Content Marketing Guide For Companies in Malaysia

by | Copywriting, Digital Marketing

“I make sure my content is informative and persuasive, but why won’t my audience buy my products?”

If your content is not generating sales, you might want to get into content marketing. And if you just quizzically raised your eyebrows, this guide is perfect for you!

Introduction to Content Marketing

Definition of content marketing

According to the Content Marketing Institute,

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

The crucial point of the definition is the rule of three, which refers to “valuable, relevant, and consistent content.” Because your potential consumers are humans, they are more likely to stay and purchase if your content can provide solutions to the problems they face.

In simpler words, be engaging, purposeful, and consistent.

Top 5 reasons to try content marketing

Can content marketing really help grow your business? How?

Let’s find out!

1. Build brand awareness

You can show your expertise in the niche through content marketing. When your business becomes credible, your rank in search engines will increase.

Consistency in content marketing can familiarise prospects with your business and content strategies.

Ultimately, answering potential customers’ needs and wants with original content can expose your business to the competitive world.

2. Boost lead generation

Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects and nurturing their interest with the aim to convert them into customers.

How can you attract prospects and make them stay?

The answer is simple:

Step 1: Write attractive hook statements – like posing interesting and relatable questions, giving a declarative statement, or providing persuasive facts – to grab the prospects’ attention right from the first sentence.

Step 2: Be engaging. Provide all information about your business in the body section – portray your brand values, what good your business is doing for society and how your business can help solve your potential customer’s problems,

Step 3: End with a BANG! Be impactful at the end of your content and make the audience go “OKAY! I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW!” Prove why your business is better than the other top competitors, give side-by-side comparisons and end with a call to action (CTA).

3. Create consumer loyalty and brand fans

Consistency is key to making consumers happy.

Set goals on when to publish your content and which platforms to post them on.

Do this and consumers will stay engaged and even look forward to your future products. Excitement often encourages purchase.

Having brand fans is equally important. Regardless of them being your consumer, they can recommend your business if your content is memorable.

4. Improve social media presence

With the help of Mentions (@) and Hashtags (#), actively sharing your content on different social media platforms can enhance your social media presence.

Current data shows 4.2 billion social media users worldwide, which equals more than 53% of the global population.

Contents tailored to different platforms can prove your business’s competence in content marketing.

For example, even though your goal is to share the same blog post, your LinkedIn and Twitter posts need to adapt to the nature of the platforms.

This can capture different target audience’s interests that in time will lead them to click the link to your intended content.

5. Support search engine optimization (SEO)

Content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) go hand in hand.

Without high-quality SEO content that can answer the audience’s questions, your SEO will not be supported.

Consistency of producing quality content will generate more visitors. This can boost your traffic and at the same time, your content will get ranked higher in search engines.

To maximize SEO with content marketing, make sure:

  1. The content is clear on what you want to convey.
  2. The keywords match with what the prospects are searching for.
  3. To research and review the first-page articles on Google.

The stages of content marketing

 A Step-by-step guide to starting content marketing

A content marketer is someone knowledgeable about their business and target audience and knows how to create content to promote their business to their prospects and convert them into consumers.

Follow these four simple stages of content marketing to ensure high-quality content that resonates with the prospects:

Stage 1: Research and Planning

Before sitting and writing down your content, ask yourself these:

“Who is this for? What do I want to convey?” ALWAYS keep your audience in mind!

Once you have reminded yourself, start researching what would attract the prospects, and what could they possibly need?

Afterward, set goals with your team. Visualize the audience’s journey when going through your content. Outline your team schedule to ensure content consistency and create a vision board.

Stage 2: Creation and Curation

After preparing your team goals, it’s time to start creating!

List some of your content’s possible keywords and use tools such as Ahrefs to help you determine which keyword would attract more visitors.

While creating your content, keep the content marketing funnel in mind (will be explained in the next section, stay tuned!)

Curating is as important when it comes to keeping the audience engaged while boosting traffic.

Find other related contents, filter the important points, and organize them to ease your reader’s thought process.

The simpler and clearer your content is compared to the others, the more the audience will favor your creation.

