At BANANA creative, our content marketing strategies ensure that we are not only creating the right content, but that we distribute it to the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Those are the four elements of content marketing: relevant content, a targeted audience, smart placement and impeccable timing — and they make a deadly combo.
CONTENT MARKETING BASICS
Today’s consumers do a lot of online research and guide their way through most of the sales process without direct interaction with your business. So how do you talk to your customers — without actually talking to your customers?
The answer is through content. Effective content marketing uses search engine optimized content to provide value to your target audience. Effective content is strategic, engaging and informative. Put very simply, content done well solves a problem or answers a question for your audience.
But content can only work if people see it. That means you have to be strategic — you need to promote, distribute and syndicate content to get as many eyes on it as possible. According to Aberdeen, leaders in content marketing enjoy almost eight times as much website traffic — that should show how important engaging and informative content is to your brand and your customer’s experience.
Content distribution and syndication is how we put content out in front of your target market. Our content marketing approach at BANANA creative involves an in-depth strategy that aims to help drive engagement and opt-ins for marketing automation campaigns and guide your prospects through the buyer’s journey.
THE POWER OF CONTENT MARKETING
There’s no question that content marketing is good for business. Some key benefits of implementing a robust content marketing strategy are:
Consistent content marketing means more content for your website. More content for your website, especially keyword optimized content, means improved search traffic.
When you provide your audience with quality content, they see you as an authority in your space. They trust what you have to say — that’s powerful stuff.
From your social media following to your email subscribers, when people like what you offer, they’ll follow you online.
CONTENT MARKETING PROCESS
The buyer’s journey comprises three phases: awareness, consideration and decision. We write every piece of content to create for your buyer persona; we aim to give buyers a gentle push to the next phase until they finally become a customer.
We perform extensive keyword research to ensure that your content is search engine optimized. SEO-friendly content will help to drive more traffic to your website. We use a data-driven process that begins with a Website Quality Audit, followed by a content audit and a competitive audit that we then use to build a data-driven content strategy.
Besides standing firmly on its own, content is also one of the five major components of Digital Marketing , a sensible, realistic and practical marketing plan based on concrete objectives.
Content is also one of the core components of Inbound Marketing, something we are big proponents of — we get a thrill out of helping new customers find your brand naturally. We take pride in making those customers think it was their idea, instead of pushing them.
TYPES OF CONTENT
Content marketing isn’t limited to words on a webpage. It goes beyond that. Here are just a few of the types of content that the BANANA creative team can help you create:
Blogs. When people think of content marketing, they often think about blogging. When businesses have a blog, they have a channel where they can educate and entertain their audience through their content.
Videos. Sometimes people just need to see it to get it. Videos are effective for how-to’s or just for a fun way to engage your audience.
Checklists. Want to give your customers really valuable content? Give them a checklist they can download, print and use to accomplish a task.
Testimonials. One of the best ways to gain the trust of a prospective customer is to proudly display glowing testimonials from past and present customers.
Email Lists. In exchange for their email address, provide your customer with content they can use in the real world to solve a problem of theirs.