I know what you’re thinking. Here it is, another anonymous figure lecturing to us about why content marketing is the latest trend. It’s annoying and (most of the time) deeply repetitive. That’s why I want to look at content marketing without the content.
More Than Words
Content marketing is about a lot more than mere words.
While content marketing is currently in vogue, a lot of marketers will be quick to point out that content writing never really went away. They are, of course, correct. Even the product description on the back of your shampoo bottle counts as content marketing.
However, something has changed in the commercial and cultural understanding of what content marketing actually means. It’s no longer about just informing your reader or advertising to them through words. These days, if you want to achieve good content marketing then you’ll have to start up a dialogue.
It’s no good treating your customers like passive recipients.
Competition amongst businesses is fierce, regardless of your sector, and companies are beginning to rely on their customers in more ways than one.
The Stats
A recent survey by Mashable.com found that 68% of B2b companies used content marketing to raise brand awareness. They aren’t trying to get new customers, as such, they’re merely trying to keep their name in the public profile. That’s why creating content which can be shared is hugely advantageous and is doubly beneficial.
If this content can be shared through social media, for example, it can encourage customers to communicate directly with a business. Furthermore, when customers recommend your site to their friends, it increases your online traffic and chances of financial reward.
All of this might seem a bit obvious but there’s a reason for it. Content marketing is about more than the content itself.
Only Half The Battle
Writing a great article, or blog, is only half the battle. If you want it to be successful, then the piece has to be good enough to prompt a reaction from your customer.
They need to want to share it, Tweet about it, or recommend it to a friend even if it doesn’t interest them at all.
There are several components, or building blocks, which form the basis of content marketing. Although the scope is endless, the ultimate goal is still the same regardless of your sector.
You want to create a content marketing strategy that goes beyond good content and reaches people on a personal level.
Content Type
Once you’ve decided on your content strategy, then you can move onto deciding what type of content will best suit your needs.
It’s so important to create content that is particular to you and your brand. According to a recent survey, 61% of customers say that they feel better about companies who delivers custom content. Moreover, custom content also means that individuals are more likely to buy from that business.
Really Long List of Goodies
Heres a huge list of content types from The Periodic Table of Content Marketing to give you some inspiration:
- How-To Based
- Reviews
- Question Based
- Timesaving
- Best Practise
- Compilations
- Case Study
- Stats
- Debates
- Interviews
- Ask The Experts
- Resources
- Link bait
- Research
- Trends
- Competitions
- Quizzes
- Experiments
- Productivity
- Fun
- Templates
- Beginner’s Guides
- Inspiration
- Opinion
- Checklists
- Definitions
- Glossaries
- Data
- Product-Based
- Surveys
- Analysis
- Fiction
- Gifs
- Galleries
- Mind maps
- Frameworks
- Testimonials
- Demos
- News jacking
Need more inspiration? We have built a tool set to help you out, check out our Content Marketing Ideas Generator, Content marketing Assessment Tool and the Competitor Content Tool
It’s vital that businesses pick the correct format which will suit their target audience. According to Mashable.com, the most popular content marketing formats by B2B marketers are:
- Articles (79%)
- Social Media (74%)
- Blogs (65%)
- eNewsletters (63%)
- Case Studies (58%)
- In-person events (56%)
Long-Form Effectiveness
It might seem surprising that articles are more widely used than social media, but there’s definitely merit to this logic.
In terms of creating content, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that long-form content is the most effective way to reach audiences. Things like blogs and articles are great for this.
The benefits of writing your content long-form (like this blog) is that it should hopefully give writers the opportunity to impact on their readers in a more substantial way.
It’s for these reasons that 78% of CMOs recently said that custom content was the future of marketing. Put simply, it’s more in-depth and should offer more insight than your typical Facebook post.
Long-Form Length
However, you’ll notice that I’m inherently cautious.
Long-form content ‘should’ be and ‘hopefully’ will of value to your customers. Having said this, there is very much the temptation to upload content purely for content’s sake. Nevertheless, when long-form content is done well, it’s incredibly successful at generating shares between users on social media sites. Have a look at this:
The results indicate that the longer the content, the more likely users are to share that content with their friends.
This is great news for businesses. However, if you look a bit closer, there is even better news for companies who are willing to create long-form content. In their results, there is 16 times more content with less than 1000 words than articles with over 2000 words. This means that, relatively speaking, the short-form content market is oversaturated and competition is abundant.
If you are willing to write long-form, however, you are more likely to stand out.
In this respect, long-form content simply makes good business sense.
Surveying Long-Form
In conjunction with this data, another survey by the University of Pennsylvania also found that online users were more likely to share long-form rather than short-form content.
Using the New York Times as their study, the university found that more people were likely to share articles that were longer and more intellectually challenging. Even more interestingly, users were also keen to share articles which impacted them on an emotional level.
According to the study, people shared articles which they found inspiring and emotionally-provocative (but almost exclusively in a positive sense).
