It’s Friday. You’re finally going out with that person you met online. You’ve been talking for weeks, and you’re excited to see them in person at last. The outfit you’ve chosen is perfect. That fresh haircut is serving you well. One spritz of perfume, and then you’re out the door.

Only, when you get to the bar, your date isn’t who you thought they were. They don’t look anything like their picture, you can’t get a word in edgewise, and you can’t get out of there fast enough.

Sound familiar? This kind of interaction is all too common in the dating world, and unfortunately, it happens a lot in the world of content marketing too. 

5 Main Reasons Content Marketing is Like a First Date 

Marketing is about building relationships. All too often, marketers treat it as an opportunity to hijack the conversation and aggressively pursue the customer. But this doesn’t work in dating and definitely won’t fly in marketing.

The goal of marketing and dating are the same: a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship. But more than that, there are five main reasons content marketing is like a first date.

1. Gradual Connection. Like two people on a first date, it takes time for your customers to get to know your business. Sharing openly and honestly is the only way to build that connection over time.
2. Fostering Engagement. Allowing your customers to join the conversation is crucial for making them feel valued. It’s like a conversation with a date where you ask them more about themselves.
3. Building Credibility. It takes time for people to believe and trust what you say. Credibility is built slowly by sharing valuable information in conversation or online content.
4. Gaining Trust. In dating and marketing, you have to share about yourself and show that your actions match your values before dates or that customers will trust you.
5. Succeeding with First Impressions. Your date wants to know they aren’t wasting their time with you, and your customers want to know they’ve come to the right business for the help they need. To reassure them, you need to give a good first impression that puts them at ease.

The similarities don’t end there, and there are many steps you can take in your content strategy, so your brand doesn’t get ghosted.

Understanding Gradual Connection 

Long-term relationships are comfortable, but first dates can be anxiety-inducing and awkward. It can be difficult to find common ground and build a connection when you don’t know someone. The same is true of marketing and customer acquisition.

Your content needs to make a good first impression. When potential customers come to your website or see your social media posts, it’s about building a gradual connection with them. Here’s what you need to remember when it comes to that connection.

Building a Bond Takes Time

While love at first sight may exist in romance novels, it’s not so common in marketing. Building a connection takes time. Your customer needs to get to know your brand through your content. That’s why creating quality content is important – you’re sharing why you’re trustworthy. 

Your brand voice and the information you share show your customer that you know what you’re talking about and they can trust you. You can’t build this connection with just one blog post. Showing up consistently and sharing high-quality content is the only way.

Don’t Rush Expectations 

You wouldn’t expect a marriage proposal at the end of the first date, so don’t look for your customers to purchase after seeing your content for the first time. 

Creating high-value, search-engine-optimized content is crucial to getting your customers to your website. But once they’re there, don’t assume they’ll buy immediately. 

Instead, give them opportunities to continue the relationship. Encourage them to follow you on social media or sign up for your newsletter. Give them some space to get to know your brand. And while you’re doing that, continue sharing information that answers all their questions.

Focus on the Audience

A common break-up cliché is, “It’s not you. It’s me.” But in content marketing, it’s not about you. It’s your audience. Focus on their needs as you’re creating content. Think about what questions they have. What resources will help them most? 

Once your SEO  content brings them to your website, how will you nurture the relationship? It would be a shame to bring your audience to your site only to lose them once they’ve found the answer to one question. Ask yourself how you can continue to serve them once they find your content. 

Fostering Two-Way Engagement 

You’ll get the first date if you have a great online dating profile. But if you spend that whole first date talking about yourself, you’re not going to get a second one. The same is true for content marketing. Fostering two-way engagement is how the relationship is built. 

To Keep the Conversation Going in Your Marketing:

• Inspire Engagement from Your Audience. Ask questions in your content and encourage readers to comment or interact with your posts. Create interactive content like quizzes.
• Don’t Just Talk About Yourself. Instead, think about why your audience came to you. Answer their questions, solve their problems, or simply entertain them.
• Connect with Mutual Interests. Share your company values in your content and actions. These will help you connect with your ideal customer.
• Listen to Your Audience. If you find you’re getting a lot of similar questions from your audience, it’s a sign you need to make some content around those questions. Don’t be afraid to survey them to find out what they need from you.
• Use Emotional Language. Your audience found you online because they have a problem they need to solve. Their problem may be business as usual to you, but it’s something that’s a concern for them, and they want to feel like you understand where they’re coming from.
• Appropriately Respond. Whether they’re leaving comments on your posts or their feedback shows they need something that hasn’t been addressed, make sure you respond.

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Building Credibility 

Have you ever noticed that “be yourself” seems to be the go-to advice for dating, brand building, and pretty much everything else? There’s a good reason for that, which all comes down to credibility. Your audience needs to be able to trust you, and you have to build credibility with them for that to happen. 

To Build Credibility: 

• Be Authentically You. Being yourself is important because your audience knows when they see a faker. Share openly and honestly about your brand and what it stands for.
• Don’t Sugarcoat Your Business. You don’t have to make your business overly attractive or acceptable to people who aren’t your ideal customers. Focus on sharing the truth about what you do with the people who need your product or services.
• Don’t Undersell. You work hard, so don’t price your services cheaper than they should be or undervalue what you do. Part of being yourself is knowing your worth. 
• Be Honest & Kind. Keep your messaging true to your company and what you do, and be nurturing and generous in the information you share.

