A pandemic is never a good thing, but if there is at least one silver lining, it’s that being stuck inside means more time to focus strategically on boosting your business. And the perfect social distancing activity is working on content marketing. What are the examples of content marketing? Content marketing is creating content like social media posts, videos, blog posts, and similar messages that are used to market a business indirectly as well as directly. It can be done completely online, so it’s a good way to pass time during a pandemic. Below, we’ll go over how to create the best possible digital content during COVID.
Have a Good Content Marketing Strategy
Why is content marketing important? Content marketing builds a brand in an organic way that engages consumers through multiple touchpoints. It’s a good way to reach audiences who are closed off to traditional advertising and talk to customers rather than at them.
The first place to start in any effective content marketing endeavor is your strategy. Every content marketing strategy needs to be focused on the business’ particular circumstances, as William Mamane, CMO of language services provider Tomedes, points out:
“If you do business in multiple markets all over the world, you’ll need an international focus to your content marketing strategy. An international content marketing strategy includes provisions for translation and localization to make sure a company’s message fits in with the local culture in the most natural way possible. To find local translation services, you can look up terms like translation services NYC. Beyond that, an international marketing strategy works like other strategies, in that it helps define goals and determine how to measure progress.”
Overall, a good marketing strategy has several key components that will help you determine how to go about your marketing. A content marketing strategy can:
- Define the goals of your content production efforts.
- Outline of the target demographics you are marketing to.
- Give a detailed rundown of the types of content you will produce, how it will be produced, where it will be posted/released, and how each content piece helps with overall business goals. Types of content and mediums should always be informed by demographic research.
- Detail the schedule the content will run on, including when it will be produced and when it will be released to the public. This is essentially where you nail down your deadlines.
- Plan for how performance will be assessed. For instance, social media posts could require analytics reports to see how users are engaging with the content.
According to Mainor Wirth Injury Lawyers – great content marketing strategies have some aspects in common. They include exhaustive detail about who you’re making content for, how that content will be produced and how success will be measured.
Choose the Types of Content Marketing that Work Best for Your Business
Content marketing is more than just posting to Facebook and calling it a day. There are many different types of content marketing, some of which you might not have thought of. Types of content marketing include:
- Blogging: both on your own website and guest posts on other sites
- Videos: these are often informational and appreciated by loyal customers; 54% of consumers want more video content from a brand they support
- Case studies: these are real stories of how a business helped someone
- eBooks: long-form blog content that can be downloaded as a PDF
- Infographics: displaying data in visual ways to engage consumers
- User-generated content: customers may respond to messages and post their own content
- Checklists and instructions: these helpful documents provide value in a way that gets consumers involved
- Influencer shares: you might have a social media influencer promote your product, like a celebrity endorsement from traditional marketing
- Memes: combining text and images, this highly shareable format helps engage customers
- Customer reviews: you might post testimonials on your website or direct someone to a positive review elsewhere online
- White papers: these data-driven documents help inform while spreading brand awareness and are often used in business-to-business settings; 76% of buyers are most willing to exchange their information for white papers
When deciding which types of content marketing to pursue, consider what will work best with your target demographic. For instance, if you sell a service or product that appeals mainly to young people, you may want to produce content for the social media channel(s) that research shows they use most.
You might also consider finding a content marketing agency to assist with the types you’re not a comfortable undertaking, such as making infographics if you don’t have graphic design skills.
Be Aware of Content Marketing Trends and Tone During COVID
Make sure to stay aware of the pandemic situation while producing marketing content. It seems obvious, but it can be easy to get into a content production groove and forget the outside world. Posting a previously scheduled blog post about the best tourist destinations in a country where travel is restricted, for example, will make your brand look out-of-touch and tone-deaf.
One of the cornerstones of successful content marketing is sharing information that consumers find engaging and helpful. Having pandemic messaging that sounds hollow, or worse could be seen as fearmongering, is a turnoff for online audiences. Strategize content that gives helpful advice or knowledge for living in a pandemic era. At the same time, remember that no one wants to hear about the pandemic constantly, so it’s important to strike an appropriate messaging balance.
