Content Marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
You need to document the workflow of your content and the results. According to Huffington Post, documenting your content marketing efforts, will help you identify the missing link, between what is working and what you’re doing.
According to CMI research 53 percent B2B marketers who reported a documented strategy, found content marketing to be highly effective.
Highly Relevant Content
Target your customers with highly relevant content. Very often marketers confuse creating content with content that is considered valuable by target audience. To meet the needs of the audience, it is important to create content that meets the content marketing needs of the audience. This can be done by creating highly relevant content by assessing the users content needs and serving highly relevant content in a personalized manner.
Distribution Strategy
An effective approach to Content Distribution strategy combines three different forms of distribution; paid media, owned media and earned media.
An effective distribution strategy combines different channels and forms of distribution to arrive at a streamlined effort.
Create Credible content
There are several factors that can make your content credible. Some of the ways to make your content credible are:
1 Address real concerns
2. Solve customer issues
Measure the right signals
In case you are measuring the wrong signals, the results from your content marketing will appear flawed. To measure the right signals define the most important KPIs.
Chatbots are taking over from Apps, according to a Fiksu Study. Teens spend an average of 23 Mins and 23 secs on Messaging Chat. Facebook reports that developers have created more than 11,000 chatbots for its Messenger platform, and Kik — one of the most popular messaging platforms among teens — unveiled 6,000 new chatbots.
Brands, have integrated bots in Shopping Experience that offer advice on choosing products. Integrating AI and APIs for Retail apps can enhance the shopping experience with user-friendly chat interfaces and expert advice.
Messaging Apps And Instant Content
Facebook Messenger has made content publishing instant with Facebook Messenger where Publishers can publish articles on messenger. Messaging Apps can power publisher’s stories with instant audience reactions. For brands engaging users with via publishers posts can get the audiences respond live to a story.
Brands are going a step further encouraging customers to chat real-time on messaging apps.
Live Streaming Becomes Native to Mobile Apps
YouTube makes live streaming native to the mobile app. According to the blog, YouTube mobile live streaming will be baked right into the core YouTube mobile app. You won’t need to open anything else, just hit the big red capture button right there in the corner, take or select a photo to use as a thumbnail, and you can broadcast live to your fans and chat in near real-time.
Live Video and Streaming Content Genres
Twitter signs up with Pac-12 network to live stream sports events after a deal signed earlier with CBS News to live stream the Democratic and Republic Convention.”By expanding our digital footprint, Pac-12 Plus also allows us to connect more fans with more, live Pac-12 sports content through a platform they use every day.”
VR Experience Becomes Real
Samsung and NBC team up for Virtual Reality experience linked to the Olympic games, by allowing Viewers to view the games footage in VR after a few weeks. According to Venture Beat, NBC has revealed that the NBC Sports app will work in conjunction with Samsung Galaxy devices and the Samsung Gear VR to broadcast 85 hours of virtual reality programming. This will include both the opening and closing ceremonies, men’s basketball, gymnastics, beach volleyball, boxing, diving, fencing, and a host of track-and-field events.
Channels that are preferred by users for accessing VR Content.
For content marketers the video footage that is live streamed can now be a more engaging content format with Virtual Reality.
Location Listings for Pokestops makes AR Relevant
Adding Yelp Listings to Pokemon Go made AR gaming more relevant. Introducing listings and reviews for an AR experience, can increase the engagement for your Brand.
Adding listings for your mobile app or a customer experience in a Review app increases traffic, in a more engaging content format.
Emoji Power Takes Over Branding
Diney’s Emoji Blitz game for iOS and Android, has over 400 character Emojis. Each Character Emoji has special powers that allow users to choose the Character Emoji. Building on Disney characters the Emoji centric game builds on the character brand defining new way for users to connect with their favorite characters.
Pepsi used Emojis for the World Emoji day celebration with Emoji filter on Snapchat and an Emoji keyboard update timed for the World Emoji day.
SVOD Matches DVR Penetration
Subscription based Video On Demand matches the DVR penetration in the US Households. Users want to control the content they watch, with increased sign-ups for subscription services. As high as 30 percent have access to SVOD and DVR. According to Nielsen Research report, “SVOD penetration has been rising steadily over the past year, illustrating that viewers have a continued desire to control what they watch and when they watch it. And in many cases, that means more playback options is better. In fact, close to 30 percent of homes have a both DVR and access to SVOD—up nearly 20 percent from last year.”
Mobile Devices Make For More Than 50 Percent of Connected Devices
One of the most important tactics for B2C content marketing is Social Media Content with 85 percent of respondents for CMI survey for North America claiming to have used it. More than 50 percent of respondents are prioritizing Social Media and Blogs as the Content Marketing tactic for 2017 . Brand Awareness, Engagement and lead generation are the top three goals for Content Marketers over the next 12 months.
Techniques that are used by B2C marketers vary from Keyword research and Social Listening to learn about the audience.
Among the channels that are used by B2C marketers to distribute content, Email and Facebook were quoted as the preferred channel based on the rating by 91 percent and 68 percent of marketers. Social promotion and Search Engine Marketing are the most used methods for promoting content. Among goals quoted by Content Marketers, Awareness is the leading goal quoted by 74 percent and 73 percent use website visits as the core metric with 78 percent stating that they can demonstrate how Content Marketing has helped them achieve results.
Creating Branded Content, that is most likely to resonate with your audience and increase site traffic, requires planning the content experience for your target audience. Your holiday season content seeking to educate, inspire, and convert your audience with a seasonal context, requires a plan. According to Think With Google, shoppers are increasingly searching for products and Gift Guides on YouTube. Most of the time 70 percent, these videos are watched on mobile.
With the number of options available, the search volume for products on Mobile with “Best” products has grown by 50 percent. As high as 43 percent shoppers for Consumer Electronics purchase products on Mobile, while looking at the products in-store. Nearly 70 percent of customers want multiple ways to buy products such as Buy Online and Pick Up in store.
Here are Content Marketing examples for targeting the Holiday shopper, that can create an experience for your brand.
Gifting
Gift Guide and Gift Cards as seen in Whole Foods example where the landing page for Holidays section, “Holiday Headquarters” features a Holiday Gift Guide “30 Days of Gifts”, Recipes and DIY ideas. The landing page shares select recipes for entertaining and the site gives details on Holiday Gift Cards, Creating a Content experience that is targeted at engaging shoppers with gift ideas and recipes for occasions.
