What is content marketing?

Before we answer that question, it is important to understand how vital it is. Yes, we do understand that one should define the concept before explaining its relevance, but we cannot stress enough the importance of a well developed content marketing.

Think about it using the below scenarios:

• People are too busy focused on their smartphones to pay much attention to outdoor marketing. This is because we are assaulted with a barrage of information and advertisements that our 21st century minds have developed an innate ability to tune out any form of ads. Here’s a fact; there are over 606 million mobile phone users in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) (Source: http://bit.ly/1OI0Kns).
• We have developed DVRs to skip through advertisements on TV. Perhaps one day the cable network providers might introduce advertisements that play spontaneously and can’t be skipped for 5 seconds (YouTube has done it and it is a model followed by many). Or they could introduce a “pay to remove ads” scheme. One can only speculate. But even if they did, will they guarantee success?
• Speaking of YouTube ads, does one even play beyond the 5 second mark?

This and more shall be answered, once we get back to providing the definition of content marketing. According to the Content Marketing Institute, which is an online resource for all things content marketing, it can be defined as follows:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

In other words, you are sending a specific message or information to the customers about your product or service. It is eventually the aim of content marketing to convert said message/information receivers into end buyers and/or customers; even establish a sense of loyalty in them.

A good content is worth a thousand words

There was a time, not long ago, when marketing scholars speak of simple techniques to raise awareness about a product. These ancient ones (sort of) explain how effective it was to simply design a killer product, pay for advertisements and sit back to reap the benefits. They then move on to talk tales of another presence. Something more powerful.

Something virtual.

Enter, digital marketing. The internet truly is a world of convenience. Part of our lives is spent in it and this part is subjected to a myriad of information and messages. This eventually opened doors to online advertising opportunities which has eventually led to the digital marketing capabilities that we have today.

But even with all the convenience, it is important to realize that these capabilities can be utilized by anyone. Because of that, we have a constant flow of advertisements to try and grab our attention. When we have such a multitude of marketing efforts thrown our way, businesses have only a narrow margin to actually ensure that their messages are effective.

Enter; content marketing.

Also enter; our suggestions to keep your content marketing on top.

Step 1: Keep watch on what your competitor is doing

To begin with, sign-up on the competitor’s website, for their blogs or feeds or subscribe to their newsletter. We prefer that you use a personal email for this purpose, unless you actually intend to send a bold message. Just know we didn’t suggest that.

Follow them on social media, if they have social media presence. Keep track of their activities. You can use Google Alerts to give you free updates by focusing on keywords. Need to focus on their social media as well? Try using SocialMention.com or Mention.com.

Next, use BuzzSumo.com. Simple paste in the competitor’s website URL and voila! You will start seeing a list of their top articles, infographics, guest posts, videos and a whole lot more. The best part? The site displays the number of shares each piece of content received on social media platforms.

Find out what they are up to on social media. Fanpage Karma is an effective tool that shows individual pages perform. You will have insights about their fan posts, influencers, type of posts they publish and how well they perform and much more. You can even download the results in Excel or PowerPoint reports, among other options. If they are on Twitter, use TwitterAudit to see if they have any fake followers. Now you’ll know who is really part of their 100,000 fans.

Ah, but what about Instagram you ask? Valid question that has a few nifty tools as as a response. Platforms such as Nitrogram or Union Metrics allow you to analyze any public account or discover statistics based on hashtags.

Step 2: Don’t just stalk them; use the data!

To keep it concise, the whole point of all the aforementioned tools is to give you an edge to your plans. It should administer a strong leverage to your brand and equip you to create formidable contents.

Yes, just having the tools isn’t enough. It may give you strong insights into your competition, but the creative effort has to come from you. Utilize every data you acquire and form a clear-cut plan on how you can be different, but better.

Step 3: Place contingencies

Now here’s the thing about planning ideas. Fresh ideas are always welcome but they don’t always guarantee success. Being bold is necessary; but being bold and prudent is preferable. Keep backup plans and keep backup plans for your backup plans. Like a plan-ception.

Step 4: Innovate

Here’s how you can truly stay ahead of the pack. Once you have performed all your activities, collate their results and study them. This time, you will be understanding yourself.

As much as a competitor’s analysis provides advantages, self-analysis provides desired results. No one gets it perfect on the first try. Understanding what you did, why you chose your activities and analyzing their results is equally important.

If you have performed well; aim bigger. If you haven’t reached the mark you had set, don’t worry. Keep at it. You will succeed.

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