Content Marketing: Definition, Benefits, and Key Tips

Quality content is the powerhouse of any successful marketing strategy. Whether it’s for a site’s blog section, social media, or even third parties, all these different pieces can come together in a comprehensive content marketing strategy to help brands reach several goals.

But how do you know which type of content your audience will respond to and create an effective strategy around your objectives? Find out in this comprehensive guide!

Understanding Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic effort companies use to create and promote consistent content as a way to achieve various goals.

The primary and most apparent goal of content marketing is to engage customers. From here, you can achieve several other secondary goals, such as:

1. Increasing brand awareness
2. Improving customer engagement
3. Generating more leads
4. Enhancing consumer loyalty
5. Establishing a brand as an authority in its industry, etc.

The value of quality content cannot be overstated. It can generate three times more leads than outbound marketing efforts at a 62% lower cost. But not all content can yield the same results.

Companies wanting to reap all the benefits must deliver quality and consistent content through several channels.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Before diving into best practices and strategies, it’s worth understanding the key benefits that content marketing provides:

1. Building Trust with Consumers

This is true both for existing customers and people who haven’t interacted with a brand yet.

Content can help customers trust brands in several ways. Content marketing delivers valuable information to consumers with no expectation of anything in return. An individual reading a how-to guide isn’t obliged to purchase from that company, but they can fulfill other needs.

2. Creating Thought Leadership

Content allows brands to showcase their expertise and position themselves as authoritative so that they can become the go-to resource whenever a customer has an informational need.

This enables companies to become thought leaders in their industry and allows them to highlight their expertise, whether it’s through featuring their top talent or general knowledge of a specific field.

3. Enhancing Long-Term Brand Loyalty

Effective and quality content helps customers trust a brand. As you showcase your expertise and provide valuable information for free, you’re automatically positioning yourself as an authority figure.

The entity that knows the most about an industry is the first place someone will look when they’re ready to buy a product or sign up for a service.

4. Increasing Conversions

Content marketing can also help brands with their bottom line. Though the link between an article and a sale is not as clear as in the case of a paid ad, you can create an effective content marketing funnel that still nudges customers to purchase or book a service.

5. Supporting Other Objectives

Content is a versatile marketing tool that can be used to meet almost any goal a company has, such as:

1. Generating more sales
2. Promoting an event
3. Improving PR and brand image
4. Disseminating relevant news for the company, etc.

Key Elements of Content Marketing

A successful content marketing strategy must take into account:

1. The target audience: Content should always be calibrated to the unique needs and expectations of your target audience. Defining who your customers are, from demographics to fears and desires, is always the first step when establishing a content strategy.

2. Content quality: Whether visual, audio, or text, must engage audiences. Apart from choosing the topics people are interested in, content should incentivize people to consume it.

3. Chosen channels: The right content should be promoted using the right channels. Creating texts, no matter how engaging, may prove useful if you choose to promote them on Instagram, a highly visual social media platform.

4. Business type: A B2B content marketing strategy requires different elements than a B2C strategy. The former must address the key needs of a company, while the latter focuses on the end consumer.

5. Results Analysis: As with any type of marketing strategy, you should closely monitor your performance and draw conclusions for improvement. Close monitoring can also enable you to change course in real time if necessary.

Using Mandala AI for Content Marketing

Several tools can help marketers create effective content marketing strategies, but none are like the ones Mandala AI has to offer.

We take a different approach with our content marketing tools and offer several tools that can reliably assist marketers at various stages of their content creation:

1. Mandala Cosmos: Enables you to monitor trending content to discover new topics to tackle in your content strategy, as well as spot emerging trends;

2. Ripples: A personalized feed of specific assets you want to monitor, such as your blog posts or the social media content of a competitor;

3. Mandala Analytics Gathers key metrics such as performance insights, time analytics, and even brand mentions in real-time.

Crafting an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Creating a comprehensive content marketing strategy involves the following steps:

1. Defining your audience: Helps to create consumer profiles and address your content to your ideal customer. This ensures your content will be both relevant and engaging.

2. Establish a clear goal: No matter how many things you want to achieve through your strategy, it’s best to choose one primary goal and build your content around it. It helps your strategy be more consistent.

3. Create a content calendar. These tools help you ensure you’re delivering your content at the right time through the right channel. It also gives you an overview of your strategy and enables you to spot mistakes or inconsistencies.

4. Choose your channels: Lastly, establish the channels most relevant to your business, target audience, and goals.

Visual Content Marketing

Around 91% of consumers prefer visual and interactive content to traditional texts. Even if you plan to run a blog strategy, enriching it with visual content may prove beneficial.

First, it helps break up the text and make it easier to read, but images also help make the articles more engaging and friendly. Moreover, visual content in the form of infographics, videos, and other interactive media helps you disseminate the message in your articles on other channels, such as in a social media campaign.

Promoting and Distributing Content

Choose the appropriate channels for your content marketing strategy by taking into account where your audience is, the type of content you have, and the assets at your disposal.

There are several channels you may consider:

1. Social media
2. Email marketing
3. Brand website (through a blog section, product pages, new landing pages, etc.)
4. Content partnerships with new sites or niche sites relevant to your company
5. Influencer collaborations, etc.

Measuring Content Marketing Success

A content marketing strategy will provide several signs to show if all your efforts are paying off.

Such signs can include:

1. Increased website traffic
2. Higher engagement rates
3. More quality leads
4. Higher conversions
5. More positive customer feedback
6. More positive brand mentions, etc.

All these metrics should then be included in a report for the team to analyze. It can reveal valuable information regarding what worked, what didn’t, and how to improve future efforts.

This, together with a separate social media report, can offer marketers a key understanding of what they should improve to generate better results.