According to the survey conducted by Gartner, the top priority for most companies will be content creation and publishing this year. However, most companies do not understand content marketing and end up with ineffective campaigns that do nothing to help the brands. This form of marketing is subtle sans glamorous and blatant promotion of the brand. Your content should allow people to make informed choices about your products on their own – no one likes to be told what to do. Good content marketing campaigns give should make people who engage with your content to run out and buy your stuff without you having to tell them to do so!
Fine balance of art and science
The process of content creation and publishing is complicated as brands and content creators have so many factors to take into consideration – content types, consumer tastes, various social media channels, etc. To launch successful content marketing campaigns, companies must achieve a fine balance between the art and science of content marketing. Original, relevant, valuable and share-worthy content takes time and expertise to create and this is where the art of content creation comes into picture.
You need the right talent or “artists” to create such content. If you want your brand to be a content marketing force to be reckoned with, you need to hire former journalists to create your textual content. People with artistic backgrounds such as photographers, graphic designers, digital artists, etc. are perfect for creating visual content that is extremely appealing.
The science of content marketing refers to the content publishing strategies that brands need to use. Great content has no value if no one sees it. Content marketers and companies should think and work like publishers to ensure that their content reaches a large audience. Managing the content marketing process – right from content creation to publishing – requires a lot of skill. Your company needs to be able to create content and break it up into small and easy-to-digest pieces for tweets and Facebook posts.
If your company does not have a content marketing strategy yet and you are looking to do the job in-house, you need to ask yourself if your company has the time and talent to create successful campaigns. If the answer is no, then you should probably outsource this task to content creating companies.
The do’s and don’ts of content marketing
Your brand should always be honest and present facts and not exaggerations in the content – people want valuable content, not advertisements. You should also hire experienced journalists and designers to be part of your content marketing team and to mentor others in the team. Always utilize analytics tools to analyze the success of your content marketing efforts so that you can tweak your campaigns accordingly.
Also, you must stay away from criticizing your competitors and you must never use an accusatory or negative tone when mentioning competitor’s products. Never stoop to venting with your online content and always ensure that your content tells a story.
To improve your content marketing campaigns, look at other successful brands and study their methods. Red Bull has an excellent content marketing strategy and so does Oreo and their content is extremely popular. There are smaller brands too that have become content marketing power-houses without having large budgets. So research extensively to learn more from other brands, and employ their methods in your campaigns.