Gaining Audience Trust

Once you’ve built your credibility, you can finally gain the trust of your audience. Think about trust in a relationship. You don’t just give it on the first date. That first date is probably in a neutral location because of how little trust justifiably exists. People earn trust over time through actions and authentic connection. The same is true for building trust with your audience. 

To Gain Your Audience’s Trust:

• Be Respectful and Understanding. Show your audience you know where they’re coming from. Listen to their feedback.
• Respond Quickly. If they come to you with a question, they respect your knowledge. Hiring a community manager to respond to their questions quickly can help you become their go-to source of information.
• Be Consistent. Make content consistently by following an editorial calendar and regularly responding to questions and comments (including those on social media). 
• Backup What You Say with Actions. Anyone can hop on the internet and say whatever they want. The brands that do what they say they’re going to do are the ones people trust.

Succeeding with First Impressions

Now, back to the first date. It’s your one shot to make a good first impression. The same is true for your company’s content. So, how do you get your audience to return after the first impression?

Ask for Continued Interaction

Encourage your audience to comment on your posts, follow you on social media, and sign up for your newsletter. Make it clear that you have more content on the way to answer their questions, and they won’t want to miss it. 

When creating your editorial calendar, think about how to make one post into a series. It will get your audience to keep coming back to learn more. 

Link to your older posts in your newer posts where appropriate, and continue to give your audience more reasons to stay on your site and learn more about your brand.

Using Calls to Action After Trust is Built

After you’ve built trust with your audience, they’re more likely to follow your calls to action. So don’t worry about selling in your posts. Instead, focus on giving your audience more valuable information. 

Not many customers purchase after reading one blog post. Focus on putting your calls to action where you’ve already built trust. A newsletter is a great place for that. Those subscribers are already interested in what you do, and they trust you with their email addresses. They’re more likely to follow a call to action than a casual blog reader.

Follow Up & Reach Out 

When you receive questions or comments from your audience, respond quickly, and follow up later to see how they’re doing. Ask if they need more help or how applying your advice went for them. Follow-up shows that you care about how they’re doing and that they aren’t just nameless followers to you. It shows your brand truly cares and can be a game-changer in building trust.

Get the Second Date

Every business can and should use marketing, but it’s not all created equal. Your audience wants authenticity and a connection before they open their wallets. Taking the time to make a good first impression is the first step to building customer loyalty and mutually beneficial relationships.

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The distinction between content marketing and content strategy is subtle because the two concepts work together. Once you figure it out, you can use them as the one-two punch to help grow your brand. 

This post explains content marketing and content strategy and gives advice for using both to benefit your business.

The Difference Between Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy

Content strategy is your master plan to drive business goals with content. It focuses on the big-picture tasks that help you meet your customers’ needs and achieve your business objectives.

Content marketing is a group of tactics or activities you use to enact your content strategy. It’s the creation and distribution of content that helps your audience solve problems and lead better lives. Even though you may not actively try to sell with all content marketing, the free information you provide will eventually help you attract and convert your target audience to drive business growth.

The objectives, approaches, and outcomes differ for content strategy vs. content marketing. 

Objectives

Content strategy seeks to document the role content will play in your business goals. It gives content marketing efforts direction, cohesion, and meaning. 

Content marketing revolves around creating brand awareness, generating leads, and capturing demand by transforming ideas into content assets and sharing them.

Approaches

Content marketing assembles your marketing resources to create and distribute content assets across relevant channels to build a brand’s presence. It also includes measuring data to alter content campaigns where necessary.

Content strategists determine the content marketing tactics will be most meaningful for your business objectives. They handle all the backend of content from pre-production (like research, content audit, and content guidelines) to production (like content creation, distribution processes, and tools) and post-production (promotion, evaluation, and analysis).

Outcomes

Content marketing leads to increased brand traffic, authority, trust, lead generation, conversion, and loyalty.

Content strategy produces content marketing systems that position a brand as the solution to customers’ needs.

How Content Strategy and Content Marketing Intersect

Despite being different, content strategy and content marketing work together. They are two sides of the same coin.

Strategy is the Foundation for Marketing Practices

Content strategy helps you decide why and how you want to create content. So, content marketing success depends on your strategy.

Content marketing is the process of putting your content strategy to work. It’s creating, distributing, and measuring the success of the content according to the content strategy. So, your content marketing efforts rely on your content strategy to achieve your business goals.

Neither Can Stand Alone

As marketing expert Amanda Milligan said, “Don’t try marketing without strategy; don’t bother strategizing without marketing.” What’s the point in making plans if you don’t implement them? And how can you succeed with your marketing efforts if you don’t have a plan? Strategy and implementation go hand in hand.

After Strategy, Marketing Begins

If content marketing is the act of preparing a meal, the content strategy would be all the decisions you make before the actual cooking. What are you going to cook? What ingredients will you use? Where will you cook it, and how will you serve it?

Once you determine what to do, when, where, and how to do it during content strategy, you can bring the vision to life in the form of content.

Benefits of Content Strategy

Content strategy is critical because it lays out your content game plan. Without strategy, you’re wasting time and effort producing content and hoping it works. So, it’s almost an accident if your content works well for your brand without strategy. Here are some other benefits of content strategy.

