Content Marketing 101: How To Beat Competition And Grow Your Brand?
As a freelancer, I can understand the struggle of wanting to get ahead of the competition in your industry.
Your competitors might be targeting the same audience as you are. Which means you’d have to derive extreme measures like running paid ad campaigns, lowering price to beat competition, and so on to attract and retain your audience.
These extreme measures sometimes end up costing you a lot of money, without providing the expected results.
What if there is a way where you can attract your customers, beat the competition, AND get a higher return on your investment as well?
Enter content marketing…
Content marketing focuses on creating and distributing relevant and useful content across various platforms.
Top brands like Hubspot, Netflix, Hawke media, Vogue, invest heavily in content marketing to beat their competitors and remain at the top. They focus more on providing value to their customers rather than forcing them to buy their product.
Let’s take a look at how you can leverage content marketing for your brand.
But before that, let’s understand how content marketing helps you in growing your brand.
Why Is Content Marketing Important For Brands Like You?
Okay, so we’ve established that content marketing can help you retain your customers, and beat your competitors. But how exactly does it do that?
Here’s how:
1. Builds trust and loyalty
The best way to beat the competition is to attract customers to your brand. Now, why would a customer buy from you and not your competitors?
Because you are providing value to them via content.
Valuable content establishes you as a thought leader in your industry. So whenever the customers think about a product similar to yours, they’ll immediately think of your brand.
This, combined with excellent customer service, gains customer trust and builds loyalty. Which ultimately results in more sales for you than your competitors.
2. Boosts your sales by 3 times
Intelligently marketed content brings in quality leads that are more likely to get converted.
People who are genuinely interested in buying something, love to read and research about it first. According to statistics, 131% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that educates them about their product.
For instance, a customer (looking for beauty products) comes across your blog page about skincare, reads a blog, and finds your beauty products at the end of the page. This makes the customer more interested in your product, resulting in a purchase.
3. Builds relationships with your customers
Your customers are humans first. And, like every human they crave connection.
Rather than telling them to buy a product, tell them, “Yes, we understand your problem, and this product would help solve that problem.”
Once you’re able to establish that connection with your customers, they won’t leave you!
4. Conveys your brand message clearly
Customers love to buy from brands that resonate with their values and beliefs. All you need to do is MAKE THEM AWARE of your brand values.
Best way to do that? Content. Exactly!
Writing your brand message in words, is the simplest way to spread awareness. You can convey your brand message via blog posts, through social media, or old-fashioned emails.
For example, many customers prefer brands that are eco-friendly and provide cruelty-free products.
5. Boosts brand awareness
This is a no-brainer. Content helps you boost awareness. Like I said, if you’ve got something amazing, tell people about it.
Customers love to buy something that will help them solve a problem. But how would they know about the solution unless you tell them that it exists. Right?
Content, scattered across several platforms, makes it easier for people to find you and the solution that you’re providing.
6. Positions your brand at the top
There is no other brand like you. Maybe your competitors have a similar product, but they’re not YOU. So, you need to position yourself as an industry leader in the mind of your customers.
Content helps you do exactly that. Tell your customers what is so unique about you, and why they should buy from you. Educate them on your industry topics, and position yourself as an industry leader.
Now, will this not position your brand at the top?
How To Leverage Content Marketing For Your Brand?
Now that you know the wonders of content marketing, let’s understand how you can leverage it for your brand.
Content marketing does not mean you can post anything, anywhere, whenever you want. It only works when you create an effective content strategy, based on facts, data and audience.
Answer the following questions, before starting with content marketing:
- What is the USP of your brand?
Your USP is what makes you stand out from the rest.
- Who is your target audience?
Figure out the demographics like age, interests, and pain points of your audience.
- What does your product or service do?
List the core benefits and features of your product or service. Figure out what problem it solves.
- Where are your customers discovering your product?
List the places where your customers are more likely to discover you. Maybe social media, or websites, or blog posts.
Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll get a clear understanding of what your brand needs, and what type of content marketing technique you should be leveraging.
What Are The Different Ways Of Leveraging Content Marketing Techniques?
1. Email marketing
Personalized emails or email newsletters are great for capturing your customers’ attention, and educating them about your brand.
Build an effective email strategy that helps your customer remember you. And not in an annoying way. Just pop up every now and then with relevant content, and let them know that you’re there.
For example, Zomato sends creative and personalized emails to its customers to promote its services and keep in touch with them. Like the one below:
2. Video marketing
In 2022, 82% of the internet traffic will be gathered from online videos. This statistic is enough to convince you to get your editing tools out right now.
Video content catches the attention of your audience and retains it. Best way to come up with creative videos? Research and write a script. Then begin with the editing.
Create a video that educates your audience or can help solve a problem. Trust me, your customers will thank you for it!
For example, Uber eats created an animated video to help restaurant managers understand the basics of their app.
3. Case studies
Maybe you’re a brand that has worked on some amazing projects people would love to know about. Share them. Write case studies that explain why and how you’ve worked on that project.
This little technique will help your customers understand your process and trust you.
Case studies work amazing for B2B brands. Businesses are more likely to trust a brand that has a proven success record.
4. Blog posts
Ah! My favorite. The best and most preferred form of content is blog posts. These packets of content can help you do a lot more than they sound.
They bring you leads & traffic, educate your customers, promote your product or service, help in google ranking, and a lot more.
Create a blog content strategy where you can create posts relating to your industry. Research different ways to expand your knowledge on the industry, and share it with your audience via blogs.
5. Social media content
Most of your customers are on social media for more than half of their day. Then why not target them where they spend most of their time?
Use social media platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Youtube to your benefit. Create an account and start posting content!
Create a different strategy for this, figure out what type of content you can post (based on the platform), experiment with what your audience will like (study the post insights for deeper understanding), and start interacting with them (reply to comments, solve queries).
Top brands like Netflix and Zomato, have beautifully used this technique to keep interacting with their audience.
6. Website content
Website is like the residence where your brand lives. It’s the first thing that your customer will go to if they want to know more about you. You should be prepared to dazzle them when they give you a visit.
Content again is the most accurate and best way to do it. Yes, the design does help your website look attractive, but it won’t work if there’s no content on it.
Include relevant content on your website pages like testimonials, guides, blogs, and an about page. Tell them what you do, why you do it, and how they can benefit from it.
Summing Up
This article explores only the tip of the iceberg of what content marketing can actually achieve. There’s a lot more to explore.
But for starters, this will be enough for your brand. Remember to try one technique, master it and then move on to another.
Content marketing is an underrated necessity that brands tend to ignore, because they don’t want to spend a lot of money.
What they don’t realize is that content marketing isn’t an expense. It’s an investment for your brand that will result in a higher ROI.
Now, you can try content marketing on your own, or you can hire a professional for it and give yourself the time to focus on what you’re best at. Running a business!
A professional will only double your ROI as their expertise in the industry will give you better results.
Now that it’s said, Hey! I’m a professional (cheeky grin). I’m a content marketer and writer who loves building brands.
If you’re passionate about creating amazingness and are looking for a marketer/writer then feel free to email me at nidhi.cw98@gmail.com!
If not, then do read more of my articles, and don’t forget to leave your feedback while you’re there!