Stage 3: Distribution and Promotion

This stage is a vital point in getting your content out there. There is no use in making great content if nobody sees it, right?

Strategically publish your content on different platforms to attract the right prospects.

And DO NOT STOP THERE! Continue to actively share links across social media platforms.

Promote, promote, promote!

It is so easy to get your content from one platform to another.

Imagine this, your prospect sees your AMAZING CONTENT on Twitter and shares it with their friends on WhatsApp, who then continue to forward it to their other contacts.

Never underestimate the power of the share and forward buttons.

Stage 4: Engagement and Revision

Do you think you have done it all after distributing and promoting your content? You are wrong!

Engaging with your prospects on different platforms can nudge them into supporting your content and reaching your end goal (convert them into consumers).

Reach out to your audience when they are most active on social media for the highest engagement. Gather their feedback, revise your methods, and make improvements!

The content marketing funnel

The content marketing funnel is a system that identifies the prospect’s journey with a step-by-step content flow from when they are exposed to your content up until consumer conversion.

The four phases of a content marketing funnel are Awareness, Consideration, Conversion, and Satisfaction.

Phase 1: Awareness

At the top of the funnel (TOFU), the audience is at the awareness stage as they do not know anything about what you are offering. You need to attract them to your business.

But, since the stage is called “Awareness,” the audience needs to get all the information and answers. If they do not see a purpose for staying, adios!

At this phase, your content can be in the form of blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts – just anything that could successfully introduce your brand to the audience.

Ask yourself these:

  1. Can my prospects fully understand what I am offering or selling?
  2. Would they want to know more about my brand after this?

Phase 2: Consideration

In the middle of the funnel (MOFU), the prospects are evaluating your brand and whether it benefits them.

The audience is more likely to purchase if you provide more useful and convincing information to secure their decision.

Some methods that you could use are to provide testimonials, case studies, or data. The method can strengthen their decision-making.

Some questions to consider:

  1. Are they convinced that my business can help solve their problems?
  2. Is my content aiding them to make a decision?

Phase 3: Conversion

Almost there! At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), instill confidence into your audience to make their purchase!

Compare your service to other similar brands and emphasize why yours is worthier. Give offers or provide free consultations that could ease them in making a decision.

Make them go, “Okay! THIS is what I want!”

And ask yourself these:

  1. Am I helping them to make their purchase?
  2. Does my content serve clear instructions on the checkout process?

Phase 4: Satisfaction

In order to retain your consumers, you need to make them know that you are really invested in them.

Ask for their feedback – whether they faced any issues during or after purchasing your products, or if they have anything they wish your business would improve.

To improve brand quality and reputation, always show your consumers that you care and are open to criticism.

Here’s an extra and a very well-known tip to keep them coming back: reward them with promotions. This trick almost always works.

At this phase, you should make sure that:

  1. Your content leaves room for feedback.
  2. Your consumers recommend your content to others.

Types of Content Marketing

Content marketing can come in various forms that differ through their achievable goals and the platforms used.

Some of the most common media used for content marketing are:

  • Social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter
  • Blogs
  • Articles
  • Emails
  • Infographics
  • Podcasts

While there are countless kinds of content marketing available, we can categorize them into four primary types:

  1. Written Content
  2. Visual Content
  3. Audio Content
  4. Video Content

Choosing which type to utilize is essential for planning a successful marketing plan.

But first, let’s delve into the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of these four types of content marketing.

Written Content

Written or text content mostly comes in media and platforms such as blogs, emails, newsletters, e-books, case studies, and social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

It is the go-to form of content for marketers that are looking for an inexpensive, engaging and valuable way to connect with their audience.

However, the practicality of text content such as blogs has made it more challenging to market, especially with more than five million blog posts produced every day.

To help you understand its features and potentials, we’ve listed some of the pros, cons and challenges of written content marketing.

Pros

1. Flexible in content structure and how readers can consume

Texts can be structured with readers’ comfort in mind. You have the option to either make it compact and concise for the reader or long and descriptive with markers to emphasize or skip certain parts.