Creates a Unified Brand Voice

Your brand voice must be consistent across all your marketing channels if you want your brand to stand out in a crowded market. A good content strategy will make sure of it.

Studying your brand story, personality, and style guide will help you define a consistent voice for your content marketing team, so your brand doesn’t sound too inconsistent on any content channel.

Increases Efficiency

A documented strategy streamlines your content operations to keep you from wasting time and resources figuring things out. That’s because it puts systems in place to guide your production and distribution, allowing you to complete tasks faster and within budget.

Content marketing has so many moving parts that leaving anything to chance is a mistake. Your content strategy should state what the content is (title and format), who’s responsible for what, where to store your content, and where to publish it.

Maps a Clear Path to Success

A good content strategy defines what you’re trying to achieve and the metrics to track to measure success. When this is clear, you can prioritize your activities accordingly. And you can measure what’s working and what’s not to keep your content relevant to your audience and helpful to your business goals.

Establishes Content Intent

Creating content will waste your time and resources if you don’t have a purpose that ties it to your business goals. Each content asset should take a prospect further down your marketing funnel. Anything short of that is creating content for content’s sake, and the best you can get out of it will be vanity metrics that don’t help your business. Establishing a purpose for your content is the essence of content strategy.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Your customers don’t know when they see your content strategy in action, but they see your content marketing. It answers their questions and makes them consider doing business with you. Here are some other benefits of content marketing.

Drives Engagement

Customers engage with content they find valuable. The more content you share, the better your chances of keeping them on your platforms long enough to like, comment, and share your content with friends.

Increases Brand Awareness

By distributing valuable content, you’re making it easier for your target audience to find your brand and buy from you. Without brand awareness, people can’t even consider your products or services.

Builds a Relationship with Your Audience

If the information you share helps your audience live better, they’ll naturally grow fond of and want to continue using your brand. And because your value systems will shine through, the content you share and help you build stronger relationships with the right customers. As your relationship develops, these people will become advocates for your brand and recommend it to others.

Instills Credibility

Consumers and search engines will grow to trust you when your content demonstrates your thought leadership, expertise, and authority. Backlinks and mentions from other brands will also serve as a vote of confidence for your brand. Credibility attracts more positive attention to your brand.

Leads to Customer Acquisition

Turning your content marketing beneficiaries into customers is the goal. When they see how much value you’re giving away for free, they can only imagine how helpful you will be when they pay for your products or services. This value will increase their chances of becoming your customers.

If you don’t know where to start, look at the latest trends in content marketing and see if any are a good fit for your business.

Best Practices for Implementing Content Marketing and Content Strategy

There’s no one way to create and implement content strategy or marketing. Strategy depends on your business and its goals. Content marketing depends on your audience’s needs and your creativity. While there’s no one approach to either, there are best practices for each.

Gather Audience Information

Content-market fit is when your content satisfies or exceeds your audience’s needs. Every business wants this, but those who achieve it do so only because they know their audience well enough to tailor their content to their specific situations.

To create valuable content, you need to know the people you serve by:

• Demographics (age, education level, gender identity, education level, etc.)
• Psychographics (interests, beliefs, values, etc.)
• Goals and pain points
• Where they gather online
• What they’re trying to do when they go online (also known as search intent)

The more information you have, the better your ability to create an ideal profile or buyer persona to guide your marketing efforts. You really can’t know too much about your ideal audience.

To gather the most accurate audience data:

• Identify the people who need your products and services.
• Survey your current customers.
• Review your competitors’ clients.
• Use online data tools like Facebook audience insights or SEMRush.

Approaching every piece of content strategy or marketing effort with a clear picture of your ideal buyer in mind will help you tailor your content to their specific needs.

Set Clear Goals

Setting clear content goals helps you define what success means for your content marketing efforts. Apart from allowing you to align your actions toward success, setting clear goals also lets you measure the effects of your efforts.

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For example, if you want to drive traffic to your website to increase brand awareness, analyzing the difference in your weekly or monthly website visits and what posts are bringing in the most traffic will help you measure the impact of your efforts. You can do more of what works.

Setting clear goals for your content marketing will enhance your goals for individual content assets. 

To set clear, more achievable content goals:

• Understand the overall goals of the business and the part content can play in reaching them.
• Audit your content activities to understand how far you are from achieving those goals.
• Identify the resources you need to achieve those content goals.
• Put numbers and timeframes to your goals (e.g., increasing website traffic by 25% in the next year).

Develop Processes

Content marketing requires a sense of organization. Keyword research, content creation, and distribution are just a few of the routine tasks. You’ll need to create workflows to coordinate the many moving parts if you don’t want things to fall through the cracks.

Content calendars help marketers of all experience levels to coordinate their content operations. Creating one will make you more productive and efficient. If you’re looking for a place to start, there are a host of online tools to help, ranging from Google Sheets, where you build your own calendar, to Coschedule, where you use a template.

Create a content calendar by:

• Listing your content ideas
• Determining the content formats
• Documenting your publishing and distribution frequency to schedule the ideas

Create Quality Content

Quality content is your ticket to a successful content marketing campaign. Your audience is busy, so they’ll be more impatient with wishy-washy content. They won’t stick around long enough to buy from you or exchange their contact information if your content doesn’t draw them in.

