provider you must need content managers who will manage your content on the internet and social media channels. You need consistently high-quality content.
Closing note:
More and more companies are now focusing on content marketing as a key strategy to penetrate into the mind space of the audience. However you need, the right plan, right content, for the right person, at the right time to the specific stages of the customer journey.