Over two billion people use social media daily and 4.26 billion people worldwide use social media. This number represents 59% of the global population with the average reflecting over two and a half hours per day of social media usage. These numbers are expected to grow substantially over the next five years. As a result, many companies increasingly channel their marketing efforts to content creation so they can post online on a consistent basis to attract internet users to their products or services.
The rationale for the transition of marketing budgets to digital content creation is the lower price to reach a targeted market and the higher returns possible from digital strategies as you can see by the data shown below.
Creating content for social platforms, including long-form content such as blog posts and YouTube videos, is a strain for most small businesses that struggle for sufficient resources to manage the operation. And, marketing of any type, including content creation, requires extensive planning and strategy development to pull off successfully. After the planning phase, marketers should create content showcasing their business offerings and how these products benefit the consumer by producing content that fits their target market that’s produced on a consistent basis. This requires content that’s highly informative, engaging, entertaining, and moves a user toward conversion or risks wasting scarce resources.
Proper marketing content creation can increase revenue for any company, as it entices new prospects to visit the company website and reminds existing customers to shop again.
Content creation is the basis for online marketing
No marketing campaign is complete without content creation. But, it’s hard to create great content and even seasoned veterans find that most of the content they produce (maybe as much as 80%) doesn’t generate traffic to their website or conversion. Thus, to an extent, content creation is a numbers game.
Of course, you can up your game by using metrics to help you optimize performance by finding your “best” content and then using those insights to improve the performance of your content. But, sometimes, it’s just dumb luck or a combination of external factors you can’t easily replicate that explains the success of some of your content over other pieces.
Whatever the rationale, you see more success when you set a schedule for posting content and stick to that schedule. For instance, maybe you always post a video on Tuesdays or upload a TikTok at 3 pm every day. Your target market learns to expect new content from you. Also, use trending topics and hashtags to help draw attention to your content. Use a mixture of different types of content to avoid predictability. And, write to your market.
Types of marketing content
Companies can create different types of content to promote themselves on the internet. The type they use depends on their preference, the campaign they are running, the platform(s) they use for promotion, and their ad budget. Consistent content creation requires talent, creativity, and the ability to identify and capitalize on current trends. A content calendar helps you stay on track to meet your content goals.
Here are the common types of content marketers use to promote businesses:
1. Graphics
In social media posts, blog posts, and website pop-up ads, companies use original graphics to highlight the products they produce. These graphics include but are not limited to memes, gifs, screenshots, professional photos, and infographics. Companies use professional graphic designers to create this type of content because they want content that’s visually appealing to their target market.
The graphic should contain enough information to make the viewers understand the message but not too much so the graphic doesn’t confuse them. It is important to understand the target market’s behavior and use that insight to create marketing graphics that entice them enough to take action.
Another benefit of great, original graphics is they attract backlinks from other websites, which help your rank in search results so more traffic visits your website.
2. Blog posts
People often read blog posts and articles in search of information to resolve inconveniences in their daily lives. They access these blog posts through search engines while using queries related to the topic of interest.
Content marketers can leverage these queries to generate leads that result in conversion by targeting keywords represented in the query when creating content. They work with writers to create helpful, informative, and search-engine-optimized (SEO) content in their company’s niche. The content should motivate visitors to move toward conversion by offering a call to action (CTA), a great users experience, and content that fits the visitor’s stage in the decision-making process (see below).
The blog post should contain information needed by visitors, offer the benefits of the product, and entice visitors to the next stage in the process. This content marketing strategy creates interest and possibly drives sales, thus increasing the company’s revenue.
3. Social Media Posts
Social media is hugely popular among internet users, making those platforms fertile grounds for growing a business. They allow people to post different kinds of content like videos, short texts, lengthy write-ups, graphic designs, and so on. Companies choose social media platforms representing their target market and matching the resources available. Hence, you might choose to start with two platforms and then increase that number as you have more bandwidth. Most platforms display user content differently, so you must adapt posts to different platforms before posting on multiple platforms.
Consistency is key to success on social platforms. Below, you see the recommended posting frequency for some popular platforms.
Sometimes, a company’s content on a social media platform may go viral and generate a greater reach, thus generating more leads and sales. Their marketers can take that piece of content and adapt them to another social media platform with a massive user base and post it there to gain even more traffic.
Using recycled content that has gone viral once is effective if used properly because that piece of content already proved its ability to engage and attract users. Digital marketers can seamlessly recycle content across social networks through social media management tools like Buffer. However, don’t try to recycle content often because it can seem stale to many viewers and make them feel the company doing so ran out of content ideas.
4. Videos
The popularity of video-sharing apps like TikTok and YouTube shows that internet users are interested in watching videos. Videos come in different lengths and serve different purposes for companies. Short-form content is used to appeal to a wider audience because the information in it is transmitted quickly. Meanwhile, longer videos are often tailored toward leads who already showed interest in the advertised product or service.
Regardless of the type of video a marketer wants to post, focus on content that’s entertaining and informative. People have short attention spans, so videos need constant stimulants to keep viewers interested. For example, videos explaining a difficult concept can be animated so the audience can understand it more easily.
5. User-generated content
User-generated content or UGC offers a great option for content creators. First, it reduces the demands on your content team. Second, it often reaches a wider market than the one you can reach using only your own content efforts. Finally, users believe content created by other users much more than the content you create.
Endnote
To run a marketing campaign, you should create high-quality content because it attracts new customers and retains existing ones. There is so much information and advertisements on the internet, so every piece of content a company posts should be crafted to attract attention at first glance.
Content that proved to work on a social media platform can be recycled and used on others to garner more traffic. Highly engaging marketing content generates leads, leading to more sales, revenue, and profit.
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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
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