To create content that resonates with your audience:

• Focus on Originality. Most of the content online is a bunch of recycled information. Original content approaches the topic in new and unique ways. Your content will stand out by researching an issue in your industry, sharing your personal experiences, or adding fresh insight to what exists.
• Repurpose Existing Content. Repurposing helps you maximize the value of the content you already created. For example, you can turn audio or video content into a blog post, social media posts, or an infographic. Repurposing helps your content work for you on multiple platforms.
• Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC). User-generated content is gathering customers’ feedback and reviews and sharing them with your audience. UGC resonates because other customers often regard the opinions of their peers above brand messages.
• Utilize Data and Analytics. Data helps you analyze audience behavior to better understand the type of content they want and need, how they want it, and when. Use analytics to inform your content decisions from strategy to post-publication. 
• Be Flexible. Working with content means being ready to adjust your plans as often as necessary. Audiences and their needs change, so you must be ready to pivot with them.

Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy

Content Marketing and Content Strategy are connected, but they aren’t the same. You need content strategy as the blueprint to serve your customers and content marketing to execute your strategy. Using both well will help you build a well-oiled content engine that will serve your audience and your business now and for years to come.

The post Content Marketing vs. Content Strategy: What’s the Difference? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This month, we’re reminded that mental health isn’t a dirty word but something we all have. Sadly, there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health and seeking treatment for mental health concerns. But with each generation, it becomes less of a taboo topic. And, with more awareness comes greater access to healing. 

Many brands and marketers discuss mental health in May or as it becomes more culturally relevant, but why can’t embracing it and reducing stigma be a regular part of our daily marketing?

The Importance of Mental Health Marketing

An estimated 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year, whether they talk about it or not. That’s more than 50 million people, not including children and teens, who also experience mental health concerns. The sheer number of people impacted by mental health issues and the fact that we all have mental health makes mental health marketing important.

Talking openly about mental health can:

• Provide Resources. Signposting different mental health resources can let people know there are options. Whether for themselves or their loved ones, discussing the options helps make people aware that these resources exist and gives them the confidence to reach out.
• Reduce Stigma. Many people are too concerned about mental health stigma to be open to discussing it. Men, in particular, are often afraid of speaking about their mental health for fear of losing face. Having an ongoing, open conversation about mental health can reduce the stigma and encourage more people to understand that it’s not a taboo topic.
• Raise Awareness. Discussing mental health in a non-judgmental and matter-of-fact way can help normalize the conversation. As we become comfortable talking about mental health, more people can understand what they’re experiencing and access the necessary treatments to begin healing.
• Promote Well-Being. Prevention is the best cure. Mental health marketing can focus on more than treatment. It can encourage people to pay as much attention to their mental health as their physical health and take preventative steps to feel their best.

With so many people dealing with mental health issues, mental health marketing is crucial to help them get appropriate treatment and begin feeling better.

How to Approach Mental Health in Marketing

The importance of treading carefully with mental health marketing cannot be overstated. It’s a unique form of marketing that requires extra sensitivity.

When marketing mental health services:

• Be Empathetic. Mental health is a sensitive topic, and misinformation or insensitivity can harm people. Ensure your marketing material is accurate and empathetic and does not contribute to stigmatization or stereotyping.
• Be Authentic and Genuine. Don’t approach mental health marketing from a performative standpoint. If your company says it supports raising awareness for mental health, make sure that those values apply across the board. Additionally, mental health concerns can be challenging and complex. Acknowledging that you don’t know everything is better than pretending you do, which can seem disingenuous and lead people astray.
• Ask Questions. Rather than trying to seem as if you know all the answers, try creating a place for discussion. Look at the evidence and all the options available and let people make up their own minds as to what is best for them. 
• Involve Professionals. You shouldn’t give medical advice unless you’re a medical or mental health professional. If you feel strongly about providing medical advice, enlist the help of a licensed professional. Including them can give your marketing material more authority and provide the most value to readers.

Marketing mental health ethically is a crucial skill. It provides transparency, builds trust, and empathizes with those seeking help.

Marketing Tactics for Mental Health

You can use many tactics to implement mental health in your marketing campaign. Your options really are limited only by what aligns with your brand and best fits your audience. 

Join the mental health conversation with:

• Intentional SEO. Targeting specific keywords can help your website rank better with search engines. An intentional SEO can help increase visibility and make it easier for people to find your resources. About 4,400 people search for “mental health treatment” each year. If you offer mental health services, strong SEO content marketing will help them find you.
• Helpful Blog Content. Creating blog content that is informative, helpful, and relevant to mental health can help attract people to your website and establish your company as a credible source of information.
• Thoughtful Social Media Posts. Sharing thoughtful social media posts that promote mental health awareness and provide resources can help engage your followers and increase your reach.
• Educational Webinars. Hosting digital training sessions on mental health topics can help engage your audience and provide them with valuable information and resources.
• Supportive Lead Magnets. Creating e-books and downloadable worksheets or fact sheets allows people to read mental health-related information when convenient. 
• Emails and Newsletters. Sending regular emails is a common way to ensure that your audience is aware of your latest updates and offerings. You can include mental health resources where appropriate in these emails and newsletters.

