Nowadays, marketing has become a lot more about information than it ever used to be. Thanks to the Internet, accessing useful and valuable information has become easier for people. What intrigues me about this all is the fact that companies are utilizing information for marketing purposes.
That’s what content marketing is all about.
It involves creating and sharing valuable content with an audience to engage, educate, and stay top of mind. If you’re new to the concept of content marketing, this guide is going to be useful for you.
Here, I’ll discuss what this marketing type actually is with the help of some detailed examples. Moreover, I’ll also cover some top strategies and the best tools to utilize for it.
Let’s start.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a type of Digital Marketing that involves using and sharing valuable content to engage the audience and convert leads into permanent customers.
Promoting a brand through content marketing builds expertise and increases brand awareness. That’s why it is an integral part of a great marketing strategy to reach a broader audience. Constantly publishing valuable content keeps your company at the top of people’s minds. So, they pick your brand whenever it’s time to make a purchase of something relevant.
How Does Content Marketing Work?
The other day, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across an exceptionally beautiful wristwatch. I opened the account’s website, and it was full of different watch models, and each one of them was beautiful. Now, whenever I decide to buy a watch, that specific brand will pop up in my mind first.
That’s content marketing in action.
Brands capture and retain the attention of people by constantly sharing content. It creates a positive perception in people’s minds, and your company becomes their first choice for making the purchase.
Examples Of Content Marketing
Discussing some examples will help us better understand this marketing type. Here are their details:
Example #1. Spotify’s Wrapped Playlist
The Spotify Wrapped Playlist is, by far, the most efficient form of content marketing I’ve ever seen. Spotify shares the Wrapped playlist feature at the end of each year. Each user gets a personalized playlist that includes the following information:
- Most-streamed songs
- Most listened to artists
- Total minutes listened
- Most played decade
It grabs people’s attention, and they want to know about and share their music taste via the wrapped playlist with their friends. It’s a decent strategy that hooks people and helps them share their experience with others.
Example #2. Duolingo’s Modern Marketing
We all have used Duolingo to learn a language at some point, right? Well, although the app has been doing a good business, it is now using a modern content marketing technique of sharing engaging TikTok videos and Instagram Reels.
If you look up the official Duolingo account on Instagram or TikTok, you’ll find many funny videos, and people are really liking them. It’s their own way of staying engaged with people by sharing something funny and entertaining.
Example #3. Dreamtime’s Email Marketing
Dreamtime is one of the most popular websites for sharing and downloading stock photos. It uses the email marketing technique to keep its customers hooked.
If you create an account on this website, it will start sharing useful emails with you from time to time. Some of these emails are promotional, and some are educational. In either way, it’s a great technique to be the top email in a member’s inbox.
Top Content Marketing Strategies
There are several strategies that content marketers use to conduct the campaign. I’ve discussed the details of some of the top ones below:
Content Personalization
Content personalization is one of the most important and effective strategies for a perfect content marketing campaign. It focuses on creating content specifically for different people.
Personalization is a great way to grab people’s attention. For example, an email containing my name in the subject line always hooks my attention. So, marketers create personalized content so that they can grab people’s attention and promote the brand more effectively.
💡Pro Tip
To personalize content effectively, start by understanding your audience through segmentation and personas, then tailor messages using behavior-driven insights.
Creating SEO-Friendly Content
Creating SEO-friendly content is a fundamental strategy of content marketing. SEO is all about optimizing website content so that it can appear in the top search engine results. Since most people use search engines to find information, ranking at the top helps companies gain a lot of website traffic.
Creating content that is according to the search engine guidelines involves several techniques. For example, experts conduct detailed keyword research to identify and utilize highly searched terms on the Internet. Besides that, the following factors are also focused on:
- Creating articles
- Optimizing website structure
- Link building
- Technical SEO
- Local SEO
Video Marketing
Video marketing involves sharing high-quality videos on different online platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook.
