Engaging content marketing can help a company build brand equity, drive web traffic, and create strong relationships with customers. In order to create engaging content, companies need to have a deep understanding of the customer. Once a marketer identifies specific customer needs, pain points, and interests, content can be crafted to appeal to specific target audiences.
However, appealing to an audience may not help your business if you don’t have a goal in mind. Consider how you want your viewers to engage with your content. What actions do you want them to take and how will your content aide them in doing so? This should guide your content strategy.
Here are a few things to consider when building engaging content:
1. Define the Content Marketing Goal
First, the goal of content marketing must be decided to define the ongoing strategy of marketing efforts. Is your organization interested in increasing traffic to the website, generating new leads, promoting sales, social shares, or new email signups? Clearly identify the goal you wish for your viewers to accomplish and consider tactics for setting them on that path.
Each goal will require a different strategy, so know what key performance indicators (KPIs) you will need to measure to track progress and set a realistic goal to determine success.
2. Conduct Audience Research and Build Personas
Knowing your audience is key to creating engaging content. Ask yourself who is your brand’s ideal customer and compare that persona to those who currently engage with your content. Do they match? If not, you may need to adjust your brand messaging or change where you promote content to attract the right audience.
Case Study: Marriott manages brand voice globally with Pica9 and CampaignDrive
3. Decide on Format
Using the right format for your specific audience maximizes the chances of generating customer engagement. Know your audience’s preferences by understanding where they like to find information (ie. social media, company websites, product reviews) and how they like to receive content (ie. watching videos, reading articles, receiving emails).
Currently, the most commonly used content marketing delivery formats include blogs (80%), and videos (62%), but this may not always be the case. Continuously monitor your audience’s engagement with various pieces of content and adjust to any shifts in behavior.
4. Use Visuals and Takeaways
Visuals are a powerful medium for increasing content engagement and can be used to deliver messages, create moods, elicit emotions, and cue the viewer to move down a path. One study found that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and that 40% of all people respond better to visual information than to plain text.
When it comes to branding, visuals need to be consistent across content in order to create a strong brand image. If your brand is known for simplicity, visual content should match those core values. Brands that use visuals correctly can increase engagement, brand awareness, and build positive customer relations.
5. Organize your Content
Brand compliance tools like, CampaignDrive, are ideal for managing branded content and maintaining consistency. By keeping digital assets organized in a centralized management platform, brands can better monitor the creation, consistency, and performance of content. These insights can lead to more strategic content strategies that increase engagement across channels.
CampaignDrive is a marketing automation platform that allows large companies with various branches to store all assets in one location. Easily accessible by both corporate and regional marketing teams, the copy on branded assets can be quickly edited and updated to allow for timely marketing campaigns.
See how brand compliance tools can help your business build and organize engaging content by requesting a demo with a CampaignDrive expert today.
sources :
Statista, “Most commonly produced content marketing types worldwide as of September 2016”
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2018_B2C_Research_Final.pdf
