Friday, January 4, 2013

Content for You in 2013 & Beyond

Why has the importance of content grown all over these years? With the onset of social media marketing like never before, content has grown in value from a single person working before the curtains to over two hundred of them. I feel it’s critical to set the tone for content marketing, or any marketing for that matter. Marketing professionals from so many small and large businesses get so fixated on channels such as blogs, Facebook or Pinterest that they honestly have no clue of the underlying content strategy. What results is a mess of social marketing strategies that has no co-ordination. So lets set out on a hot trail of content marketing strategies required to strengthen the branding.

First, a content mission statement is a must. It can do wonders for the visitors. the statement should ideally be in the About Us part and it should include the following:-
a. The core audience target
b. the USP of the service
c. the result of the service
Fine Examples can be found here- MISSION STATEMENTS

For a change lets see this video.

This is a fine example of moving from creative excellence to content excellence. Coca-Cola has been a marketing leader for a long time, and here the brand again proves that it is more than qualified to play with the big boys.

Secondly, become the best informational provider for your target audience. Sure, you are creating content in dozens of channels for multiple marketing objectives. But is the mindset focused on being the leading provider of information for your customers? If not, why isn’t that your priority? You can google the strategies of P&G and Dove, and find a lot about how they are providing relevant information on different issues to women, their main target.

Thirdly, the utility to your customers is a key to success. Take a hard look at your content and see if what you are producing is actually useful for your customers. Is it making their lives better or jobs easier in some way?

Next, build relations with your customer. Talk to them, believe as humanly as possible, answer their queries, try to anticipate their expectations even before they ask you. The content opportunities that spring up from customer service and sales alone can support your content marketing strategy. Nike, and Dove are fine examples in this case.

The final and another important factor is co-creation of content. Make loyal customers and allow them to get involved in the company strategies and marketing as much as possible. The Internet has given customers ever-increasing powers to research, compare, and review brands, enabling both good and bad customer experiences to be broadcast to the world. Coca-Cola, Tata Group and MTV are good examples. These are the brands that understand the power of co-creating their brand together with consumers and tapping into the creativity of their biggest fans. For most companies, this also means encouraging--and actively participating in--reviews of their products/services and conversations around them, either on their own, or on third party websites. Reviews are one of the best types of UGC (user-generated content) to encourage, as reviews are closest to the buying process, and directly affect conversion rates and sales numbers.

So go out there and create some touching stories. Engaging stories set out to deliberately draw a conflict — a comparison of morality, or of fundamental change, or of good and evil. Start to feel like the customer. Of starting at a place where we don’t know how it’s going to turn out. This really helps the business to engage more customers. Otherwise, just keep on doing the boring promotions part and wasting your rupees.

3 comments:

  1. This reminds of a quote by Mark Zukerberg on marketing where he said it would be all about interaction on various levels. Though, I haven't understood the entire topic, I watched the video and it helped me in understanding few aspects of branding future. And I think I can use few of the things I learned here on my blog. I will watch the video again and thanks for sharing it.

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    1. Thanks for reading my articles and reviewing Saru :)

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