Additionally, online writings like blogs and articles can be changed and updated when information becomes outdated.

Writers also have the room to be creative with their writing and subject matter, making it a fun project to work on as a marketing strategy.

2. Improve your website’s search engine ranking

Blogging as a marketing tool is particularly effective when you apply SEO techniques. It serves to boost your website’s ranking in search engines like Google and brings organic traffic to your website.

To do this, you need to find topics worth writing by targeting search keywords relevant to your business in SEO tools like Ahrefs.

From there, you can develop writing pieces that cater to the most searched key phrases and gain new audiences with the help of search engines.

Cons

1. Lengthy texts might turn off the readers

Long-form writings without a reader-friendly structure might discourage readers from giving the article a chance as it takes time to go through.

To curb this issue, you should stress the usage of highlights, website navigation and short paragraphs to make your writings easy to read.

You can also add visual aids like infographics to simplify or emphasize certain parts of your text, which relieve readers from reading long continuous texts.

2. Not a favorable form of content

The State of Content Marketing 2020 Global Report finds that visual posts commonly gain more traffic than word-based posts. This study demonstrates the general preference for concise and convenient posts like images and animations.

On top of that, generating text-based works like case studies and articles also takes more time and effort than straightforward formats like infographics and How-to videos.

Challenges

Creating written pieces like blogs and articles is a difficult task as it requires a certain level of writing skills to produce well-structured and intriguing written works.

Another challenge that may arise is devising a wide range of interesting topics to keep the audience interested in your writings.

There are bound to be a limited amount of subject matters relevant to your business.

Plus, you also need to maintain quality writing pieces. You might have to outsource writing companies to standardize the quality of your written works on your websites.

Visual Content

This category refers to pictures and images in media such as infographics, illustrations, social media like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, presentations, GIFs or even memes.

Visual content is an excellent addition to your marketing plan. Studies have shown that people tend to remember information in visuals such as infographics better than the information they gained by hearing.

Here are some aspects of visual content marketing to consider before opting for it in your marketing campaign.

Pros

1. A practical and cheap form of content marketing

Aside from being low-cost and easy to produce, striking yet concise graphics are psychologically proven to be great attention-grabber.

At the same time, creative and clever visuals can also leave a good and long-lasting impression on your brand.

2. Easy to go through and share

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Information in images is simple to follow and digest. In fact, statistics have revealed that textual instructions that come with visual aids are 323% easier to understand than text-only instructions.

Visual content also has viral potential and can increase engagement with your customers. When paired with your company’s brand mark, you can simultaneously boost your brand awareness.

Cons

1. Limited in flexibility and content space

You can only fit so much in an image. No matter the size of the canvas, pictures would always have a limited space to work with.

It is also common to overuse texts in visuals, which might ruin the appeal of a visual and deter the audience from interacting with your content.

Consider repurposing your materials into other formats like a video or a blog post if there is a lot for you to cover.

2. Images are only supplementary

People generally use graphics as additional materials alongside other content, notably social media posts and blog posts.

Thus, opting for visual content as your main marketing plan may not be as productive. In addition, the audience tends to gloss over supplemental visuals when it is not distinctive enough to catch one’s eyes.

Nevertheless, this can be utilized to one’s advantage when done right. For example, graphics can function as a guide and establish a better flow of content for your lengthy articles.

3. Not as impactful on your SEO

Visual content is reliable as a content marketing approach when it becomes viral and boosts your ranking.

However, it is not as easy to achieve as it may sound.

Therefore, your marketing strategy wouldn’t be as worthwhile if you focus solely on producing visual content as they don’t influence your SEO ranking directly.

Challenges

It takes a certain level of editing and designing skills to create appealing and eye-catching visuals like infographics and illustrations.

It might be a tedious task for some to learn these skills as it takes a while to master.

Furthermore, fitting every necessary information into the constrictive visual format might be hard to do, especially for topics that require detailed explanation.

Audio Content

This classification applies to any audible content published in digital marketing.

Audio content marketing is often referred to in media such as podcasts, audiobooks, musicradio (through taglines and jingles) and streaming platforms like Spotify, Pandora or Youtube.

