By Oscar Prajnaphalla
I always believe that content marketing is the most important marketing communications strategy nowadays. When you need to outsource a catering service, most likely you will try to find it on Google. Yes, reference does matter, but when was the last time you asked around for recommendation. When you need something, the first thing you will do is googling for it. Based on the top search results, you will contact three of four catering service providers on the list. Some will respond quickly and some will not reply at all. At the end of the day, you will most likely go with the one who responds the fastest and provides the best price. Therefore it is very important to have your website to top Google’s search result and the only way to build your page rank is through content marketing.
The only way to build search engine optimization around Google’s current algorythm is through having lots of original, high-quality content on your website. It means that it is not enough just to have a website. A good website is a website which is updated daily with new original, high-quality content. Since Google is going to the direction of helping people to get the information they need (much like J.A.R.V.I.S on Iron Man movies), then you should provide the content that will answer people’s questions. Moreover, Google has introduced voice search where you can google something only by speaking to your gadget. Knowing this trend, we can plan a chain of connected pieces of information on our website since Google links different sources of information together to answer questions.
In order to make your website more useful to consumers, you should start to switch from producing promotional content to establishing thought leadership and relationship. Your website content should be a bank of useful content that demonstrates a deep understanding of your prospects’ and customers’ pain points, to guide them toward solutions. Thought leadership is not built by publishing feature focused brochures and other product-related content, but by publishing content focused on helping our target audience. High traffic is guaranteed for those who can rise above the sales noise.
At Fortune PR, we create content that is simply meant to help people become better strategic communicators. We also create content that educate our audience about communications strategy and trends that can help communication practitioners be more effective at their jobs. Instead of constantly pushing sales messages to our leads, we want to educate people about the benefits of strategic communications to help them overcome their challenges and achieve their objectives. So while we are talking about our core competency—strategic communications—we are educating our audience with thought leadership, rather than pushing our promotional materials.
“Customers are now smarter, more connected, more informed, more influenced and influential socially, and less likely to respond to campaign-bait. Marketing has to create content people actually want,” said Tim Barker, DataSift’s Chief Product Officer. Content marketing is about providing valuable information or content to current and potential customers for the purpose of building trust, branding, awareness, and positive sentiment. A successful content marketing campaign establishes you as an expert in your field, and that sets the groundwork for a long-term business relationship. Simply put, its primary focus is on building the long term relationship, not the hard sell.
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of Marketing Profs, said that, “The biggest mistake is to create content that your boss or client loves, but your customer doesn’t. If your customer loves
your content, that means it’s meeting the needs of the people you are trying to reach, which your boss or client will love by default. But the inverse isn’t true. If your boss/client loves it, but the customer hates it…well, who cares? Ask yourself: What would your content look like if your customer signed your paycheck?”
Below are 3 things we should remember regarding our content marketing policy:
Identify your audience: There are many blogs, websites, and communities that cater to the same audience you’re targeting. It’s easier and more productive to identify your target audience and understand what’s on their mind through what they are really talking about rather than trying to make “educated guesses.” Listen to their conversations, engage with them, or ask them directly to learn about their perceptions, expectations, pain, hopes and unmet needs. With a small research, you can create content that really caters what the target audience needs.
Never “sell”: The same rules apply for offline strategies as with online; in fact, they apply even more strongly for content marketing.
Don’t publish low-quality content: The way to build your authority, credibility, and brand recognition is simple: if you don’t consider a particular piece of content to be high-quality, don’t publish it anywhere.
If you need further counsel to design your content marketing strategy, you can contact us at email: nbd@fortunepr.com. We’d be happy to help you.
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