When you run a business, you know that gaining a loyal customer base is imperative to success. With the internet, it can be easier than ever to find and attract a following because your business is no longer limited by physical location. However, the other side of the internet coin is that the online marketplace is saturated with businesses from all over the world all trying to attract an audience and client base. Your brand needs to stand out from the crowd to be noticed.
Content marketing is one strategy for gaining a brand awareness and a customer base. The basic idea is that your business creates and shares content in order to attract and retain customers. Content marketing works very well for some businesses, especially when they produce and publish high-quality content. If you are looking for a new way to increase brand awareness and build your customer base, content marketing could be an important part of reaching your goals.
1. Authority
Content marketing by nature creates the feeling that your brand is an authority in the industry. Regularly creating and releasing engaging and useful content shows your audience and potential customers that you are knowledgeable and competent within your industry. This automatically establishes trust between you and your audience. When a potential customer is looking to do business with a company in your industry, he may choose the company with the most useful high-quality content.
2. Customer Loyalty
When your brand is consistently releasing engaging content, it builds a loyal audience. Whether it’s a blog or videos released on YouTube, interesting content sets your brand apart and encourages your audience to actively engage with your company’s online presence. The story of Mint.com is a lesson in using content marketing to build a loyal customer base. The company created and maintained a blog about finances for their target audience (young professionals) for awhile before even releasing its product. When they did unveil their product, they already had a loyal customer base ready to buy.
3. Client/Brand Relationship
An active content marketing campaign creates a forum for your audience to actively engage with your company. When you post an interesting video, your audience can watch and comment, and even more importantly, share with friends. Essentially, when your audience engages with your content, they spread your brand even further through their own network, which increases your potential customer base as well. Giving customers and potential clients an easy way to interact with your brand also gives your brand a reputation for listening to clients, which implies your brand is trustworthy and reliable.
4. SEO
Search engine optimization is an important part of building your brand online. While there are many SEO methods to improve your site’s search engine ranking, generating and publishing content automatically improves your brand’s SEO. Search engines no longer simply rank sites based on instances of keywords. Instead, context and the quality of content earn a preferred ranking by search engines. Posting useful content on your company’s blog is an easy way to improve your SEO.
5. Value
Useful and interesting content is valuable both to your own brand and to your audience. HamptonCreek is a great example of a brand with valuable content. Their YouTube channel is full of short, fun videos demonstrating recipes for their products. These videos are useful for their audience and enjoyable to watch. It’s a way for customers to engage with the brand and also shows the audience new uses for Hampton Creek Products. A person is more likely to choose Hampton Creek flavored mayo when he knows it can be used in several recipes as more than a condiment.
6. Consistency
A well-designed content marketing campaign is based on frequently publishing new content. This method of consistently bringing fresh entertainment and information to the customer keeps your brand active. An audience will quickly leave a blog or channel that becomes stagnant, but frequent new content encourages active engagement from the audience, and also promotes your brand consistently. You may want to try posting different kinds of content: blog posts, listicles, humorous cartoons and videos are all good options.
Content marketing is vital to your company’s brand awareness, especially in terms of an internet audience and customer base. High-quality content establishes your brand as an authority in the industry as well as creating a reputation for value and trustworthiness. Content marketing also improves SEO. High-quality, shareable content makes your brand valuable and encourages your audience to engage with your brand as well as share your content with others, further increasing your potential customer base.