Some might say that this form of marketing is a rather niche market.

Still, we shouldn’t dismiss its capability in attracting loyal audiences and influencing customer action.

In fact, the audio format is deemed the most immersive medium that incites assurance and memorability among the listeners.

Before you decide on using this format in your marketing plan, let’s first explore the benefits, drawbacks and difficulties of creating this form of content.

Pros

1. An accessible and convenient form of content

People generally consume auditory-related content such as music and audiobooks with no bounds of time and place as it is accessible to anyone connected to cloud services.

It is a natural and mindless kind of entertainment typically used to distract oneself or help one focus on the task at hand.

The ability to occupy oneself with audio hands-free makes it convenient to multitask while engaging with the content.

2. Develop a distinctive brand mark

Being affiliated with an entertaining spokesperson can make a brand seem likeable and genuine in connecting with the audience.

At the same time, a voice also helps a brand stand out from its competitors and establish its brand positioning.

Likewise, catchy tunes and slogans can become memorable and retained in the listeners’ minds, thus reinforcing brand awareness.

3. Intimate community engagement

Engaging topics discussed by a charismatic speaker in a podcast would stimulate the imagination of the listeners, forming a close parasocial relationship between the two.

When done right, a podcaster can build a loyal fanbase that will be a great asset to their business.

Cons

1. It can be bothersome and boring

Despite the benefits, audio content can quickly become unbearable.

Repeatedly hearing a jingle may annoy some people, which might do the opposite and make them dislike the brand instead.

On the other hand, an unappealing host that tackles uneventful or repetitive topics might bore and disinterest listeners.

2. Overpromoting your brand in a podcast might turn off listeners

Although audio content is a valuable marketing tool, you will need to avoid advertising your brand heavily to prevent listeners from losing interest in your content.

The last thing listeners would want to feel while immersing in your podcast is being treated as a mere customer for your business.

Challenges

Coming up with consistently engaging audio content demands prior planning and maintaining fresh and captivating materials.

However, this might be a challenge with long-running content.

Moreover, audio content is not readily searchable and shareable as text and visual contents are.

The appeal of audio content mainly lies in the possibility of forming a dedicated fanbase, which entails the gradual build of an audience as success doesn’t come overnight.

Also, finding the right host that suitably represents your company’s image would be a demanding task that may involve numerous trials and errors.

Video Content

Video content, also known as audiovisual content, merges two media formats – audio and visual – to create content that accentuates the best features from the two.

The platforms associated with this content are social media (namely YouTube, Facebook and Instagram), live videos, animation, PSAs and webinars.

It is the leading and most valuable content marketing strategy that is steadily rising in demand on the internet. It was estimated that by 2022, video traffic would account for 82% of the total consumer traffic on the internet.

Let’s examine the advantages, disadvantages, and difficulties of producing video content to further comprehend its prospects for marketing purposes.

Pros

1. Fit the increasing demand for video content

The recent boom in video content across the internet is linked with the research demonstrating how people now have a shorter attention span than they had more than a decade ago.

Plus, most people favour compact and time-saving content like videos over lengthy text content that requires reading and understanding.

This large market for video content makes it the most desirable content to use in your marketing campaign.

2. Engaging, efficient and easily repurposed content

Combining catchy audio with striking visuals will capture the audience’s attention best when coupled with riveting content.

Moreover, the production of a series of video content can also be efficient. You can conveniently reuse the components of a video, such as title cards, sound effects and voice overs, in your other videos.

On top of that, you can also easily integrate videos into other platforms like blog posts, social media posts, website pages and search engine result pages (SERPs).

Many platforms have adapted to the rise of video content and encourage utilizing videos on their website.

Cons

1. High production cost

Producing a high-quality video often involves special equipment and various skills, such as shooting and editing, which are rather costly to acquire.

Suppose you are unwilling to learn the specific skills or buy the specialized tools like cameras, microphones, camera lightings and tripods yourself.

In that case, you might want to hire a third-party production company.