Exactly how to market mental health depends on your business’s focus. But consider how you can join the conversation through regular features and resources.

Best Practices for Discussing Mental Health

Joining the mental health conversation may mean creating a forum for discussions that make some people uncomfortable. As experts in mental health marketing we follow guiding principles and suggest these best practices to aim for when discussing mental health, which also apply to mental health marketing.

When discussing mental health in your marketing, consider:

• Use Person-First Language. People aren’t a diagnosis, and you should avoid labeling them as such. For example, instead of saying a “schizophrenic person,” say a “person with schizophrenia.” The former option reduces a person to their condition, whereas the second places the person firmly at the heart of the situation.
• Avoid Stigmatizing Language. Using neutral language can help promote empathy and understanding, whereas stigmatizing language can further marginalize people with mental health issues. For example, saying someone is an “addict” versus saying they “have an addiction.”
• Provide Resources and Support. While you want to raise awareness to normalize talking about mental health, you also want to help the people experiencing the issues you’re discussing. This informational support can include details about counseling services, support groups, and hotlines. These resources can help people access the care they need to manage their mental health effectively.
• Give Factual Information. By demonstrating how widespread mental health issues are, you can help to reduce stigma. But be sure the information you share is from a legitimate, up-to-date resource.

Following these tips can provide your audience with valuable content that positively impacts the conversation.

Missteps to Avoid

Not everyone will get it right the first time, and you shouldn’t let fear of getting it wrong stop you from starting or engaging in this critical conversation. Just try to remember and avoid these missteps when talking about mental health. 

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When discussing mental health, avoid:

• Exploitation. Come from a place of authenticity. Jumping on the bandwagon because you think discussing mental health can make you money or because it’s May is obvious to your customers. 
• Stereotyping. Be mindful of the language you use when talking about people with mental health conditions. People who experience mental health conditions are diverse and complex. They deserve to be portrayed respectfully, like everyone else.
• Unqualified Advice. Don’t tell people what they should do. Instead, seek input from mental health professionals and provide your readers with options.
• Oversimplifying. Mental health is a complicated issue. To that end, suggesting things like “getting outside more” or “yoga” as a cure for mental health issues can be harmful. It can make people wonder why these things aren’t working for them.

The stakes are higher with mental health marketing because it involves people’s well-being. If the tone is accusatory or shaming, it can lead people further away from seeking help. If it’s too flippant, it can set up unrealistic healing expectations. 

Conversations about mental health are critical. The more of us who participate, the better. Make sure you join the conversation in a way that’s authentic and on brand, and you’ll be able to make a positive impact.

The post Cultivating Well-Being Through Mental Health Marketing appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

If you’ve read any of the statistics about the success of Instagram marketing, you’re likely looking for ways to get started. Instagram is an incredible marketing tool that can help you establish a brand identity, grow your customer base, and increase sales.

Before you jump in, it’s essential to create an effective Instagram marketing strategy, so you can experience the results everyone’s talking about.

Why Instagram Is Such an Important Platform for Your Business

With about two billion users, Instagram is a key social media platform for growing your brand and attracting new customers. If that’s not enough to get you to focus on the visual social media outlet, consider these statistics: 

• According to their own data, 60% of people learn about products or services on Instagram. Users are open to being marketed to and have come to expect it. By marketing on Instagram, you’re putting your business in front of people who are curious about new products.
• Again according to Instagram, 90% of Instagrammers follow a business. Many users don’t mind seeing posts from businesses they’re interested in. They may even like it and follow brands they adore.
• 44% of people use Instagram to shop, according to the platform’s research. Features like shoppable posts and the ability to save payment information within the app is driving more people to shop on Instagram. You can take advantage of this by highlighting product features and offering discounts to new subscribers.
• Instagram’s advertising reach grew by almost 21% last year, compared to Facebook’s less than 7%. This amount varies by demographic, so it’s essential to understand your target audience before you map out your content strategy.
• The Instagram app is the second most downloaded app in the world, making Instagram marketing a good investment of your time and resources wherever you may be.
• Instagram beats Tiktok, Twitter, and Snapchat for number of users. If your goal is to reach the most people possible, Instagram is the way to go.

Benefits of an Instagram-Centered Marketing Strategy

A successful Instagram marketing strategy takes high investments of time and resources. So why should you center your marketing around Instagram and not another platform? 

• Boosts Brand Awareness and Trust. Instagram gives you another place to interact with your target audience. If you take full advantage of it, you can establish your brand image and build trust in the eyes of your audience.
• Reaches the Right People. Instagram’s algorithm cross-references information about the content itself (captions, hashtags, and locations) with information about user engagement to show users more of what they’re interested in. If you utilize hashtags, location tags, reels, and stories correctly, Instagram’s algorithm will help get your business in front of the right people. 
• Grows Product Sales. Instagram offers shoppable posts, product launch features, and the ability for users to save their payment information within the app. All of these features help to streamline the purchasing process and help you grow sales as a result.
• Fosters Customer Relationships. The ability to like, comment on, and share posts makes building customer relationships and a community around your product easy. These relationships help to build trust in your business and your products. 
• Drives Higher Retention Rates. Instagram’s retention rate measures the percentage of viewers who watch your stories until the last segment. Retention rates are one of the most important metrics to consider when evaluating your reach. However, it takes lots of time and resources to foster good engagement with your content, so it’s important to be consistent and do frequent content audits to see what you can improve. 

