Content Marketing | The Art of Creating Content That Fits Your Marketing Campaign Goals 2024
Even if you are new to the world of marketing and do not know what content marketing is, you have certainly come across Bill Gates’ famous quote: “Content is king!” which he wrote in his article in 1996 (more than 25 years ago). Here, Bill Gates did not mean content in general, but rather he was specifically mentioning marketing content (content marketing strategy). But let us ask a question that has become a matter of debate: Is content still king?!
When it comes to modern marketing, content marketing is a vital and effective plan. It goes beyond just publishing articles and blogs on the Internet. Rather, it is a comprehensive strategy that relies on creating diverse content that includes: articles, blogs, videos and images. The goal of this content is to provide real value to the audience and motivate them to interact, participate and engage with the brand.
What is content marketing?
There is no specific definition or concept for the ( Content Marketing ) strategy. The art of content creation is not just lifeless texts, but rather it is more like a complete story with all its elements that attract your target audience towards your brand and even build a long-term relationship with it based on trust. This is what makes the process of content marketing completely different from advertising writing or what is known as Copywriting.
The importance of content marketing strategy
There are factors that are difficult to enumerate that represent the importance of content marketing, but among the most important are:
- Build brand authority among its competitors and increase public awareness.
- Building trust with your existing audience. Statistics show that audience engagement increases by 65% as a result of being influenced by good content.
- Increase your brand’s ROI despite the low cost of content writing strategy compared to other marketing strategies (even traditional ones).
- Audiences prefer to see content that they engage with rather than an explicit advertisement for a particular product or service (always remember that a user does not like to feel that they are being exploited).
- 97% of companies are now using a content marketing plan, and you can’t afford to be behind your competitors in the race!
- “Loyalty is everything!” Loyalty is everything and providing your audience with good content that gives them real value will make them loyal customers in the long run.
Types of content marketing
As we mentioned before, content marketing is not limited to just an article or a blog post! It is a concept that goes beyond that to include different types, including:
Social Media Posts
The influence of social media is constantly increasing with the increasing connection of its users to different platforms, which makes it a prime ground for planting marketing content and ensuring the fruits of the marketing process are reaped effectively in less time than other advertising methods.
Blogging
In marketing, you cannot rely on one platform to spread your word, but you need more than one source to promote your brand. Therefore, if you are a website owner who promotes a specific service or product and you want to advertise it, the blog may be the most important part of your website.
User-generated content
“Ask someone who has tried it, not a doctor” is one of the most popular proverbs in our Arab societies, and this is exactly what the user-generated content marketing strategy is based on.
Simply put, if you are looking for a specific service or product that is promoted by many well-known brands and you are confused – since all of these brands have the same fame – your guide here is the audience that uses this brand. Your trust in an ordinary person who has no interest in misleading you will lead you towards it, as WOM (word of mouth) is one of the best and most effective marketing strategies.
Example: When you browse your Facebook account and come across a video of one of your friends or even a celebrity using or recommending a certain product that you were confused about buying, this will prompt you to complete the purchase process immediately.
Videos
If you automatically think of written content when you hear the word “content,” rest assured that you are not alone! Many people automatically think of writing, articles, texts, and posts when the term marketing content is mentioned, and of course this is a completely wrong concept, as content, as we mentioned, includes different forms, including video.
Video is one of the forms of content marketing that is enjoying tremendous success among social media users. Social media platforms have made visual content – especially video – an important element of the marketing plan.
The idea behind video content marketing is a continuous loop that is based on the “whenever” rule. The longer a user stays on a platform, the more likely they are to see your content, and vice versa. The longer a user stops to watch your content, the longer they will use the platform.
In conclusion, what matters to us in this regard is that video content marketing has become necessary in this era with the increasing connection of users to interactive communication platforms, especially with the emergence of reels and short videos.
Webinars
Seminars may not be the first thing that comes to mind for users when talking about types of marketing, especially since users are repelled by anything that might bore them and take up more of their time than necessary.
But as more and more people seek information online, it has become increasingly important for brands and businesses seeking to educate and attract potential customers.
Podcasts
Despite the presence of television and computers, there has always been an audience that prefers to listen to the radio, and the same is the case with podcasts in our current era. Despite the availability of visual content in all its forms and in various fields, many people often prefer to listen to podcasts.
Podcast is a word derived from the words “iPod” and “broadcast”, meaning that it is audio content that you can receive at any time you want, and it is now one of the most prominent forms of marketing content.
Infographics
Fred Barnard famously said: “A picture is worth a thousand words”, and it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words and meaning, so illustrations or infographics may be one of the most brilliant elements of a content marketing strategy, because they simply depend on conveying data and information that may be very complex in an image or graph that makes it easy for the user to understand and absorb the content.
Guides and How-tos
Not only does this element enable you to promote your brand or direct your audience towards certain behaviors and provide them with specific information, but it also guides your customers and users of your service on the best way to use it, and this is what users prefer. The customer does not like to feel that he is being exploited, so he is always looking for someone who gives him real value.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most popular marketing methods ever, and it is a process that relies on email as an effective means of communication with customers, whether they are current or potential customers.
Simply put, email marketing is the process of sending advertising messages to people who have already subscribed to the company’s email list, which saves you a lot of effort and money while reaching a large database, regardless of your company’s field.
eBooks
Some people are still attracted to the idea of authority and thought leadership, and the ideal model for achieving this is launching e-books specialized in your field of work, but as much as this strategy provides real value to customers, it targets a very small segment of customers.