2. Videos can be distracting and intrusive

When applied to a platform to accompany other content, videos may interfere and distract the audience. This is especially the case when videos are set to autoplay as the visitors interact with the page.

Aside from that, long-form videos may also be difficult to go through for the average audience.

It is more effective to get the message across when the content is concise and straightforward, so avoid unnecessary lengthy content.

Content piracy has always been an overbearing issue pertaining to the media.

Consumers often disregard the apparent infringement of intellectual property either for their convenience or plain ignorance of the issue.

This only serves to encourage illegal activity—the data on the 230 billion annual views that pirated videos gained further supports this needless encouragement.

However, there is also the issue of copyright claim abuse, a phenomenon most notably prevalent on Youtube.

In a professional setting, when a copyright claim is associated with a brand, business or company, these consumers would be quick to jump to conclusions and blame the company instead.

This would ultimately taint the image of the brand and ruin your brand positioning.

Challenges

Video content creation requires a certain level of skills in editing and using the equipment.

Beginners would want to hire a third-party production company as it takes a while to get used to these skills and equipment.

Another issue is the optimization of the quality of video when integrated into other platforms or when shared.

Most of the time, sharing or incorporating these videos would jeopardize the quality of the video.

Lastly, making the content engaging and enjoyable itself is a rather challenging aspect of video content creation, especially when you have reused many components of the video content.

Content Marketing Strategy

How to develop a content marketing strategy?

When developing a content marketing strategy, it’s crucial to assess your existing state of operations honestly as well as to carefully ponder upon your goals to establish a content marketing strategy.

However, most businesses create a content marketing strategy that is overly vague and broad in scope.

As a result, the strategy is fragmented and fails to align with the brand identity.

This is tremendously unfortunate as effective content marketing necessitates a holistic plan that is both robust and adaptable to your business’s ever-changing demands.

Thus, you must remember to consistently ask your team questions in order to have a thorough grasp of your business and its goals.

You’ll also need to understand the various factors that make up a robust content marketing campaign.

By merely inquiring the right questions, you’ll be able to craft a comprehensive content marketing strategy.

Without further ado, let’s look at the questions required not to be taken for granted to design a successful content marketing approach.

1. What are your objectives?

Establishing your objectives should be your initial step in developing a content marketing plan.

These objectives should be specifically tailored to your business and also suit your overall marketing and business aims.

As such, you may consider adopting the SMART marketing goals into your content marketing tactics.

2. Who is your audience?

Define a target audience for your content marketing campaign. The trick to good content marketing is to devise a strategy that caters to your core target audience’s specific needs.

After all, creating content for everyone is essentially creating content for no one since you can never appeal to the mass.

3. What does your product or service offer?

Ultimately, your product or service should pose a solution for your target market’s problem.

Similarly, as your audience begins to recognize and confront their problem, your content will guide and advise them.

A great content marketing strategy benefits people on two sides of your product or service: those who are still finding out their key difficulties and those already utilizing your product to tackle them.

4. In what way is your company different from the rest?

Since your competitors offer products or services that are generally identical to yours, your prospective buyers will want to figure out what makes yours superior or, at the very least, unique.

This is where the value of content comes into play, and you must first demonstrate why you are worth purchasing from to induce desirability in your products.

5. What are your preferred content formats and content channels?

To answer the first half of the question, you have to consider your target audience as well as buyer personas.

As content formats are hugely impactful, you must opt for the best one to boost audience engagement.

By the same token, you also have to narrow down the suitable options for your content channels, including website, blog, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and more.

Elements of effective content marketing strategy

Nowadays, content marketing is everything.

As we’ve established, a strong content marketing strategy is game-changing.

In fact, when it is planned and executed correctly, it can contribute to ground-breaking results for your business.

From increasing conversions and driving traffic to cement your business’s online presence, there’s no arguing that focusing on great content is a must!

Whether creating a strategy from scratch or revamping your previous strategy, there are essentially five elements of an effective content marketing tactic.

These five components are brand positioning, value proposition, business case, strategic plan, and metrics.

Let’s get a closer look at why each of these factors is crucial and how you can kickstart your very own content marketing strategy with them!

