It is fair to say that modern brands have reached a consensus to recognise content marketing as an indispensable tool for communicating with the audience. Technological advancements have made content production easier than ever; every brand, big or small, has deployed a content marketing strategy to boost their audience outreach, engagement and awareness, and daily user traffic. However, some are less successful in accomplishing these goals than others. The sheer volume of content production, combined with algorithms of the platforms that micro-target content on its value, makes your content hard to notice in a sea of content creators. Thus, we take a look at the values that set apart a good content marketing strategy and how your brand can use consistent analysis and re-evaluation to increase its growth.
What Makes a Content Strategy Effective?
There are clear indicators why content marketing strategies of some brands are more impactful than others. Take Zomato for instance; the brand constantly goes “viral” for their quirky social media posts, digital and OOH ads, video content, as well as push notifications, and emailers. Content from Zomato is youthful, just like its audience, and invests in ideas that evokes their reaction. Their Feeding India Campaign is an exemplary initiative that not only reflected brand values but also propelled their image and engagement by putting the onus of participation on the audience.
Another Indian content marketing giant, Amul, levies a unique approach for drawing engagement and that is trends. The brand never misses an opportunity to share their two cents on current affairs creating an intelligent piece of content that is used across platforms alike. The novelty of their take and timing makes any content created by Amul reshare-worthy evoking engagement across all audience groups. Clearly, the brand’s a winner when it comes to being spontaneous and witty.
Spotify is another brand that has cracked the formula to be spot on. Spotify has reigned over other brands when it comes to persistent content marketing strategies. Be it their hilarious self-aware in-app advertisements, TV commercials, or original content creations, the brand always pre-empts the collective imagination of their viewers, taking a lead in using that information to drive communication striking the right cord among the hearts of their target audience.
So, Let’s Make Content Great Again
Zomato, Amul, and Spotify teach us three valuable lessons that one can use to draft an ubiquitously effective content marketing strategy i.e. know your audience, keep tabs of trends, and be persistent. However, there are many other features of a good marketing strategy that you need to use to get your content noticed. Here are some common qualities of every effective content marketing strategy:
Know the audience
Create personalised content
Add value to your content
Create a dialogue
Use SEO tools
Identify the right medium of distribution
Set a budget
Set goals and key performance indicators (KPI)
How to Execute a Good Content Marketing Strategy?
Creating a great content marketing strategy is a vital step to achieving your goals but it only gets the job half done. Sometimes, your plans may not go as planned, and you need a defensive armour that keeps your goals intact despite the damage. Thus, it is imperative that you pause, analyse, and implement your content strategy in the meantime. This will help your brand identify the loopholes, analyse trends, prioritise your needs, and have a better go at the implementation the next time.
Pause, Analyse, and Implement
Icarus is considered the symbol of hubris and overconfidence in Greek mythology for being too proud of his powers and causing his own destruction. It’s important not to have the Icarus effect on your content strategy and use analytic tools that can provide a prognosis for it. However, before conducting a detailed analysis of your content strategy with these tools, check if you are incorporating essential guidelines that make your content click-worthy and shareable.
Pause: In simple terms, putting a pause on your content policy means withholding any content publication until previous posts are optimised. An effective pause includes running a SEO check, optimising updated platform guidelines, fixing broken links, and adding appropriate and attractive pictures to all previous content. This means you’re essentially conducting a growth check on your policy to ensure you’ve done to make your content easily discoverable. Following that, repost old posts and check their performance using analytic tools at your disposal.
Analyse: This phase of content optimisation can be broken down into two parts: qualitative and quantitative analysis. The former refers to the perceived look and feel of your content while the latter refers to tangible goals like performance metrics and their link with the desired goals. To perform qualitative analysis, you need feedback from both the creators and audience on how they view the content, including specific answers on its language, loading speed, usefulness, and image quality amongst others. Once that is done, our next step would be to notice any discrepancies in corresponding answers from both feedback groups, thus pinpointing the problem area for us to work on.
For quantitative analysis, use tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, and more to check your daily website traffic, unique page views, engagement metrics, ranking placements, chatbot interactions, best and worst performing posts, audience metrics, average time spent on the post, bounce rate, and others. Evaluate if the results match with your desired goals.
Implement: The analysis will offer a fair understanding of whether your brand is on the right path to achieve desired goals. If not, it is advisable to conduct a competitive analysis to observe what your competitors might be doing differently. Compare information like titles, keyword topics, URLs, image description, and sub-headings to identify what sets them apart. Combine these with learnings from the quantitative and qualitative analysis to draft your content strategy again and implement it after fixing the loopholes. Use tools like headline score and keyword planner and get creative with whatever you write, record, or post. Be consistent in your tone/speech, identify the best time to post, boost cross-platform engagement, and create dialogue to activate a feedback loop and intimacy with your audience.
The Consistency Virtue
Whether its life or content creation, consistency is a virtue. Most platform algorithms reward users for being consistent with their posts and engagement. Being consistent also allows your audience to predict your behaviour and cultivate a loyal fanbase by establishing a strong rapport, user experience, and credibility. Always remember that the audience must get the impression that creating content is your passion and not just a plan for your success.
As a brand or marketer, it is imperative for us to understand the need for these 3 steps in creating an efficient content marketing strategy that helps your brand engage and sustain your audience. Now that you have a clear understanding of this approach, it’s time to give your brand an edge over your competition with the success mantra - Pause, Analyse & Implement!