What is content marketing strategy

“a strategic marketing approach, focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain an audience”

“It’s one of the most important factors when designing digital marketing strategies, as high-quality content prevails over competition and helps attract more users into the conversion funnel and retain those who are already customers.

Additionally, it has other benefits such as SEO growth thanks to the positioning of keywords in search engines like Google or Bing, it fosters public relations, and optimizes inbound marketing strategies for lead attraction and website traffic.

Content can be in the form of text, images, videos (tutorials, webinars, etc.); the important thing is that they are designed to achieve the objectives established for the growth of a brand or product.

How to Design a Content Strategy

While there is no single, definitive format for designing and implementing a content marketing strategy, there are certain elements you can consider to ensure your company has successful content.

Each strategy should adhere to and develop based on the unique perspective of the business, based on its needs, requirements, established business goals, and available budget.

In digital marketing, content is an additional bridge of communication you will have with your audience, your leads, and your customers.

1. Clearly Define Communication Objectives

Content is not created in a vacuum and should always align with one or more business objectives, depending on your market niche and the customer’s stage in the conversion funnel.

We can divide the customer’s buying funnel into at least three major stages.

• TOFU – Top Of Funnel: At the top of the funnel, customers are just becoming aware of their need for a product or service. In this stage, they start to inquire about the generalities of the product or service and possible solutions.
• MOFU – Middle Of Funnel: In the middle stage of the funnel, the consumer begins to evaluate alternatives and conducts deeper research. They become more involved and make comparisons between brands and products.
• BOFU – Bottom Of Funnel: At the bottom of the funnel, the user is an expert on the topic, looking for very specific information or key differentiators. They seek out who has the best warranty, after-sales service, and understand which is the best cost/benefit solution.”

“Consider the different ways you can create content depending on the purchasing stage of your customer, for example, you can answer these questions:

• Do you need to raise awareness of your brand?
• Are you looking to increase your database or email lists?
• Do you want to implement lead nurturing strategies to guide them through the conversion funnel?
• Do you need to retain customers or increase their purchases with cross-selling or upselling?
• Do you want to build customer loyalty and turn them into “promoters” of your brand?

The best way to reach goals is to make them specific and measurable, which involves creating key performance indicators (or KPIs) for your content marketing strategy.

Defining communication objectives will help you know when you have achieved your goals by providing milestones you can check off. These will include what you plan to achieve in terms of revenue, sales, traffic, SEO, and different aspects of digital marketing like email marketing and social media metrics.

2. Analyze the Company’s Mission

Every type of company should have a mission that strengthens the backbone of the content marketing strategy.

This is because the mission describes the raison d’être of a company, and priorities and perspectives are defined in the pursuit of that mission.

For a successful marketing strategy, consider defining the brand archetype that will give it a “commercial personality,” and with it, you will define the language you will use in your content marketing strategy.

3. Development of Archetypes or ‘Customer Buyer Persona’

There is a variety of content options you can create.

Based on the customer archetypes you have already built with your team and the other elements mentioned in the previous point, you will identify what content and information needs your audience has.

This will help in creating content to address their desires at each stage of the conversion cycle.

• Define and consolidate the primary target audience, which you can do by building a buyer persona, ideally making it as specific as possible.
• What will be delivered to the audience: Tied to the two previous elements, what you will offer your users and what the value of the content will be.
• What is the desired outcome for your audience: what you expect your audience to do after consuming your content.
• Where they will receive the content

4. Choose the Type of Content

When we think about content, it can include more than just what we generate through blogs.”

Content Marketing Must Be Tailored to the Formats We Want to Show Our Audience

If we know our audience well enough, we can define how and where our strategy will be most successful.

For example, content can be in:

• Blogs. If you choose this strategy, you need a website.
• Ebooks
• Case Studies of Success
• Infographics
• Video Marketing
• Podcasts
• Email marketing
• Digital Magazines
• Photographs
• Images
• Gifs
• Educational Resources
• Valuable Resources
• Software Downloads
• Coupons and Discounts
• Quizzes/Surveys
• Webinars/Web Events
• Microsites/Landing Pages

If you need help generating content, at Dazzet we create professional content for your company.

Strategies for Making Content Viral

While there is no foolproof formula for obtaining thousands, if not millions, of shares of content, there are some techniques you can apply to get better results than just sharing your posts on social media and hoping for the best…

Many marketing specialists wish for their content to be highly shared and for the company to thus gain much more traffic, but this task is not easy or simple, especially when you are just starting to generate content and are looking for it to go viral.

Let’s look at some of the strategies you can consider for your content to have better results.

1. Include Attractive and Elegant Images.

Using images to increase audience engagement is generally one of the indispensable tactics for content to be shared or viewed by more people.

This is because, as the saying goes, “the first impression is what counts,” and to a large extent, a person’s decision to share or interact with a publication, a blog post, or even an ebook can take only a few seconds.

Let’s look at some figures…

A study of more than 100 million articles conducted by content analysis firm Buzzsumo concluded that twice as many people share posts on Facebook with at least one image in their content compared to posts that don’t have an image.

Even images like infographics are 30 times more likely to be shared because they display interesting content, eye-catching illustrations, and copy that makes you want to share the information.

An example of this is Pictoline, which creates colorful and very creative illustrations to share curious facts, relevant news of the moment, information about commemorative days…

In short, you’ve surely seen some of their infographics around, so don’t hesitate to implement a design that fits your market niche.

2. Use a Good Range of Colors

Choose a color palette and a combination of fonts that best communicate your message.

According to Buzzsumo, up to 60 percent of your site’s approval rating will depend on its color combination.

So, as you can see, colorimetry is very important in digital marketing.

Kissmetrics conducted a study on how colors influence users when making a purchase and were able to identify by colors the segments of the type of audience.

Understanding the psychology behind a color palette is important because it will be the source of the first emotions you seek to generate in your users.

Take into account:

• The colors that best represent your brand.
• Your digital marketing strategy on social networks.
• The feelings you want to convey with your campaigns.
• The action you want users to take upon seeing the content.

3. Identify an Exciting Theme in Your Niche

The theme is essential for promoting posts that could have viral content.

If you really want to catch the audience’s attention, create visual content that satisfies their interests, tastes, and needs while highlighting your expertise in the market niche.

You can identify themes by:

• Market research.
• Keyword research.
• Popular industry blogs.
• Your definition of customer archetype.
• Your own data collected in the digital marketing strategy.

4. Evoke Emotions Like Laughter, Amazement, and Fun

Closely tied to the chosen theme, consider the emotions you want to evoke in your audience.

Studies conducted by Buzzsumo found that the emotions that most drive people to share content are amazement at 25 percent, laughter (17%), and fun (15%).

Sharing entertaining content adds value to our audience, our friends, and shows others that we have good taste while stimulating conversation and reactions.

People also share viral content for selfish reasons, like narcissism, to show who they are and provide knowledge about themselves.

Oddly enough, this narcissistic emotion means that content with quizzes tends to be highly shared among people, especially if they are fun and engaging enough to generate conversation among the audience.

Conclusion

Creating viral content is not an easy task, and as mentioned, there isn’t a perfect recipe with step-by-step instructions, but it can be achieved!

There are many factors that can influence whether a piece of content achieves the level of engagement you are seeking in your market niche.

In addition to those already mentioned, you can also keep in mind:

The choice of content format (Video, infographic, blog post, memes, tip lists, etc.).
Where you want to distribute it (Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram), remember that each social network has differentiated formats that better adapt to users.
Seek support from influencers or partner pages to share your content more quickly.

Finally, always ensure that your content inspires trust, features your brand’s logo, and has a professional design.