1. Great brand positioning.

Brand positioning and content marketing are intricately linked; you cannot have one without the other.

Content marketing is crucial to brand positioning because effectively focused content builds a lasting impression of a brand.

Likewise, an excellent brand positioning will assist you in establishing the right picture of your business across every content marketing channel.

You can utilize the following questions as a guide to think about your brand position:

  • Who are my current and future clients?
  • What marketing strategies do my top competitors use to promote their companies?
  • What is the distinct value of my business, and how to make it stand out?
  • What issues does my product assist in resolving?
  • What makes my product a better option than its alternatives?

2. Clear value proposition.

Maximize your chances of standing out from your competition by vividly defining your value proposition.

This entails proving your value by clearly highlighting your company’s distinctive quality and what makes your company better than others.

The value proposition is a promise made to a consumer or market segment. The proposal simply explains why a customer should buy a product or service from a particular company. 

A clear value proposition outlines how your product solves or improves consumers’ problems, provides beneficial advantages, and persuades the potential consumer to engage with your company rather than your competitors.

3. Well-crafted business case.

While offering value to your customer is an integral aspect of an effective content marketing strategy, the strategy should also propel your business forward and woo potential customers.

Thus, you must determine your business goals, understand the resources needed, and set achievable results.

Having a well-documented business case will clarify the merits, risks, and expenditures of establishing your company’s content marketing strategy.

Additionally, it will also help assess critical project issues and conclude if your strategy is worth doing.

4. Strategic plan.

A strategic plan concentrates on your objectives and how you intend to attain them. It will assist you in planning each stage of your content marketing strategy.

Furthermore, the strategic plan should assist you in determining your target audience with your content marketing approaches, the medium to distribute said content, and how you will accomplish and evaluate your desired outcomes.

5. Measurable metrics.

Metrics are indicators of success that indicate your areas of improvement. Measuring metrics may appear to be a tedious task, but it reveals what is well-performing and what needs to be changed and improved.

Having said that, many marketers make the typical mistake of evaluating metrics that don’t provide a good overview of how their website is working.

The metrics you track must always be in line with your objectives.

A news site, for instance, might track the number of visitors as that’s how they earn money from advertising.

However, this metric may not be applicable to a different company.

As a result, it’s critical to investigate and create measures that can honestly assess your success rather than those that only look impressive on the surface.

Content marketing tactics to attract new prospects

Various content marketing strategies have been shown to help businesses promote to their target audiences more productively.

Here are some practical methods you may utilize to supplement your content-focused web marketing efforts:

  • Advertorial and native advertising
  • Blogging
  • Content curation
  • FOMO
  • Infographics
  • Social media content

Advertorial and native advertising.

An advertorial is a piece of writing, a web page, or video programming that appears and reads like objective journalistic information but is actually a sponsored commercial. It’s a subtler form of a sales pitch.

Meanwhile, to separate advertorial content from display advertising, the term “native advertising” was coined.

Advertorials are largely self-descriptive because they are advertising disguised as editorial content.

Similarly, native advertising also provides educational information.

Despite that, the low-key nature of native advertising gives readers the impression that they’re obtaining important information instead of a stealthy sales pitch.

Blogging.

Blogging is an essential pillar of the content marketing funnel.

It will improve your SEO and effectively impact brand awareness, increase customer-brand relationship quality, drive traffic, and generate conversions.

This content marketing tactic is vital as it is the section of your site that you will constantly update with new information and material in order to keep users interested.

Also, it is undeniable that you commonly draw people to your site and begin to create your business’ audience through blog content.

Content curation.

Content curation is another terrific technique to address your content marketing problems.

By using this valuable method, you may benefit from unique content without having to develop anything. Due to this, you will save trouble, energy, and money.

The best part? Most of the best content curation tools are free to use!

Here are some free tools for you to get familiar with:

  • Pinterest: Visualize your ideas and customize using boards and pins
  • Flipboard: Curate your personal stories and magazine
  • Listly: Curate and publish excellent lists on the site and your website
  • Pocket: Collect online content from any publication, page or app.
  • Feedly: Track and keep important online insights

FOMO.