How to Create an Effective Instagram Marketing Strategy

Success in Instagram marketing means higher engagement rates, a bigger customer following, and increased sales. The following are best practices to help you see results.

Analyze Current and Past Data

Instagram Insights offers metrics that can help you evaluate the performance of your content. These include recent highlights, accounts reached, accounts engaged, and total followers. After reviewing this data, adjust your strategy as needed and release more content. It’s important to note that Instagram Insights is only available to business accounts, and you can only access it from the mobile app.

Identify Shortfalls

Take a look at underperforming content and compare it to your top-performing posts. Make adjustments as needed. Consider whether it’s to the structure of the content, the time of day released, or the type of hashtags used that you may need to alter. 

If you’re starting from scratch, look at what your competitors are doing and think about what you’d like to do differently. How will your brand stand out?

Set Realistic Goals

While it can be tempting to set lofty goals for your business, it’s better to start with small, manageable goals and build out from there. These goals should include the number of posts a week, response time for inquiries, number of likes or shares, and more. When setting your goals, think: What do you want from Instagram, and how can you best accomplish it?

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Research Successful Competitors

As with any other marketing strategy, you must know what your competitors are doing. Look at what your competitors do well and determine how to do it better or position yourself differently. Highlight what makes your brand different from your competitors and effectively communicate that to your audience.

Plan Your Posts

You obviously don’t need to know everything you’re going to post just to get started. But it’s good to have an idea of some of the content types you plan to use. When determining your content, consider:

• Content Pillars. Content pillars help make up the foundation of your content strategy. The different types include behind-the-scenes content, user-generated content, product demos, culture-focused (showing the human side of your company), and customer stories. Your content pillars contribute to your brand image, so it’s important to consider what you want it to be when planning your content.
• Generate a Style Guide. A style guide helps ensure consistency in the look of your Instagram posts and gives users an idea of what to expect. It should include composition, color palette, fonts, filters, captions, and hashtags. 
• Content Formats. Instagram offers reels, IG Live, stories, and visual-based posts as options for sharing content. Each of these has its own benefits, so consider your campaign’s goals and how you can mix the formats to accomplish them.

Utilize a Content Calendar

Consistent posting is vital to a successful Instagram marketing campaign. Content calendars can help you plan what type of content to share and when. Then you can create content for a month or more at a time and schedule it with a social scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.

Best Practices to Follow for Your Instagram Strategy

Remember some best practices to see the best results from your Instagram marketing strategy. These gold standard approaches include:

• Define Your Audience. The more you know about your audience, the better. Once you define your audience, be sure everything you post focuses on them.
• Solve Customer Problems or Address Needs. Users are more likely to interact with your content and follow you if they believe your profile solves their needs. Make sure to consider their needs and desires as you start producing content.
• Create a Clear Brand Image. This visual style contributes to brand awareness and associations. What do you want your customers to think of when they see your content? What are things you don’t want your brand associated with?
• Prioritize Engagement. Engaging with your audience and similar brands helps drive conversations about your products. It also helps to develop trust in your business.
• Post Actively. To get the most out of Instagram, you’ll probably want to post daily. Try out various times to determine when your audience is most responsive to your posts.
• Leverage the Professional Dashboard. This dashboard is Instagram’s central destination to track performance, utilize professional tools, and explore educational information. When used to its full potential, it can help you track your performance, grow your business, and stay informed.
• Optimize Your Profile. You can optimize your profile in various ways, including incorporating a keyword into your name or username, writing a clear and concise bio, and displaying a profile pic that best represents your brand. 

Use Proven Keywords for Hashtags. Hashtags are searchable keywords that help users connect with content they’re interested in. Using them in captions on your reels, stories, and posts can help increase your visibility and grow your audience.

The post The Ultimate Guide to An Effective Instagram Marketing Strategy appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

People can’t buy from you if they don’t know your brand exists. That’s the purpose of brand awareness — to help people recognize and recall your business when they need you. Making sure people know and remember your brand is where to use content marketing to build brand awareness.

Understanding Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is how readily consumers recognize your brand. Have they heard of it? Do they remember anything about what you do? Brand awareness is critical to your business’s growth because people can’t consider purchasing from you if they’ve never even heard of your brand.

But what you want from brand awareness goes beyond just an “Oh, that” moment. Yes, you want people to recognize your company’s name, but it’s also excellent if they associate specific details with your name.

For example, we don’t just recognize the name McDonald’s. We know what McDonald’s serves, how easy it is to find one, the consistency of their products, etc.

We tie thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviors, and preferences to brands. Those things help us differentiate and prefer certain brands over others. But all of these positive benefits start with brand awareness.

Children don’t want that Happy Meal toy until they know McDonald’s exists and has Happy Meals.

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Content Marketing’s Role in Brand Awareness

Awareness is the first step in the customer journey. That means, without it, you can’t make sales.

Back in the day, companies like McDonald’s spent tons of money on traditional advertising to make people aware of their brands. They erected golden arches seemingly everywhere and made TV commercials featuring Ronald McDonald so children would beg their parents to go. But that’s not the way brands get recognized anymore.

