Content Marketing is a marketing method that aims at informing, animating and entertaining target groups with valuable content. Potential customers register to receive user-oriented content that helps solving problems.
Defining goals
The most important goals in content marketing are increasing brand and company awareness, winning new customers and customer loyalty. These goals can only be reached with content that has a knowledge value and an orientation value, that offers solutions for the needs of the target groups and that entertains both customers as well as potential ones.
Sources and content formats
One important source of content is customer feedback and employee input. But also general industry trends and reports in trade media provide valuable topics for content creation. Particularly professional articles, e-books or white papers play a major role in B2B. Further important content formats include social media, images and infographics as well as interviews.
How to implement content marketing
Those who aim for professional content marketing need to know exactly what the interests and needs of their target groups or their personas look like. In a second step, the company’s services and products must be positioned in the context of the customer’s needs. Companies can also explain themselves in the context of industry brands and thus establish themselves as experts.
Buyer journey
Anyone doing professional content marketing has to offer customer-focused content, but not only that. They must also place it right at the touchpoints of the buyer journey. In doing so, the content must always adapt to the information needs during the respective buying process phase. A potential customer who is only at the beginning of the decision process should not be confronted with extensive information such as detailed white papers.
Target orientation
One basic prerequisite for successful content marketing is a strong target orientation. Which key performance indicators (KPI) do you want to influence? If you combine topics, formats and channels (hubs) well and take into account the media consumption behaviour of your target groups, you will be able to attract the attention of your customers and the potential ones.