The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to a well-defined target audience with a clear objective of them acting on the content provided.” Many successful brands have utilized content marketing campaigns to boost company image, profitability, and authority in their vertical.
Here are five common elements found in most successful content campaigns:
One of the important elements for a successful content marketing campaign is that the content must help solve the specific problems of your target audience. Only by making your content truly useful can you build trust with customers. According to Rachel Botsman, that trust is the currency of the new economy, and content marketing is one of the best ways to generate it.
Creative copywriting is also important for a successful content marketing campaign. This involves writing good headlines and crafting an engaging story. Storytelling is one of the best ways to deliver a good content marketing campaign. Microsoft is one the better corporate storytellers out there, with video narratives about people that anyone can relate to.
According to Kevin Spacey, the stories that we tell our audience should have some sense of conflict to help awaken the emotions of the people who engage with them. Research has shown that emotions that can lead to a viral content marketing campaign include surprise, amazement, curiosity, and uncertainty. Craft your stories with these emotions in mind and you increase your chances of a viral campaign.
Storytelling must also be authentic and in line with your brand’s values and culture. Being genuine in the digital space is critical to gaining the trust of your target audience.
For example, there are limitless options when it comes to distributing content on social media, but it’s actually better not to be everywhere. You must select the most appropriate social media platform where your target audience hangs out and commit to becoming part of the community, not just using it to broadcast content.
Every content marketing campaign must have a clear call to action. Do you want readers to comment, share, visit your website, join an email list or something else? These are just a few of the common goals of successful content marketing campaigns.
How persuasive was your campaign in influencing the desired action? Use tools such as Google Analytics and BuzzSumo to track and measure campaign effectiveness. And because content is wasted if no one sees it, be sure to check out this list of today’s hottest content promotion tools, too.
Going forward, there are many developing trends in digital marketing you have to be mindful of. For one, visual is still in. This means content that is too text-heavy will have difficulty competing with content that has words, sounds, graphics, and videos.
Secondly, as smartphones continue to become more accessible, more people will access the internet through their phones. Thus, your content marketing has to be mobile friendly. That is, it has to be customized to fit a host of smaller screen sizes. And with narrow attention spans, your content also needs to grab and hold the attention of your target audience quickly.
No two content marketing campaigns are created equal. Just like the organizations behind them, they are unique and have different goals and motivations. However, there are certain elements that every successful campaign embodies in some way, shape or form. Do your best to incorporate these five components into your next content campaign for better, more dramatic results.