The Results?
The results of these studies are interesting for the future of online content and content marketing.
While we already know that content should have value, it also indicates how reliant companies have become on the ‘share-value’ of their online material. Engaging and insightful content is now a top 3 reason why people follow brands online.
In this sense, content marketing is no longer a one-way street.
The greatest potential for long-form advertising is that it can engage with people on a personal level. Think of it this way: content marketing suffers from the tree in the forest syndrome – if no one is there to hear it, then it’s dubious as to whether it exists at all.
What does this mean for businesses?
Beyond your content type, then, it’s important that your online material has personal value to your reader and potential value to their peers.
Only by doing so can your online content be shared.
However, there are also significant financial benefits for companies who create custom content for their websites. Companies who have online blogs have, on average, 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links than those who don’t. This means that online blogs, especially those with a good SEO strategy, are more likely to draw in new customers.
Given that the main goal of content marketing is now to raise brand awareness, this is very good news for businesses.
Blog Generation
In addition to this, B2B companies who have online blogs generate up to 67% more leads per month than their non-blogging counterparts.
Although it can be difficult to precisely pinpoint individual customer motives, there are a few generalisations which can be made. Building upon the findings from the University of Pennsylvania, it seems evident that customers prefer online content which gives them added value.
Moreover, blogs and articles can sometimes give a personal touch to an otherwise faceless company. If you are looking for evidence (and why would you not?) then it’s possible to quantify these observations.
Building Relationships
Another recent study has shown that 90% of consumers find custom content useful.
In addition to this, the same survey found that 78% of consumers believe that organisations who provide custom content are interested in building relationships with them. When you think about this statistic, it really is a remarkable achievement.
No matter the size of the company, a regular online blog offers a personalised dynamic between the relationship of a business and its customers.
This is particularly poignant when you consider some of the social limitations of conducting your business online. In fact, the contrary is true; it’s quite possible that online content marketing can improve the relationship between companies and their consumers.
Social Media
Social media sites and blogs have the fantastic potential to reach a wide range of audiences on the internet.
According to recent research, social media sites and blogs are accessed by 8/10 online users in the U.S. Furthermore, they also account for 23% of all time spent on the internet.This means that consumers are more likely to come across and engage with social media and blogs on a daily basis.
As a building block for content marketing, therefore, social media is absolutely paramount.
Social Media And Content
However, unlike long-form content, social media sites (like Twitter) are designed for quick, instantaneous updates.
It’s unlikely that a Twitter post will have any long-term, substantial impact on a customer’s life. Nevertheless, it can still be incredibly powerful.
50% of buying decisions are prompted through personal recommendations. With this in mind, this buying habit amongst customers could be very advantageous for businesses. If your company has a strong online presence, then people are more likely to share your content if they deem it to have value.
This is why it’s so important than social media is used to promote a company’s blogs and articles.
A well-written text, no matter how good, will not advertise itself. That’s why 50% of companies now have content marketing strategies (above).
In addition to this, it’s not surprising that social marketing budgets will double over the next five years (above). With all of this in mind, content marketing is thus almost entirely reliant on a fantastic, well-organised marketing strategy that will promote it at every level.
Additionally, one of the benefits of social media is that it makes sharing content all that easier. Tools like ‘social sharing buttons’, for example, are incredibly useful for facilitating customers to share online material with their friends.
Furthermore, it’s also worth considering the various avenues that companies can pursue with social media. Although 90% of companies advertise on Facebook, for example, LinkedIn generates more leads for B2B businesses overall. However, only 47% of B2B marketers actually use LinkedIn for this purpose. Therefore, it’s important that companies don’t just resort to using the most popular social media sites to advertise their online content. Depending on your business (and customer needs) there will be different websites to suit your requirements. Do your research, explore different options, and create a omni-channel marketing strategy that targets your customers on every possible level.
The building blocks of content marketing
At the beginning of this blog post, I said I was going to talk about content marketing without the content. It might seem like I’ve actually spent a lot of time talking about content, but there’s been another motive. Although it’s absolutely fundamental that your written material is top-notch, it must also have value to the individual customer. Only by doing so can you create online content that people actually want to share. This is now the most significant driving force in businesses establishing for themselves an online presence. It’s an active, two-way dialogue. One cannot exist without the other. Like two pillars for content marketing, quality writing and shareability are indispensable.
A key component of this structure is, of course, social media. The difference between content marketing now and 50 years ago is that consumers are no longer passive recipients. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (to name a few) allow customers to interact directly with members of staff. People can comment on and share whatever content impacts them on a personal level. However, consumers can also easily ignore online content and not share it at all. If this happens then the repercussions for a business will be dire. This is why businesses must create quality content that touches people emotionally. Only by doing so, can businesses develop a marketing strategy that will increase their brand awareness and customer loyalty base.
That’s why content marketing is about a lot more than content itself. Great content marketing is about building a dialogue between a business and its consumers.