When it comes to building a strong digital campaign, many businesses underestimate the value of the information and resources they already have – particularly if they are specialists such as negligence lawyers and recruiters who have a wealth of statistics at their fingertips.
The key to creating engaging content is to assess how you can transform the information you already have into a resource that portrays user-friendly and valuable facts about your industry. This will automatically increase the chance of someone who requires your services finding your business organically online.
As with all marketing strategies, identify your goal before devising a plan to achieve it. This will give you the information required to assess the customer you are looking to attract and the type of content that will best engage that individual.
For instance, if your goal is to draw graduates to your business, a content heavy whitepaper would be an inappropriate medium – while an infographic or social media led campaign is more likely to enter their natural sphere of consciousness.
What characteristic makes you stand out when you meet someone for the first time? Transferring this identifiable quality online is considerably harder; particularly when applying this to your business.
Identify your business’s niche, what you have that others do not. For example, do you take a unique approach to client relations? Do you have a vast amount of experience in a certain area of your industry that few others are likely to have?
Discovering the trait that increases your value will allow you to better utilise your expertise towards your target customer by learning what it is that they are looking for, and meeting those needs. For instance, a travel company has ample opportunity to collect fantastic images and video footage from around the world which could lead to a stunning video led advertising campaign.
Do you have a stack of statistics that you always considered too controversial to publish? Is your company trialling a new working method that is miles away from anything your competitors are doing?
Thinking and doing things differently is more likely to attract attention to your business than simply mimicking competitors or re-hashing marketing campaigns of your own. Be colourful, give your content character and think outside the box when marketing it to the public - getting your brand noticed is infinitely simpler when you stand out from the crowd.
For example, The Cooperative Bank approached us to create a digital interface that would explain to executives and senior employees what banking would be like in 2020. Having this goal allowed our team of designers and developers to build something that had a very specific purpose and audience.
Creating fantastic, unique and valuable content and leaving it sat on your site won’t get you the results you need. You have your goal, your next move is assessing a distribution strategy to achieve it. As discussed in the first point, you must think carefully about who your audience is, what will appeal to them and how to attract them to your content – this is the same for your distribution.
Consider who you want to notice your infographic, blog or whitepaper and importantly, when. It can be tempting to give your content one big push onto as many social channels and platforms as possible in one go – think instead about the networks your target audience is likely to be on at what times, taking in to account weekends, and gradually distribute your content.
This will increase the likelihood of relevant people seeing what your brand is doing and sharing it with others, thus spreading your overall reach.
When the motorcycle insurers Keep Britain Biking.com asked us to launch its new site, the team worked with social media platforms Twitter and Facebook as well as contacting blogs to increase the reach and therefore opportunities available to the brand. The Cuckoo Design team recognised that the motorcycling community was largely a young one that would frequently visit social media sites, and this was therefore an appropriate method for instigating a relationship with that potential customer base.
The key to successful content marketing is carefully considering the process from start to finish, it is as much about what you will do with your content as what you are creating. Begin with your goal, your audience, identifying your niche and follow on to continuously produce fantastic, engaging and unique content.
By Expert commentator
This is a post we've invited from a digital marketing specialist who has agreed to share their expertise, opinions and case studies. Their details are given at the end of the article.
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