Today’s buyers go online when they’re thinking about buying something. More than 65% of people research online before making a purchase. Enter content marketing’s role in today’s customer journey. By having a website and doing SEO content marketing, your brand is more likely to show up for customers when they search for products or services in your category.

For example, let’s say I have a problem. It’s getting colder outside, so I like to have a mug of green tea in the afternoon. Kind of a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. But I’ve noticed that I bring the tea to my desk, then get distracted by calls or emails.

My tea gets cold before I drink it. I mentioned this frustration to a friend, who recommended I get a mug warmer. I can set my cup on the warmer, and my tea will stay warm until I finish it. This product sounds like a perfect solution to my problem, but I have no idea where to buy a mug warmer. So, I head to Google and type it into the search bar. Here’s what I see:

I find brands I’ve never heard of, varying products and price points, and even a story from “The New York Times” recommending specific warmers. If I scroll down past the ads, I also find smaller businesses that have written posts similar to the one from the “Times” and have links on their sites to buy those products.

That is content marketing’s role in brand awareness! It leads me from a Google search to content that makes me aware of new brands and helps me eliminate my pain point. My afternoon tea will be warm from here on out!

As a bonus, the money spent on content marketing (much less than those television ads featuring Ronald McDonald) will keep those brands showing up in search results potentially for years, driving traffic and leads to those companies’ websites while creating greater brand awareness.

Advice for Using Content Marketing to Build Brand Awareness

Now that you understand how content marketing can drive awareness, you want it to happen right now! That’s understandable. Once you have a tool that you know can make big things happen for your business, you want to use it. But here’s some advice before you dig in.

When using content marketing to build brand awareness:

• Know Your Audience. Understand your audience and their pain points. What are they likely to search for on Google? Be sure your content is anticipating their search intent.
• Use Keywords. Once you know what your audience searches for that your brand helps with, build your keyword strategy around those specific searches. You want your site to pop up when they ask Google their questions.
• Vary Your Content. Don’t focus on blog posts alone. You need product or service pages, emails, Google Business Profile, and a presence on social media. Post words, videos, graphics, photos, etc., to help people see, recognize, and consider your brand.
• Show Up Regularly. You can’t post once and expect people to flock to your site. You have to show up regularly for your audience. That means having a strong website, posting on your blog at least twice a week, and posting and interacting daily on your social media channels. Use the content marketing methods you choose to best serve your audience regularly.
• Be Patient. This piece of advice may be the most challenging. You have to be patient. SEO content marketing done right will always work for your brand, but it won’t work overnight. You have to trust the process and celebrate the steady increase in awareness.

The Lesson to Learn

Building brand awareness through content marketing takes a thoughtful approach but has lasting effects. Using content in these ways will attract more customers to your brand on social channels, your website, and even strategic partners who never heard of you before. Planning and executing a content marketing plan takes time, but the effort is always worth it.

The post How to Build Brand Awareness with Content Marketing appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

With more people using ad-blocking software to shut out unsolicited ads, the future looks bleak for marketers. But content marketing is the silver lining. And there are many reasons why the future is bright.

Traditional marketing relies on outbound systems. It’s about reaching out to consumers to interest them in your product. This approach subjects consumers to marketing messages they don’t want. 

Content marketing is inbound. It’s about creating and sharing content that helps consumers achieve their goals without asking for anything in return. Who can say no to free help?

Consumers can now research their challenges online, increasing content’s value. When you share information that helps consumers live better, they will keep coming back for more. And when they need a product or service you deal in, they’ll naturally choose you over your competitors.

What’s the Purpose of Content Marketing?

The purpose of content marketing depends on the brand and where the consumer is in their customer journey. Here are some of the things content marketing does.

Gives Consumers Information They Need

The right content can help clarify a consumer’s thoughts so that they can make an informed decision. Regardless of the content type, the goal should be to feed your audience the information they need to get out of a jam or crush a milestone. Do this long enough, and your audience will see your brand as a source of truth.

Creates Brand Awareness

Content marketing increases your reach. Consistently sharing your knowledge and resources will improve awareness of your brand.

Some consumers of your content will share your posts with their family and friends. Some will share them on their social media channels and in their communities.

Brand awareness is your first step toward converting prospects because nobody buys from a brand they don’t know.

Generates Interest in Your Brand and Products

Many entrepreneurs expect the world to jump at their businesses when they launch. But your business won’t get traction if you don’t work to generate interest around it. Content marketing gives you the power to do that.

While sharing content that makes life better for your audience, find natural opportunities to show how your products or services will help them achieve their goals.

Inspires Audience Engagement

Once you start sharing valuable content on your blog, social media, or newsletter, responses will follow. While not everyone will agree with what you post, sharing your knowledge will engage your audience, which keeps your brand top of mind.

Increases Sales

Once your content marketing strategy and execution are effective, it’s only a matter of time before the attention you’re garnering starts translating into sales. The more people know and engage with your brand, the more value they’ll attach to your content, and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.

Why is Content Marketing So Important?

Content marketing is vital to brands for various reasons, depending on your business’s needs and how you choose to use content. Here are some of the reasons content marketing is important for brands.

Customers Want It

Consumers are no longer satisfied with just sales-specific information. Traditional marketing gives the customers just enough information to get them to buy a product or service. Content marketing gives consumers the information they need to choose who to buy from and why. Customers want information that helps them make informed purchases.

