Everybody talks about content marketing. You can often hear that content is king and content marketing is a framework of communication strategies of many companies and crafts. Everybody is seeking their place in the digital sun. But is content really king?
Marketing is all about perception and so is this statement. In 2010 media mogul Rupert Murdoch said that content wasn't just king, but the emperor of all things electronic. Without content, flat screens, e-readers, and tablets would be “merely empty vessels”. But our today's topic isn't the importance of content distribution, SEO or technology development. We'll focus on content creation and its importance in building long-term partnerships with clients.
Marketing persona – alpha and omega of quality (content) marketing
Marketing trends are subject to constant changes. Most of them directly concern the way your target audience lives, works, spends their spare time and in what digital spaces they "socialize". That’s why the vital step in creating attractive content is to do a thorough research of your target audience. The basic way to do this is to create a marketing persona. You’re right, it’s a quite tiring and complex job, but it’s also very important. You can start working on your marketing strategy only when you know your target audience. At least if you want to do it right.
If you've never done this, a marketing persona is a representative of your target audience. Based on him/her, you develop your strategy. Also, you can have more than one marketing persona. At Sinonim we have two main marketing personas, but you can have more, depending on your needs. The more detailed the analysis of your marketing persona is, let’s name him Luke, it should be easier for you to create content that is appealing and relevant to Luke.
This short template shows some basic information you need to start creating Luke. Of course, that’s just the beginning. Elaborate the template in detail and describe an average day in Luke’s life. When does he wake up, does he check his Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat account first thing in the morning? Maybe he checks his e-mail? Maybe he doesn’t even use his mobile in the first hour of waking up because he’s trying to change his “bad” habits? Perhaps he still sticks with his New Year’s resolutions.
By working out his habits and lifestyle, you’ll get a perception of Luke’s everyday challenges and how your service/product can help him overcome them. Give him a solution. Create a desire.
What kind of content Luke wants?
No matter if your reach is paid or organic, the content you distribute has to be (high) quality, useful, relevant and interesting, it has to generate added value. In what form and what kind of content you will produce depends on the industry you are working in, and of course, Luke's needs. If you haven’t noticed yet, Luke is the center of this text. Be original, communicate with Luke, spark a light within him, challenge him intellectually, use visuals (photos, infographics, videos) and publish regularly.
It’s important to know that you shouldn’t spread the same content on all your social media. After all, why would anyone follow you if your posts are the same on all profiles? It's just enough to follow one of your social media profiles. Customize your content to the social media you're publishing on. Take advantage of Google Analytics and other tools to get an overview of your audience. If information about your visitors doesn’t match Luke’s, you may need to change the content you share, whether you distribute it via newsletters, eBooks, webpages, blogs, and/or social media.
How it works
Let’s take Sinonim’s social media accounts as an example. On Facebook, we are focused on the local audience by sharing language tips and tricks, interesting facts and quizzes. But on our Instagram profile you can find out much more about our employees and not-so-corporative side of Sinonim. Follow our Instagram stories for “behind the scenes” insights, company events and hang out with us! LinkedIn is used primarily for communication with domestic and international (potential) clients and partners, as well as for tracking news from the industry. But all our social media profiles have one thing in common – they tell a story with the same message we want to convey to the world.
That doesn’t mean that all our Facebook fans will become our customers. But there’s a great possibility that one day, when they do require professional translation services, Sinonim will be their first choice because they are familiar with us, know our work, and they had already connected to the content we publish.
Engagement rate is a very useful metric that can help you evaluate your content relevance and popularity. It’s the easiest to track on social media, but it’s also available for other forms of content sharing such as blogs. Number of comments, clicks, likes and shares is the leading indicator of how interested Luke is in the content you provide.
Why should you do content marketing?
The goal of any marketing, including content, is to sell. But not just to sell and never look back. We aim for long-term partnerships with clients to ensure growth and development of both, our company and our clients.
Content marketing won’t get you a buyer that will forget about you after finalizing the project. It will get you a brand ambassador. There’s no better advertisement than that. Additionally, your brand awareness will increase, you will position yourself in the industry and you’ll rank better on internet search engines.
Content creation, especially for multiple marketing personas, is not an easy task. You need to be concise, interesting, informative, connect emotionally and provide added value that Luke will cherish. But don’t get discouraged if feedback isn’t the best. Explore, learn, experiment, ask Luke what he wants! Creating quality content marketing is a lengthy process and not just pushing for higher numbers. It’s about ensuring quality business collaboration and trust, whether you’re based on the B2B or B2C model.
But if you do content marketing just because it’s in right now and everybody does it, maybe you should leave that empty vessel from the beginning of the post alone. Because not every content is king. Only the quality one customized to Luke wears the crown.