FOMO is a powerful tool in content marketing, and it is one of the most effective techniques to get visitors to download your lead magnet and purchase your stuff.

FOMO is advantageous as we’ve been mentally programmed to react to it.

FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, induces a feeling of urgency in order to make your audience more responsive.

In addition, it is worth noting that this technique has been proven to succeed every time!

Infographics.

Using infographics can boost your content marketing strategy since they’re a great way to spread your message efficiently and effectively. 

When producing an infographic, make sure to remember that you’re conveying a narrative. Keep in mind to conduct a lot of research to develop the proper statistics and the proper narrative to present.

Social media content.

This tactic involves content created specifically for social media networks like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Social media is an excellent opportunity to display your brand personality as well as your product.

To do so, you must be proactive yet tactical with your posts, varying them for various social media networks.

Content Marketing: Content is Key

One of the most important things to remember in the world of business is to develop a content marketing plan.

This is because a great content marketing plan can make your business, while a poor plan can break it up.

To conclude, comprehensive content marketing is the heart of a successful business.

With all the benefits of content marketing such as boosting brand visibility and strengthening customer-brand relationships, it’s easy to understand why you should always prioritize content marketing regardless of the size of your business.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Content Marketing

1. What is content marketing and how does it work?

Content marketing attracts, engages, and nurtures prospects by consistently producing and actively sharing relevant content to the target audience.

Brafton highlights that content marketing “shares knowledge and actionable insights that help consumers understand why they should take action.”

Hence, it works by solving customers’ concerns through valuable content and nurturing their interests throughout their journey.

How it really works:

  • Phase 1: Awareness. The audience gets the information they need about your brand.
  • Phase 2: Consideration. The prospects are evaluating your brand and whether it benefits them.
  • Phase 3: Conversion. You need to instill confidence in your prospects on why your brand is better than your competitors.
  • Phase 4: Satisfaction. Your customers need to be able to leave feedback on your products or service. This shows that you are open to criticism and are determined to improve.

2. What is the difference between marketing and content marketing?

When content marketing is categorized under the various types of marketing, it is easy to be confused on what makes content marketing different from any kinds of marketing, particularly traditional marketing.

The major differences between the two is how the audience is approached in their marketing strategy.

Content marketing aims to attract customers towards their brand through the information and materials related to the business or company, such as blog posts, infographics or videos. This typically involves the audience’s voluntary involvement.

Meanwhile, the traditional type of marketing generally aims to reach out to an audience instead, mainly by using “outbound” techniques such as advertising, billboards and direct mail.

These techniques may seem intrusive and interruptive to the audience.

3. What is not content marketing?

Anything can be content.

A fish inside an aquarium could be a form of content. So do words on a monitor screen.

Even the verbal shouts that you can unavoidably hear from the stranger from across the train platforms can be a kind of content.

In the most general sense, “content” can be defined as something contained or included within something. However, content marketing is more specific than a fish or words or screams of a stranger.

The rule of thumb about content marketing is that it has to be a type of information or experience related or ultimately leads to your brand or business, such as blog posts.

Another golden rule of content marketing is the attraction of an audience towards a destination that is associated with your brand, as compared to traditional marketing that reaches an audience through interruptions, such as advertisements.

4. What is the benefit of content marketing?

Engaging content marketing is tremendously beneficial for your brand as it assists you to foster trust, create a high-quality customer-brand relationship, drive traffic, and generate leads.

Listed below are some of the many benefits of a successful content marketing:

  • Capture customer’s attention
  • Improve brand awareness
  • Generate leads and sales
  • Encourage loyal customers and brand loyalty

 

5. How long does content marketing take to work?

Content marketing may take a while for it to bear tangible results.

While the results are almost never immediate, that does not mean content marketing is not an effective marketing strategy!

The exact duration it takes to show results is dependent on various factors, particularly the quality of the content, the channels or platforms used, the marketing goals, the type of industry your business is involved in or even pure luck.

However, a well-planned content marketing strategy for a small to medium-sized business usually takes around six to nine months to provide tangible results.

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