Content marketing is a very strategic approach to sharing relevant, informative, and consistent content online to attract and retain a specifically defined audience. By definition, it is a type of marketing that encompasses the creation and sharing of online material, including blogs, emails, social media posts, and more.
Through content marketing, you build trust with your target audience, while at the same time stimulate interest in your products or services. Successful content marketing strategies drive a potential customer or client to action.
What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Copywriting?
Copywriting is an aspect of content marketing and a pretty important one at that. It is essentially the act of creating, or writing, content for your content marketing strategy. Content marketing thrives on effective copywriting that drives a reader to action. Whether that action is to make a purchase, subscribe to an email list, or sign up for a class, you need words to explain the benefits and instruct the reader on how to achieve those benefits. That is copywriting, and it is used throughout content marketing.
Types of Content Marketing
Many types of content fall under the umbrella of content marketing. Here are a few of the most common and effective content marketing strategies:
Blog Posts
A blog is a regularly updated web page on your website that consists of multiple entries called blog posts. Typically written by an individual or small group, blog posts can be informal and conversational in style. Their goal is to engage your target audience with relevant and interesting information. While the rest of your website should be updated occasionally, your blog should be updated frequently by adding multiple new posts monthly.
When written and optimized to its full potential, a blog post accomplishes three different things. First, it engages your target audience by sharing relevant information, answering a question, or providing a solution to a need. Second, when optimized for SEO (search engine optimization), a blog post drives organic website traffic via search engines such as Google. Lastly, a blog post accomplishes your business goals by resulting in engagement, leads, and sales––whatever you need.
The topics of your blog posts will vary depending on your industry and can encompass a variety of subject matters. For example, if you sell organic snacks, your blog can include posts about healthy eating, fitness, and general wellness topics, all the while connecting back to your brand and products.
Social Media Posts
Often comprised of three parts––a visual element (graphic/photo/video), written content (caption), and hashtags (on applicable platforms)––a social media post is catchy content posted on a social media platform. Such platforms include Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more.
Social media increases brand awareness and engagement. By posting engaging images and videos with interesting captions, people will “like” your posts and “follow” your page to stay up to date on what you are posting. To further your reach, you can pay for advertisements on social media platforms and get your content in front of more people fast.
When it comes to using social media marketing for business, you can reach your target audience by using relevant hashtags they are likely to search. You can also drive your followers to action by cross-promoting your services, products, and blog posts on social media. Be sure to encourage your followers to head to your website to read more.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the digital marketing strategy of sending emails to a list of email subscribers. This list is comprised of potential, existing, and past customers or clients. Emails should include a variety of content that is relevant to your target audiences’ needs, wants, and desires––as well as your needs, wants, and desires as a business. When it comes to email marketing, different campaign types accomplish different goals.
Welcome Email Series
Welcome series are sent when someone new subscribes to your email list. Oftentimes they include a discount code or downloadable content, just to get the relationship started on the right foot. From one email to a series of six, there are multiple ways to introduce someone to everything your brand has to offer. With an 82% open rate, a welcome series is a great way to promote your brand to interested customers.
Win-Back Emails
Also known as cart abandonment emails, win-back emails are sent to a user who has shopped on your site but left items in their cart without completing a purchase. To entice them to finalize their purchase, win-back emails often include a one-time promotional code, product reviews, and lots of high-quality photos of the items in the user’s cart to drive them to action.
Sales and Promotional Emails
Have an upcoming sale? Promotional emails promote your latest deals. And segmented audiences are the most effective to target. For example, you will likely see less engagement if you send a sale on sundresses to a list of men versus to a list of women. When you segment, or group, your email list, you can send relevant, personalized content to increase engagement and sales.
Email Newsletters
Email newsletters are relational in nature. They often include news updates, recent blog posts, upcoming sales and promotions, highlighted services, products, reviews, and more. The main goal of sending an email newsletter is to stay connected with your target audience. While you may “soft-sell” throughout, newsletters shouldn’t be sales-y in nature.
Loyalty/Reward/VIP Emails
Loyal customers are key to your company’s success. It is a small group of loyal customers that bring in a large portion of consistent income. To keep these customers coming back, consider engaging them in an email marketing campaign that is unique to their actions with your brand. For example, after their 20th purchase, send them a 20% off discount code to celebrate! Be sure to write a lot of great copy that illustrates just how much you appreciate their support of your business.
Print Media: Handouts, Brochures, Pamphlets
In this day and age, most people share content online. However, there are instances where print media is valuable for increasing brand awareness. Such content includes informative handouts, brochures, and pamphlets designed to educate and engage clients and potential clients on particular topics.
For example, if you are a real estate agent, you would benefit from having handouts to leave with clients. These handouts could discuss popular real estate topics such as interest rates or credit scores. Branded handouts with contact information make it so so the client can easily reach out to you for more information. This is a great way to stand out amongst the crowd and increase brand awareness.
Website Copy
Your website copy includes the words on your “Home” page and all your landing pages. Each landing page offers an opportunity to add top-quality content and SEO keywords. When a landing page is optimized for SEO, it increases the chances of your website showing up in Google search results.
Therefore, every landing page on your website should include SEO-optimized content. From your homepage to your “About” page to each individual product page, you have the opportunity to increase organic website traffic simply by the words you choose and the number of them you write.
Launch Your Content Marketing Strategy with Synergy Content Marketing
At Synergy Content Marketing, we specialize in content marketing. We create engaging content and effective campaigns to reach your target audience and increase conversions. To see the five content marketing strategies you just learned about in action, check out our content marketing portfolio. We are here to breathe life into your existing content marketing strategy or create one for you altogether. Contact us today to schedule your free connection call to learn more about what we can do for you.