Case Studies
The truth is that your target customers will not care about your success story or the number of advantages and benefits they will gain as a result of cooperating with you. The customer only believes in actual results, and this is what makes case studies and your presentation of actual results that you have succeeded in achieving an indispensable part of the content marketing strategy.
Evergreen Content
The concept of this content may apply to all of the previously mentioned types. Evergreen content, as its name indicates, is continuous content and its importance does not diminish over time, like exclusive content that is widespread in a specific period and is restricted to it.
How does content marketing work?
Before we answer this question directly, let us first tell you that the sales or marketing process goes through four known stages, which are:
- Awareness: At this stage, the company does not seek to market the brand itself, but rather works to educate the public about the services it provides that they are in real need of.
- Research: In the research phase, the user seeks to find solutions to his problems or to serve his needs.
- Consideration: This stage is based primarily on comparison between different brands that promote the same product or service. In order for the comparison to be logical, it must include all aspects (i.e. value versus price and not rely on just one factor).
- The purchase stage is the final stage of the content marketing strategy, which involves taking an actual action (such as purchasing or registering for the advertised service).
What matters to us here is that the traditional marketing strategy focuses mainly on the last two stages of the sales process, while content marketing is concerned with the first two stages, in order to provide all the answers to the questions that may come to users’ minds during the search process.
Content Marketing Examples
In 2015, the global company Apple launched an advertising campaign on the social media platform Instagram, relying on the full awareness of its brand’s audience of the superior quality of the photos taken by the iPhone.
What really made this campaign stand out was the User-generated marketing strategy, where the company invited photographers to share their photos and use the hashtag #Shotoniphone to choose 10 winners, which led to the campaign receiving 95% positive feedback.
Writing marketing content via blog
One of the most famous examples of blogs that cover different marketing topics (especially SEO) is the Ahrefs blog. What distinguishes this blog is that its sections are carefully classified to include everything related to the world of marketing to facilitate the process of accessing the desired content without difficulty, even for ordinary users and not just SEO specialists.
Example of eBooks
SEJ (one of the most popular SEO learning sites ever) has released an illustrated guide to the process of link building in two different versions, one for beginners and the other an application for SEO professionals.
Example of E-mail Marketing
One of the most famous companies that rely on the email marketing strategy is the well-known company “Netflix”, which sends emails containing pictures of its exclusive offers. The company relies on the black and red colors (which are the colors of the company’s logo) in designing the images, along with a special poster for the show that includes the heroes of the work, which attracts the user to check the message and not ignore it.
Example of podcasts
One of the best examples of podcasts is one that features guests, which increases the audience’s sense of interaction and liveliness in the meeting (especially if the guest is a celebrity). The Fنجان Wahed podcast may be one of the most popular programmes available on Radio Thamanya.
Example of evidence and guidelines in a content marketing plan
Starbucks is one of the brands that hardly anyone is unaware of. It has put together a comprehensive guide about the elements of its logo and the use of the three colors it is famous for (green – black – white), in addition to detailed information about how the brand started and where it has reached.
Content Marketing Strategy
In this regard, consider yourself a student at any stage of study and ask yourself: Which option will give you better results, random studying or setting a specific schedule?! Exactly, setting a plan in which you organize your priorities is certainly the right choice, and this is the case in the content marketing process.
Before implementing your content marketing plan, you must develop a solid strategy to ensure achieving the desired results. You can do this by applying a few steps, which are:
- Define the goal of your marketing campaign.
- Based on the goal, define your target audience.
- Research content that interests your potential audience.
- Analyze competitors’ content.
- Determine what type of content you want to create.
- Brainstorm to select the best and most appropriate ideas that serve your field.
- Work on publishing this content in the appropriate place.
Content Marketing Goals
The goals and benefits of content marketing cannot be ignored among the factors for the success of marketing campaigns, and among these goals:
- Introducing your brand to your potential audience.
- Increase brand awareness among existing audiences.
- Working to increase trust and strengthen the connection between the audience and the brand.
- Ensure more exposure on both social media platforms and search engines.
- Working on the success of the marketing process if the success factors of the content itself are available.
Of course, by achieving these goals, the logical result is to increase the financial and investment return for companies, or what is known as ROI, in addition to ensuring continuity and expansion. However, the goals and strategies may differ according to the company’s field of work or size. Here are some examples:
Content Marketing for Small Business (Size Goals)
Small or newly established companies (start-ups) have different marketing goals than companies that have an existing audience. These goals are:
- Increase brand awareness by creating engaging content.
- Drive traffic by producing unique content and sharing it across social media channels and search engines.
- Create powerful content that provides value to potential customers and encourages them to take specific actions (CTAs) that serve the brand.
Content Marketing for Real Estate (by Company Field of Work)
- Create content that attractively highlights available properties and provides detailed information about them to attract potential buyers and increase sales opportunities.
- Producing valuable content that helps build the company’s reputation and customer confidence as a reliable source in the field of real estate information and advice.
- Providing educational content that helps customers understand the real estate buying and investing process and providing valuable advice and guidance.
An illustrative example of content marketing in the real estate field is publishing an article on a blog on a real estate development or investment site that discusses current real estate market prices and competitive price offers, or comprehensive informational articles about a certain area or residential complex.
