There’s a lot of buzz surrounding content marketing. If you lead a brand, it’s time to understand how that can work in your favor.
Today’s marketing landscape answers to prospective buyers who are smarter than ever and have the new ability to leverage online tools to find the best solutions for their problems. If you want people to choose your product over what a competitor offers, you need content that meets the consumer where they’re at in the process of buying, whether it’s blogs, landing pages, white papers, podcasts, or video ads on paid social media.
Content marketing can be an overwhelming strategy to add to your brand’s overall marketing scheme because there is currently an influx of information available to brands and consumers alike. You can start the process by debunking some common myths about content marketing:
Myth #1: Content Marketing Has Little to No Impact on Brand Strategy
Content marketing can make or break a brand strategy.
Regardless of the type of content and delivery channels you choose, the benefits of content marketing and a solid content strategy are imperative for success. The benefits of leveraging content to achieve your marketing goals and grow your business are apparent. Defining your audience, building trust and authority, creating digital assets, and developing leads and conversions with content marketing can help you gain ground on competitors who aren’t putting the same effort into their content strategy. Content marketing success is essential to keeping pace with other brands in today’s market.
Take a look at these statistics indicating the effectiveness of content marketing:
- Content marketing generates triple the leads of traditional marketing—even though it boasts a 62% cost decrease.
- 56% of marketers say blogs are effective in marketing content, and 10% say it produces the highest ROI.
- 62% of B2B purchasers said they relied on content such as case studies and webinars to inform their purchasing decisions.
Whether you lead a start-up or an established brand, content marketing provides benefits you can leverage to grow your business.
Myth #2: Building a Content Strategy is Synonymous with Building a Creative Content Strategy
To do content marketing right, you need a creative content strategy. The current marketing landscape rewards creativity and genuineness because that is what consumers resonate with.
Solidify your goals, then define your objectives. Typical objectives include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, driving conversions, building thought leadership, or establishing customer loyalty. Once established, find the most exciting paths to reach your objectives.
Thinking outside the box doesn’t mean flying off the rails. There are tried and true methods for producing strategies, but the best content strategies employ creative, innovative, and forward-thinking mediums and messaging.
Here are some ideas on how to get creative:
- Brainstorm with your team or a content marketing agency. Sometimes, allowing a fresh set of eyes can help you see different problems and solutions, which builds a better content strategy.
- Look for gaps. What’s missing in your current content setup? Short-form, snappy language? Simplicity? Offering a variety of content is likely the best option because having options is satisfying for potential clients and existing ones.
- Keep it simple and eliminate “word salad.” If you’re saying nothing substantive about your product, you’ll bore consumers. Cut low-quality content copy and create something of value to pull in the buyer.
- Look into language. Literary devices engage readers. Alliteration, exciting points of view, figurative language, and other elements of good storytelling will improve engagement and draw the reader in. Your readers can spot the difference in your content — engaging, vivid storytelling — versus lackluster blogs and other content. Give consumers something that’s not just informative but also creative, interesting, and worth reading. Half your battle is won here.
- Provide storytelling and insights. As noted above, creativity is one thing. Providing real insight into your brand and product is another. When creating content, ask yourself, “What do we know about this?” Your brand’s insights are valuable and will set you apart from competitors. Your content strategy should capitalize on those insights and make it clear to the reader how your solutions can impact their life.
Myth #3: Content is Not an Asset
Content is a way to help build the overall value of your business.
Think of your content arsenal as a critical asset your business relies on in the same way a manufacturer may rely on a new piece of machinery it has invested in. The machinery requires maintenance, upkeep, and resources dedicated to keeping it running safely and smoothly so it remains an asset — conversely, it becomes a liability.
For example, let’s say you lead a printing business. As the company grows over time, you must invest in better assets. Eventually, you may need a new printing machine because your old equipment becomes outdated or malfunctions. While the new machine is an investment, it will allow your company to serve more clients.
The moral of the story is that investing in an effective content strategy is just like investing in that printing machine.
Myth #4: You Don’t Need a Plan
You need a plan. This is true for every kind of business.
You likely already have a business plan, which operates like a first-aid box. It will come to your rescue when you need it most. Figuring out your finances, team, infrastructure, and other considerations make up a business plan. Your plan probably focuses on the short-term and long-term outcomes of the business. What about a content marketing plan?
With a content marketing plan, you can establish your business with a brand to ease the marketing game and stand out as an extraordinary organization. Branding can influence consumers when narrated as your organization’s story. It can include characters, a plot, and a style customized to complement your established business plan.
Myth #5: You Don’t Need a Copywriting Agency
Odds are, you didn’t sign up to start a marketing business yourself. That’s where you employ the help of experienced content professionals.
The market is heavily saturated with different businesses, heightening the competition and the stakes. The good news is that a solid marketing strategy can keep your organization relevant to consumers. You can do this with the help of a copywriting agency.
Many organizations and businesses underestimate how much work is required to create authentic content that genuinely performs well. Building a basic content strategy for creating, publishing, and tracking the efficacy of your content is a full-time job, meaning if you take on this task alone, you have to juggle content creation with other parts of your mission.
Copywriting agencies conduct all the steps of content marketing for you, from planning to using storytelling to connect with your brand’s audience. The right agency can create content that drives the desired results while freeing up your resources to allocate them where they’re most needed.
Partnering with a skilled copywriting agency can give you the expertise and consistency needed to bring your brand’s content strategy goals to life. If you’re ready to partner with a copywriting agency, look at some of 2024’s best content copywriting companies.