Videos have been a great way of hooking people’s attention and providing them with useful content. Many brands create proper online profiles and create both promotional and informational videos to stay relevant and create a proper brand image.
Interactive Content
Engaging the audience is one of the top goals of content marketing. To achieve this goal, marketers directly create and share content that’s interactive enough to get people’s attention.
This type of content includes things like polls, Q&A sessions, live streaming, etc.
People engage with this content to share their personal opinions and views on different subjects. So, this strategy not only engages people but also gives companies useful customer insights.
Meme Marketing
Meme marketing is the present, and probably the future, of content marketing. Currently, there are very few strategies that provide as many results as making memes and funny content related to a topic. Even some of the biggest brands in the world are utilizing this technique.
For example, if you stalk the Instagram profile of Borussia Dortmund, you’ll see that it has shared many funny, entertaining, and engaging posts.
Marketers are utilizing this technique because it works perfectly and gets you the required results.
5 Best Tools To Use In Content Marketing
Content marketing is a vast field. Different types of tools are used in it, and I’ve discussed the best ones below:
1. Statista
Statista is a marketing research tool that helps people get the latest and most authentic information used in content marketing. The main reason why people use this tool is to get statistics about different topics in order to make the content authoritative.
There are very few tools that would compete with Statista in the features it provides. You get access to some of the biggest databases with this tool and fetch statistics about topics like business, healthcare, etc.
Key Features:
- Large database
- Covers multiple topics
- Authentic and accurate data
2. Unbounce
Unbounce is a landing page design tool that helps people create attractive and converting landing pages.
It offers a drag-and-drop page builder that requires no knowledge of coding whatsoever. Also, it has A/B testing tools that let people pick the best page design by running experimental tests.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop page builder
- Built-in A/B testing options
- Pre-built templates
- Integration with different useful tools
3. Asana
Big companies that use content marketing on a big level use project management tools like Asana to allow marketers to work together easily. Asana is one of the top picks of companies in this regard.
The tool comes with several features that make collaboration easier. For example, it visualizes project management with the help of lists and boards. Also, it automates repetitive tasks to save time and energy.
Key Features:
- Create and assign tasks easily
- Visualize projects
- Automating repetitive tasks
4. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a complete suite of tools that are used for running blogging and business websites. It offers different tools that help with factors like keyword research, backlink analysis, traffic analysis, etc.
One of the main purposes of Ahrefs is to help people build websites that are not only convenient for users but also fully optimized to get ranked at the top of search engine results.
Key features:
- Site explorer
- Keyword explorer
- Website audit tools
- Rank tracker
5. Hootsuite
Last but not least, Hootsuite is another popular tool used in content marketing. This tool is related to social media management and offers reliable features for it. With Hootsuite, you can manage multiple social media accounts in one place.
It allows users to schedule and manage posts so that content is published regularly on social media. Also, it offers some useful analytical tools that let people analyze the performance of posts properly.
Key Features:
- Content scheduling
- Social media posts management
- Manage multiple social accounts
- Analytical tools
Conclusion
Bringing it all together, content marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies out there. It is all about being a thought leader of the industry and providing people with content that is valuable and helpful for them.
By running campaigns related to content marketing, your company can make sure it stays relevant in the market and keeps on generating and converting leads constantly. While doing so, don’t forget to utilize the discussed tools to make the marketing process easier.
FAQs
What Do You Mean By Content Marketing?
Content marketing means using the power of content to market a brand. It involves creating and sharing high-quality informational and educational content to grab the attention of the audience.
How To Start Content Marketing?
There are multiple ways to start. The easiest one is creating a social media account. Create accounts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and then start sharing quality content here.
What Does SEO Mean?
SEO means search engine optimization. It is a form of marketing that involves optimizing websites to make them rank higher in search engine results.
What Are Content Marketing Strategies?
Content marketing strategies are techniques involved in this marketing type. These strategies are important to get the best results out of any type of marketing campaign.
