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Harnessing the Power of Content Creation for Business Advancement
Attracting new customers and retaining existing ones without a large advertising budget is a challenge familiar to every business owner. With limited resources, one of the more affordable and cost-effective means of brand promotion is content marketing. In this article, we will discuss harnessing the power of content creation for business advancement.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a technology based on creating and distributing useful, expert information to gain trust and attract potential customers.
Content marketing does not sell here and now; rather, it seduces a potential client, so you should not expect quick results from it. The main metric of effectiveness is increased loyalty, which, in turn, leads to increased sales in the long run.
In the analog world, information was complex and obtained from books, newspapers, and television. Still, with the advent of the Internet, the threshold of entry into the information field has been significantly reduced. Now, you don't need to invest huge resources to talk about your company and your product. You can get by with relatively "little blood."
In fact, content marketing now performs the functions that the media used to perform for businesses. You can only achieve more tangible results and, most importantly, see them in the form of numbers in analytics counters.
Why Is Content Marketing A Growing Trend?
Imagine that we live in a world where every person is engaged in activities corresponding to his or her vocation and interests. In this world, there are no dilettantes, no people who have bought "diplomas" and scientific degrees, and no dummies who were given a sweet spot by their parents. Each specialist is as competent as possible. Sounds great, doesn't it?
But what if I told you that, with the development of online technologies, we are really moving into a world where a digital trail of interests, knowledge, and competencies follows every person? In this world, available expert information is researched first before making a purchase decision.
This is not fantasy but reality.
By starting content marketing before others in your field, you will be the first to arrive in this information world and have time to take your place in it. The rest of us will be left behind.
Why?
The era of irresponsible consumption is fading away. This can be seen in both the older generation and the growing Generation Z.
Generation Z (born 1997-2003) is the children of multimedia technology. They despise excessive consumption, communicate mainly on the Internet, and prefer personalization in everything. They quickly collect and analyze information and make decisions based on the data they receive. Classic advertising in communication with them will not be as effective as organic expert opinion (confirmed by research).
Generation Z chooses brands based on their values and mission, information about which they get from useful expert content. To tell about values, mission, create and disseminate expert information and content marketing helps.
Choosing content formats
Content marketing can include a variety of materials: blog articles, social media posts, videos and online broadcasts, podcasts, and infographics. The main purpose of such content is to give the target audience valuable, useful information to gain and build user trust.
The choice of format will depend on the stage of the funnel for which the content is created, as well as the message that needs to be organically delivered. For example, email newsletters and webinars may be more effective than videos or blog articles for attracting potential customers. It's also worth considering the available budget and resources for content creation: some formats require a larger investment.
Textual content
Articles in company blogs and media, commentary from brand experts on relevant topics - such textual content is relatively cheap and easy to produce. Regular quality publications can improve SEO performance and attract comments. If you need to find awesome authors for your business, Essay Writer Pro can help you.
If you write on different topics, you can diversify your traffic. However, it is also important to be consistent and stick to the purpose and overall thematic focus of the blog to avoid irrelevant traffic.
Visual content
Images, photos, animations - beautiful visuals are especially important for brands creating B2C products with aesthetic value. Through exploring useful design templates, companies can enhance their visual storytelling and make impactful connections with their audiences. Branded content using branded style elements increases the company's recognizability and broadcasts its values.
Video content
According to 2023 statistics, people around the world watch an average of 17 hours of online video per week and 84 videos per day. Video content is shared 52% more often than social media posts and website links.
Videos can create an instant brand connection, evoke strong emotions, and inspire people to take action faster than any other media content. Although video creation is more complex and expensive, such content is highly effective for branding and building authority.
Infographics
This type of content presents expert data in an easy-to-digest form on social media and company blogs and is suitable for almost any industry and audience. Other companies eagerly use high-quality infographics, thereby increasing the SEO of the resource. The disadvantage is the possible cost of collecting data and creating graphs with low user engagement rates.
Podcasts
Podcasts are gaining popularity worldwide. They are a direct channel of communication between a brand and an interested audience, helping build trust and increasing user loyalty.
The challenge is that producing a quality podcast will require sound equipment and resources to produce consistent episodes, and the return on investment is hard to measure.
Webinars and online events
A webinar on a topic or an online Q&A session is an opportunity to interact with your audience in real-time, give and receive quick feedback, and demonstrate expertise. This type of content requires almost no cost to create but allows you to generate quality leads and grow audience trust.
Conclusion
Quality content is the future. This is what Internet marketers and representatives of search engines themselves are saying.
SEO has been buried for a long time, and, indeed, spammed texts are no longer found in search results for a competitive information query. Contextual advertising is effective, but with overheated auctions, it becomes more expensive every year. The introduction of new ad formats does not save the situation.
By creating content yourself and promoting it with free tools now, you can get interested traffic from search engines and convert it into sales. Next, the competition will only get tougher, and jumping on that bandwagon is important.