Content marketing is based on clarifying the exact target group to which the message is directed – we call such group persona. If we do not specify the addressed, the messages won’t actually be directed to anyone. While “designing” the persona we should take into account the views and opinions of all the people in the company who work with the client.
This way, we get a lot of information about the offered goods and services, as well as the knowledge on the market conditions. The next step is to carefully study the preferences of potential consumers, who are extremely easy to find in the era of social networking sites.
Persona itself is, in fact, a wishful client, a representative of the target group.
The more detailed are the information the marketer has about it, the easier it is to precisely determine how to build the content for the persona.
Determine the preferences
The precise determination of persona’s preferences should also be based on the actual expectations of potential consumers, which are easiest to gather during the interview. It allows you to get valuable information such as the course of the purchasing process, the nature of the emotional relationship connected to this action, as well as the difficulties that persona may encounter during its execution.
Significant is also the way in which persona makes decisions, what drives it to make them, and what kind of content in what form it prefers. The precise establishing of persona’s characteristics is the first step to determine the objectives and actions of content marketing. Most of them will concern intensifying the traffic to our website, blog or social media – in other words, increasing the number of visits.
Depending on the particular product or service, content can either educate or be typically entertaining, affecting a potential customer emotionally. The primary objective of content marketing strategy, however, is creating the content aimed at building brand awareness and maintaining its reputation in the eyes of potential customers.
The precise establishing of persona’s characteristics is the first step to determine the objectives and actions of content marketing. Most of them will concern intensifying the traffic to our website, blog or social media – in other words, increasing the number of visits.
That is why it is of utmost importance, to place the valuable content on them.
Depending on the particular product or service, content can either educate or be typically entertaining, affecting a potential customer emotionally. The primary objective of content marketing strategy, however, is creating the content aimed at building brand awareness and maintaining its reputation in the eyes of potential customers.
While designing the content marketing strategy we should aim at generating the sales leads – meaning persons who have left on a website, blog or through social networking site a trace in the form of personal data (e.g., registering an account at the online store).
The high quality of the posted content may cause the change from a one-time visit into more frequent ones.
It is also important to guarantee our visitors a wide range of possibilities of contact with the company by providing an email address and phone number, a contact form or instant messaging number and links to social network profiles.
Any person entering the site is in fact at a different stage of the sales process – some of them can decide to purchase almost immediately, while the rest need extra encouragement, even in the form of a free gadget or ebook.
Convert Me
In the process of converting a person interested in our content into a potential customer the “call to action” will be very helpful. Internet users are usually wary, reluctant to share their personal data with marketers. In this case, we use the principle “To get something, you must have something to give,” so you should prepare a content that will at least convince the recipient to sign up for the newsletter.
Those can be the reports or guides prepared by the company, as well as free trial versions (e.g., In the case of culinary blog or service – a demo version of the cookbook with some recipes). The possibility of obtaining some gratification in the form of “call to action” should be clearly marked on the side to further encourage the visitor to use this option. A call to action should not, however, look like a contact form because its tone carries no benefit to the recipient.
When creating a content marketing strategy one must continually monitor the actions and behaviors of potential customers on the Internet. It is clear that there is no need to browse profiles on social networking websites that belong to a person whose preferences qualify him or her to be a persona – the Internet monitoring tools serve this purpose.
They effectively trace the statements regarding our brand posted through various channels, giving the marketer an opportunity to join the discussion. Some of them, such as SentiOne or Brand24 have functions that are useful in determining the emotional attitudes of consumers towards the company or product. They operate by the algorithm that captures semantic connections between words in the comments. Controlling the opinions about the brand which are posted on the Internet keeps the content creators informed about what Internet users think of the content posted by them – it allows for even more precise adaptation to the needs of media consumers.
Valuable content marketing is based on web writing – the creation of advertising texts for the needs of Internet services. The basis of the network copywriting is the creator’s ability to separate from the content he or she makes – the creator must empathize with the recipient who may be poorly oriented in a particular subject.
Often it happens that the issues that are apparent to the copywriter are utterly incomprehensible to the addressee. Internet users are looking for the answers to their questions on the Web – the task of the marketer responsible for the quality of the content is to fully satisfy the user’s hunger for information. In this way, the marketer will convince the recipient to stay longer on the site and repeat visits.
Draw the attention
The text properly constructed by the copywriter should, same as informational forms of journalistic texts have an inverted pyramid structure. Internet user when visiting the page in search for desired content expects to get quick answers. The first sentence should, therefore, be a declaration that he or she has already found what they were looking for and should spend the time to read the article to the end.
A brief, intriguing title occurring, for example, in the form of questions or a list (e.g.,.”10 Ways to …”) also attracts the attention of the recipient. This is an excellent way to begin a dialogue with the consumer at the very beginning. It should be upheld throughout the article, by using the active voice, a large number of verbs and direct turn to the recipient. The interactivity of the Internet allows for placing in the text highlighted hyperlinks that enrich content, concerning, for example, similar articles on the site.
The content of the text prepared for the marketing strategy should be clear and concise.
The Internet users will not sacrifice their precious time to read lengthy arguments. The article should not have the terms consisting promises and assurances that a product or brand are perfect and the best because there is little chance that the audience would believe it. Claims that ensure the uniqueness of the consumers work much better because it makes them feel that the message is directed personally to them, without the impression that it is addressed to the general public.
To achieve results through the copywriting used in content marketing strategy, all texts that it includes must be coherent in their message and used style.
Ensure that the articles are constructed based on the same template – this is particularly helpful when they are created by several web writers.
Care should be taken to regulate issues such as they method of quoting, the outer structure of texts, pictures descriptions, and linking. It is also necessary to determine the direction of the promotion of such content – appoint a person who will take care of their distribution through various channels.
Content marketing’s goal is to engage the attention of the potential customers through valuable content. The language used in texts should contain some formulations with promises of the benefits that come from buying the product or use the service. Content should convince the recipient that the brand is reliable by telling its history and influencing in a positive way the emotions of consumers.