In the Digital Marketing world, Content Marketing has become the hottest trend to maximise your marketing strategy. Done right, it captures the desired audience’s attention and makes your brand unforgettable.

So what really is Content Marketing?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, Content Marketing is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

So where does Content Marketing fit in your marketing plan? Here are some tips to consider when creating content to achieve your business objectives.

1. Research, Research, Research

Before adding content marketing into your marketing mix, you must first do your research. It is vitally important to research industry related trends to see which content performs the best based on audience engagement. Researching also includes seeing what your competitors are doing and drawing inspiration from them based on what keeps their audience engaged. Be careful not to steal any of your competitors work!

2. Chose a Content Format that Works Best for You

After you’ve done your research decide which content format will work best to achieve your goals. Some options to think about could be great visually designed photos, engaging or interactive videos, mobile apps, blog posts, ebooks and even podcasts. The type of content you choose should be that which is easily consumed by your audience.

3. Decide on a Design & Branding Theme

Once you’ve decided on a format it’s important that your content has an eye catching design with consistent branding. This enables your business to be easily recognisable to your audience. When it comes to design and branding of your content, consistency is key.

4. Have an Overall Strategy for Content Creation

Have a plan! Ensure that you have developed a content marketing strategy and that it fits in with your overall marketing plan. A great content marketing plan achieves business goals and spurs your target audience into action.

5. Plan Content for Each Distribution Channel

Your content creation should cater to whatever distribution or social media platform you intend to use. For example, visuals work best on Facebook and Instagram while full length videos may be best suited to Youtube. It’s important that you bear in mind the methods you intend to use to distribute your content before you begin the creation process.

6. Generate Conversation

When creating content it’s important to note that it should be created with the mindset of generating conversation within your intended audience. The content should spur discussion between you and potential costumers because the generation of this conversation is vitally important to building loyalty and trust with your consumer base. We all know loyal customers are paying customers!

7. Create Templates

Why create templates? It makes the creation and dissemination of your content much easier and quicker. Simple.

8. Promote, Promote, Promote

I can’t say this enough. Promote, promote, promote. Make sure you are using every avenue from Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads to posting on Reddit, to promote your content. An effective content promotion strategy will ensure that it gets seen by enough people and also the right people.

9. Quality over Quantity

Quality over quantity – if you create good content pieces it will negate the need to constantly bombard your audience with content that may not be impactful. Put your energy into one or two pieces of content [or more depending on your capability] and ensure they are of the best quality. This safeguards that whatever you create is more impactful to your audience and the goals you are trying to achieve.

10. Re-Use Content

There is no rule saying that you can’t re-use content. Actually, re-using content after time has passed can work wonders by allowing quality content to be seen by a wider audience, if it hasn’t before, and allows the opportunity for attracting new audience members.

Conclusion:

These 10 quick tips can help you optimize your content creation and engage your audience with the ultimate objective of building awareness of your brand and increasing your bottom line. Good luck!