How to launch a successful content marketing campaign

THERE is really no denying that today, content is king. Consumers are rarely falling for flashy ads with the amount of information available to them online.

With this in mind, the only way you can really draw consumers in is by providing value through content marketing. A successful content marketing strategy is one that delivers valuable information to your target audiences, not only boosting your credibility but also customer loyalty.

So what are the necessary ingredients for the creation of a successful content marketing campaign? Andrew Prasatya, content marketing lead at iPrice Group, an online shopping aggregator, has shared five practical tips to create a winning strategy.

Avoid being self-centric

A common mistake that many companies make when carrying out their content marketing is by focusing too much on themselves.

“Of course they’re talking about themselves, it’s their marketing campaign” you may be muttering to yourself.

But while promoting your products or services and talking about how good they are should, of course, be part of your strategy, you should also focus more on educating your audience.

Consumers want content that focuses on them- and for free. Companies that are doing this successfully are those that are winning over consumers.

An example of a company that has aced this strategy is Birchbox, who witnessed surges in subscriptions to its beauty sample service after producing a blog and magazine about grooming and makeup. Instead of talking about just themselves and their products, the New York-based startup talks about what its audience wants.

Become a data-driven marketer

Great content marketing is a blend of both creativity and data. Leveraging data can help make your content richer and more insightful.

Data can educate you on both post-distribution content effectiveness (to what degree your audience is connecting with its audience) and can also inform content creation itself.

Post-distribution content effectiveness

The main goal of your content should be to provide value to your audience and build stronger relationships. In order to measure this value and engagement, you need key performance indicators (KPI’s) for your efforts. This should include metrics on:

• Traffic: How many people is your content reaching? What kind of people? Are these your target audience?
• Engagement rates: Are people actually interacting with the content you post? If so, how are they doing this?
• Conversions: This is perhaps the most important aspect since conversions equal to marketing success. What actions did your audience take after seeing your content? Did they click through to your site? Did they make a purchase? Did they sign up for a newsletter?

How data can inform content creation

Having an effective, data-driven strategy can really help create successful content that reaches the right people.

Identify your audience. A good content strategy is wasted if it is not created with the relevant audience in mind. You must first understand your audience and the type of content and channels that are appropriate for them. Ask yourself: What are the interests of my target audience? And how do my competitors engage with them?

Experiment with different formats

There is a range of different formats to choose from when creating content, including a simple blog post, an infographic, interactive content, video, and more.

“Your company should always try to experiment with different formats of content so that your audience will not get bored,” said Prasatya.

According to the content marketing lead, your business should start with a clear goal, target audience, as well as the type of content.

“If you want to make a data-driven white paper, you can go with interactive content or a simple article with supporting graph. So, always adjust the format of the content with your need,” added Prasatya.

Distribution is the queen

If content is king, then distribution is the queen.

“Unless you have huge visitors or social media followers, people will not automatically come to your blog, read your content, and share it with their friends,” said Prasatya.

If you are wanting to really expand your content reach, it is key you put the effort in by distributing it to as many relevant channels as possible. Such platforms include not only social media, but also news websites, blogs, research websites, and many more.

According to Prasatya, deciding on which platform to distribute your content on really depends on your overall goal.

“If you want to get more social media followers, then social media is the channel you should focus. But if you want to be the thought leader of one topic, maybe you want to focus more to pitch your content to news websites,” he says.

Build good relations

Coming last – but certainly not least – in the journey to creating a kickass content strategy, is the importance of building good relations with others.

If content is king, and distribution is the queen, then it can be said that community is the kingdom.

It has been said that relationship marketing is the glue that holds content to the community. Building strong relationships with people both in your industry and outside of your industry will make your content far more successful.

For instance, Prasatya told Tech Wire Asia that building relationships and collaborating with others has brought many benefits to their content marketing strategy.

“We were able to do content collaboration with SocialBakers, a big social media tools company, for our E-Commerce Rewind content,” he said.

“…we collaborated with some big e-commerce in Indonesia such as Shopee, Zalora, Bukalapak, and Mataharimall to create a behind the scenes video of their team,” added Prasatya.

So, as it’s still the beginning of the year, you still have the time to add flavor to your content marketing activity and really boost engagement.

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