Content Marketing - Storytelling Requires Strategy

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing direction that involves creating and delivering valuable, relevant, and consistent content. All of this is aimed at attracting a clearly defined target group, retaining this group and ultimately capturing beneficial customer actions. Content marketing is a marketing method that is not about advertising messages, but about useful content that many people search for online. Companies that provide helpful content along the customer journey are more likely to be found, build trust and win customers. Today, the buyer's journey takes place primarily on digital platforms. With content marketing, companies can meet potential customers, connect with customers, and interact with them on this journey. Of course, companies can also use advertising on digital platforms. The advantage of content marketing, however, is that it's easier to build trust with useful content. Today, users are trying to avoid advertising. They use ad blockers or, increasingly, ad-free platforms.

• Strategy requires planning. It is therefore important to set goals and take steps to achieve them. Typical strategic elements include content strategy, social media strategy, or lead generation strategy.
• To create and deliver valuable, relevant, and consistent content, you need a content workflow that consists of at least an editorial team, regular editorial meetings, and the necessary tools.
• Clearly define the target group; unfortunately, content is often created past the target group.
• Define goals and increase conversions. This starts with new customer acquisition and ends with maintaining existing customer relationships.

Why Content Marketing?

Basically, there is no way around content marketing today. If you want to mention the importance of content marketing with just one reason, this would be: because you can only reach the target group online with relevant and valuable content and the customer or buyer journey primarily takes place almost exclusively digitally. The classic advertising message has had its day. But there are other reasons that clearly speak for content marketing. Content marketing increases the visibility and relevance of the company. Trust in a brand or service is also growing. If you provide important and high-quality content to the potential target group, it will be found online and compared with other content. With appropriate analysis, it is also possible to find out a lot about the target group and their needs. Content marketing is more cost-effective than ads ads, for example, because once created, they have a much more long-term effect than time-limited campaigns. Good content also generates more traffic on the website, is also measurable and at the same time positions a company as an expert in the appropriate or desired industry. Last but not least, content marketing also contributes to customer loyalty. As a customer, you are confirmed to be working with a competent service provider.

The Most Popular Content Formats

When it comes to stories and content for our own website, we often immediately think of texts. Blog posts, white papers, e-books, how-to-dos, etc. Even though texts are of great importance for a digital presence, the content idea should always think separately from the chosen format. Perhaps a video, an infographic, or an audio interview is better suited to this type of idea than a blog article?

Text Content

The most common content format for content creation is texts. However, the texts must be adapted according to the message, the selected output channel or the benefit for the reader.

• Blog posts are contributions that are published on a blog. There are various forms of implementation, such as comments, interviews and guest contributions.
• Press releases are primarily suitable for relevant news that should be reported. Keyword media relations.
• White paper cover a topic in more detail and are usually offered as a PDF for download in order to generate leads. For providing contact details, interested parties receive premium content in return.
• E-books are the longer version of the white paper. They are also premium content and are used for lead generation.
• Checklists are clear and very popular with readers.
• Mailings and newsletters help to stay in touch with (potential) customers and are considered an essential tool for interacting with the audience during the funnel. Keyword lead nurturing.
• Social media postings should generally be used as a fixed channel to distribute new content quickly and in line with the target group.
• Case studies describe successful customer projects and are ideal for sharing them with other potential customers. Customer projects are an important part of a funnel and contribute a lot to building trust among interested parties.

Video Content

Video manages to convey emotions and dynamism like no other format. As with texts, there are various video formats that can be used very well for appropriate messaging.

• Image and corporate videos offers the opportunity to present yourself as a company. This is usually content that is used over a long period of time, which is why it's worth investing in a professional video.
• Live videos are spontaneous and live from the here and now. They are very popular on social networks and are often rewarded with higher organic reach.
• Product videos are usually only at a later stage of the customer journey, because they are already aimed at selling.
• Animated videos are ideal if you want to introduce a topic to potential customers but have no place to shoot, or if the topic is so complex that it has to be broken down to a meta-level.
• Employer Branding Videos are increasingly becoming an important HR tool and are used to attract talent in order to position yourself as an attractive employer.
• webinars are online seminars that people can attend from anywhere. These should offer viewers added value and it must not be a sales presentation.

Image Content and Graphics

Visual content is of great importance because it is often easier to digest and stays in the memory longer. However, so that the same type of images is not always used in content creation, it makes sense to use different content formats:

• Infographics are visual representations of content.
• Animated images are GIFs or cinemagraphs, for example.
• Slideshows offer the opportunity to present multiple images without sacrificing too much space on the website.
• 360° images allow (potential) customers to feel right in the middle of it instead of just being there. They are an extension of a panoramic image and allow viewers to see their own backdrop all around.
• Normal photos, which offer insights into everyday working life, introduce employees and show special events and events.

Audio

Audio is probably the most underrated format in content production or a content strategy.

• Podcasts The last few years have also become increasingly relevant for content marketing in the B2B sector.
• O-tones are ideal for making the texts a bit more lively. Search engines rate it very highly when there are several content formats in a post.

Important KPIs in Content Marketing

If you do content marketing in the sense of a blog, you should keep an eye on the following KPIs. It is important to monitor these KPIs both at the level of the entire blog and at the level of individual blog posts.

• Page views: How often was the page viewed?
• Bounce rate: The bounce rate expresses the visit to a single page on the website.
• Length of stay: How long did someone stay on the respective site?
• How many clicks and impressions were displayed?
• Average click-through rate (CTR): How many people saw the result in the search results and continued to click?
• Average ranking position: What is the average position of the page in search results?

KPIs in the Inbound Marketing Expansion Stage

• Visits to leads: How many of the visitors become new contacts?
• Leads to Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): How many of the leads are eligible to become customers?
• Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): How many MQLs have an urgent problem and the budget to solve it?
• Sales qualified leads to customers: How many of these SQLs can be completed?