Content marketing is about story telling. It is the process of creating and sharing free content to attract audience and turn them into loyal customers. The key goal of content marketing is to educate and entertain people, to inspire them and earn their trust. Content marketing aims to build brand awareness.

Content marketing is used by some of the world’s renowned brands such as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and many others.

The bottom line is, Content marketing is good for you, and your customers.

It is a win-win strategy.

Content Marketing benefits you in three ways:

• Increased Sales
• Cost efficiency
• Brand Loyalty

As a strategy, Content Marketing has three thronged phases.

Awareness

In this phase, the customer is searching for information regarding the product. 

Perhaps they are looking for a solution to some predicament. Or mainly, they are browsing through the web out of boredom

Consideration 

The customer learns about the various options available for his problem. Your product is also included.

Purchase

After gaining the required information, the last phase is of purchase. The customer after having done their research on the solution, now looks for information about purchasing the item.

How do you attain your Content Marketing Goals?

Brand Awareness

This is the primary goal of every business. For content marketing, it is one of the most common one. Brand awareness brings the organization under the spot light. It gets the attention it always wanted. The more people recognize a brand, the more likely are they going to discuss it with their friends, and family. Thus, you get referrals and increased traffic on your website.

Creating High Quality Content

Brand awareness is possible by creating high quality and purposeful content that exhibits your expertise, skills and accomplishments. 

Consistency

You come up with a blog, post it, the people love it. Game completed. Right?

No! The game has just begun. You ought to be consistent with your content. Maintain its quality. You can establish the reputation of being trustworthy. Your audience will rely on your opinion. Traffic on your website will increase, leading to a spike in sales and profits.

You can send emails to re-engage customers, or with prospects who have shown interest in your business.

Generate Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is a pattern of customer behavior where consumers become committed to a brand, and make purchases from the same company or brand overtime. If you consistently produce high end content, readers are bound to get attached. They form an emotional connection which manifests itself in the form of customer loyalty. They begin to see the brand as a credible source of information, which gives rise to the same feelings when purchasing items from the brand. 

Content is awfully important in content marketing. It should be relevant to your organization. You cannot be a milk brand, and developing content on the latest fashion trends. Similarly, if you are a tech company, you should write about the latest technological advancements and gadgets, to show people that you are aware of your field. Writing about apples when you deal in oranges is bizarre.

Increase Customer Engagement

Regularly publishing articles can increase customer engagement. You can use interactive tools to take it up a notch. By using interactive tools, you can increase engagement with the prospects by allowing them to interact with the page. For instance, a health website can offer a calorie calculator to help visitors assess their calorie intake. 

Interactive tools are a great way of showing what your product is capable of doing. It can pique their interests, and help to garner more audience. 

Recruiting Talent

By publishing content, and giving people a platform to discuss your product and services, you are opening a way for skilled people to coin discussions and arguments. This can have positive implications for your brand. For starters, you can display your organization’s vision through meaningful content. 

You create a cohesive and supportive environment on your page, where people can provide feedback, and their take on your product.

Such discussions will assist in your brand’s evolution. This way, you will add value to your product, and deliver more than what you had promised.

Secondly, these factors can contribute in your recruitment process. You can use your content to hire the talent you want working for your company. It will help you, by eliminating the long hiring process. Also, people will be more interested in your content, as it may provide them the opportunity of working for your company.

How to Achieve Your Content Marketing Goals

Posting Blogs

Posting blogs regularly increase customer engagement. 

Offering Downloadable Content

You can publish e-books, templates etc. on your website which people can download for free. 

Rich Media

Videos and podcasts is another popular way to interact with the prospects. It can be applied on various marketing strategies, such as SEO, PPC and social strategies.

Webinars

Webinars are a great way to interact with customers, especially during the current pandemic. Webinars can educate the masses, and establish a personal, more intimate connection with them.

Emails

Sending emails regularly can re-engage old customers and prospects. You can apprise them of campaigns, offers and discounts through emails.

Landing Pages

Landing pages can guide visitors to your website to provide them with more information about your goods and services. 

Conclusion

Content marketing is essential if you want to make other forms of marketing possible (such as social media marketing). A sound content marketing strategy can lead to more traffic and higher audience on the website. It is about telling your side of the story. If articulated correctly, it will definitely become the talk of the town and help your business flourish.