Builds Trust and Loyalty

You don’t earn customer trust and loyalty by telling them how trustworthy you are. You need to show it with content that demonstrates your brand authority, trustworthiness, and subject-matter expertise. High-impact content takes customers from where they are to where they want to be. It informs, educates, and entertains them.

Creates Brand Awareness

Your prospective customers need to know your business exists for you to have a fighting chance at conversion. Content marketing is your chance to do that in a non-invasive way. Your brand personality and values will naturally shine through when you create content on topics relevant to your customers. That will give you more publicity.

Tells You About Your Audience

Content marketing sets you up to know more about your audience in new ways. First, you’d want to understand what, where, when, and how they consume information. Then, while sharing content, you’ll be able to know what your audience likes to read, listen to, or watch by analyzing your readership data. This information will help you understand their interests and empower you to improve your product.

Drives Traffic to Your Site Through SEO

Optimizing your blog content allows search engines (like Google) to find and serve your content to your audience. This aids search visibility.

A HubSpot survey found that businesses with SEO-optimized blog content get 55% more visitors, making their marketing team leaders 13 times more likely to achieve a good ROI.

Generates High-Intent Leads

Content serves up leads that are more likely to become paying customers. They don’t struggle to understand how your brand, its products, and its values fit into their lives. They already know because they’ve consumed your content. And content marketing enables you to write SEO-optimized bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content that targets people ready to buy a product or service.

Affordable for Small Businesses

Content marketing is cheaper than paid ads. You can also get significant results even if you start small. Unlike paid advertising, which depends on how much money you can throw into it, content marketing levels the playing field. 

Why is Content Marketing the Only Form of Marketing Left?

Today’s consumers are much more focused on themselves and what’s good and valuable to them. That’s why interruption tactics no longer work. The focus on information when, where, and how the customer wants it is just one reason content marketing is the only form of marketing left. There are some other reasons too.

Most Consumers Use Mobile Devices

Consumers call the shots, so the best marketing efforts must meet them where they are.

One in every five people spends more than 4.5 hours daily on their phones. Add that to their sleep and work hours, and you’ll see why people don’t have time for TV or other traditional media.

When people are on their phones, they aren’t looking to be marketed to. They’re looking for valuable content that helps them navigate their daily challenges.

Consumers Search and Shop Online

With the rise of digital media, consumers shop more online than ever before. They research the products they want to buy from the comfort of their homes. They avoid the stress of travel and people associated with brick-and-mortar stores and can make purchasing choices as they research every step.

Your Search Visibility and Traffic Depend on Content

Helpful content gets search engines to notice and present your website content to people looking for the products or services you provide. Be sure to balance the creative with the scientific. You need high-quality content to give your readers a good user experience. But you also need to optimize your content for search engines to serve it to those looking for it.

Millennials Are Tech-Reliant

Millennials (consumers born between 1981 and 1996) are the largest demographic, and they make most of their purchases online. These factors make it easy for content marketers to get their attention since content marketing relies on technology.

Trust is Increasingly Important

Consumers are overwhelmed with marketing messages. Your brand needs to stand out with content that earns their trust quickly. Because when it comes down to it, only brand trust and authority will separate your claims from those of a random brand. It will give your prospects a solid idea of what your product does and how it works, which will reduce their doubts.

Legacy Media are Becoming Obsolete

The rise of digital content has crippled traditional media. Audiences now prefer the convenience of consuming digital content over traditional media. And because attention is the currency in marketing, the money will go wherever the audience goes.

What are the Best Content Marketing Methods?

There are various content marketing methods, so the mix you use is up to you. It’s all about what works best for your brand and audience. But some methods seem important for every business to use on some level.

Content marketing methods that benefit most businesses are:

• Websites. Websites are ideal for sharing information that helps your audience while informing them about your product or service and letting you buy directly from the site. Your website is part of your owned media, and the audience you build there is yours for as long as you want. As a distribution channel, websites can host all types of content — text, images, audio, and video, allowing you to share content that appeals to more people.
• SEO-Optimized Blogs. Your potential and existing customers are looking for answers to their questions, and search engines have become their trusted sources of information. Consumers run 8.5 billion searches on Google alone every day. You will attract customers with SEO-optimized content.

• Lead Magnets. Lead magnets are free resources potential customers can get in exchange for their contact information. Marketers use them to lure prospective customers into their email lists, where they can then nurture them into customers. Your lead magnet could be a tutorial, e-book, workbook, or industry report. In any case, be sure your lead magnet is specific, promises your audience a quick win, and solves a real problem for them.
• Email. If you follow the “email is dead” bandwagon, you’ll miss out on the chance to earn $36 from every $1 you spend. Email is as alive as it gets. This content marketing method is particularly effective for lead nurturing. That’s because it allows you to send personalized emails directly to your audience’s inbox. This approach allows you to address their specific pain points and aspirations.

Conclusion

Content marketing results ultimately depend on your strategy, budget, and nature of business. But you can never go wrong with content marketing investments. Regardless of your industry, your existing and potential customers have loads of questions and challenges they need answers to on an ongoing basis. If your content can help them, they’ll grow to trust you, buy from you, and become loyal to your brand.

The post Why Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left appeared first on DigitalMarketer.