Many companies are aggressively running creative promotions through content. Both light and entertaining, as well as educative and useful. This is what is then referred to as content marketing.
What is content marketing, and why do big companies in the world do it?
So, the following article will invite you to learn about digital marketing, especially about various examples of content marketing, objectives and content marketing strategies that you can use.
Make sure you read it to the end, ok?
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is an online marketing technique by distributing relevant and consistent content to the audience.
When you run content marketing, you provide useful content to your audience to help them solve problems.
In contrast to promotions in general, the content created will provide value to the audience, instead of asking them to buy the product directly. With this strategy, you can make your audience turn into your customers with good relationships.
Of course, content marketing can run well thanks to a number of supporting elements as follows:
1. Defined Target Audience
In content marketing, the demographics of the target audience must be defined. Such as age group, location, occupation, etc. With this data, content marketers can develop effective content marketing campaigns.
2. Have clear and measurable goals
The purpose of business promotion is not just introducing products and increasing sales, but also building customer brand awareness properly.
3. Content Diversity
Creating diverse content will reach a wider audience. For example, creating blog content for those who like to read, and visual content for social media users.
4. Be consistent
Distribution of marketing content should be done consistently, both in terms of time and message delivered. It aims to make the audience familiar with the brand and the products it offers.
5. Determination of the Right Marketing Platform
Knowing the right marketing platform will make promotional content reach the audience properly. For example, for products that highlight visuals, Instagram is certainly more suitable than Twitter.
Content marketing is so important to business success. In an analogy, content marketing is the legs, and business is the body. So, businesses will be able to achieve the expected goals thanks to ongoing content marketing.
What is the Purpose of Content Marketing?
After you know what content marketing is, you also need to know the purpose of content marketing itself, namely:
1. Bring in Lots of Customers
The application of content marketing can bring in many customers. Because, you are able to reach a wider audience by utilizing a variety of various marketing platforms
For example, you can look at the big startup companies in Indonesia. Like Shopee, Tokopedia, and Gojek, which are aggressively creating content marketing, and are able to attract many customers in Indonesia.
2. For Long Term Investment
The content marketing strategy is a promotional step that can last a longer time. For example, articles on blogs can be accessed by readers at any time, or videos on YouTube can attract an increasing number of viewers.
This content can continue to be enjoyed by the audience and has the potential to continue to attract many people who need the information provided.
3. Increase Audience Trust
Audience trust in a brand doesn’t just come, you know! Well, one way to build audience trust is content marketing.
When you create content that benefits your audience, they will think of you as an expert in that field. That way, they will not hesitate to buy your products
For example, Niagahoster publishes articles on the blog to help the audience understand more about the website and the online world. That way, it will be easier to promote cheap domain and hosting products related to the online needs of potential customers.
4. Increasing Brand Awareness
Interesting content marketing will increase audience brand awareness.
Brand awareness is the audience’s ability to immediately recognize a brand just by looking at something, whether it’s color, logo, image, and so on.
With promotional content that is attractive and spread everywhere, the audience will have an understanding of the brand. For example, in every brand promotional content, they remember what is offered and what value is attached to the brand.
5. Increase Traffic
Increasing traffic can also be one of the goals of content marketing.
By creating content that audiences need on various platforms, they will not hesitate to visit your content. In the end, high traffic can make your content more trusted and will be prioritized by various platforms.
For example, blogs that have high traffic will be prioritized by search engines. YouTube video content that has a large number of likes and viewers will be prioritized to enter the home page.
Under these conditions, it will be easier to attract many people to come to your website after viewing various content on the platforms used.
What are the Types of Content Marketing?
With so many digital platforms that exist today, it will certainly give birth to various types of content marketing. At least, there are examples of 8 types of content marketing that are commonly applied, namely:
1. Social Media
According to We Are Social, there are more than 4.6 billion social media users worldwide. Meanwhile, data also states that the number of active social media users is 191.4 million people in Indonesia.
Not surprisingly, why many businesses rely on social media as a marketing platform, especially for audiences in Indonesia.
Currently there are a number of social media platforms that are widely used, such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and others. All of these platforms are quite effective according to specific goals and target audiences.
2. Infographics
Infographics are a type of content marketing that relies on visuals with additional clear and concise text in it. The text contains information about certain products or information, while the visuals can be in the form of graphics and diagrams that contain factual data.
In infographics, the topics covered don’t need to be too broad, so just one main discussion is enough.
By creating infographics, you can communicate content effectively. Because, the audience needs a tenth of a second to be able to understand an information from an image, much faster than just text.
3. Blogs
Blogs are a fairly popular type of content marketing. According to HubSpot, one of the reasons is that blogs can provide up to 13% better results!
In addition, blogs also allow you to provide more complete information about a topic and product. This is important to help potential customers get the necessary information.
This means that besides being able to increase online sales, blogs are also effective for building better brand awareness and at the same time more intensive engagement.
4. Podcasts
Quoting from Databooks, GlobalWebIndex (GWI) states that the percentage of Indonesian podcast listeners is the second largest in the world as of the third quarter of 2021. That’s why podcasts should be a type of content marketing that you should use because they have quite the potential.
By creating a podcast, it is hoped that the audience’s understanding of business and products can be better.
5. Videos
According to Wyzowl research, 69% of consumers say they prefer to learn about products or services through videos, you know! Other statistics show that 88% of people say they have been persuaded to buy a product or service by watching video content. From these two studies, this type of content marketing can be a mainstay for attracting customers more effectively.
For example, if you have a culinary business, collaborating with a vlogger is a powerful way to convince potential customers to buy your products. This is because people tend to look for reviews from influencers such as food vloggers before buying a product.
6. Ebooks
Blogs are good enough to create complete information content. Even so, if you need longer content, ebooks are a reliable medium.
Using ebooks, you can provide complete and detailed information for your audience. Generally, topics that need to be reviewed in an ebook are specific topics and provide a lot of complete data, such as research results, test results and others.
7. Paid Ads
Paid Ads can also be included as a type of content marketing. This is because advertisements also need interesting content to be able to attract an audience.
Paid Ads or paid advertisements are advertisements provided by several digital platform providers, and marketers must pay to these providers.
Do you often see ads that appear suddenly on blogs, Instagram or TikTok? Well, that is a practical example of Paid Ad.
By using paid ads, you don’t distribute content on your own platform such as a blog, but on other platforms such as social media by following the terms of the platform.
This type of content marketing is easier to reach the target audience that is set. The reason is, various platforms that provide paid ads have features to display ads to the right audience. Whether based on location, demographics, or last viewed product.
The advantage of this type of content marketing is that promotional content owners only need to create content, distribution to the audience is fully carried out by Paid Ad providers according to the arrangements made.
8. E-mail
Email is also a popular form of content marketing. According to mckinsey.com, the effectiveness of email for marketing purposes is relatively high, which is 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter.
Email has the advantage in terms of distribution that is more personal. That way, the messages created can be more personal while still being professional. Equally important, the number of email users is quite large, so the potential to reach a larger target is very wide open.
Now You Can Implement Content Marketing For Your Business!
You now know the definition of content marketing, the types and appropriate content marketing strategies. In essence, content marketing is a modern marketing technique that any business owner needs to implement.
This marketing technique not only has high effectiveness in attracting audiences to become customers, but also can last for a long period of time. That’s why, you need to immediately implement content marketing for your business.
Of course, to achieve maximum results in content marketing, you need deeper knowledge about digital marketing. Because, digital marketing is the parent of content marketing activities.