24 Jan How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Campaign

What does it take for your content marketing to become successful? It’s easy to overlook the 3 essential basics with so many channels and options to choose from.

Written by Daniela Cavalletti 

Content Marketing, the dictionary tells us, is “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”

Easy enough, right? 

It’s trickier than you might think. Dropping our ego and sales-spiel comes harder to most of us than we’d like to admit. But doing so is essential to making your content marketing interesting, effective … and profitable.

#1 Listen, Be Authentic, Deliver

Successful content marketing is about being personable, consistent and innovative. Marketing has moved on from companies pushing their agenda onto the customer to wanting to give back to their communities. Consumers don’t trust ads and scroll past them – because nobody likes to be told what to do. The era of indiscriminately pushing advertising messages and wildly spam has (thankfully) mostly come to an end, with savvy businesses recognising the value of tailored and targeted messaging. The trend away from traditional and online advertising to content marketing is here to stay, and growing only stronger.

#2 When They Go Wide, We Go Deep

Whether in B2C or B2B: buying decisions are made by individuals, by humans. Authentic, relevant and memorable direct-marketing, aimed at individual needs, is replacing blanket banner ads to the masses.

With that, storytelling is seeing a revival, as customers – real people with real emotions – have the need to connect in an uncertain world. Try and think of your potential and actual customers as your friends. You have certain core things in common. What do you talk about to your friends at a catch up over dinner? It’s rarely all high level, it goes deep on one topic or two.

Today, when you can find accumulated high-level of wisdom on the internet on most topics it’s time to be brave and go deep. Rather than writing about topics broadly, we need to go more niche, be more specific, in our written and online conversations to truly create valuable reading and connections. Instead of, for example, writing a blog post about how publishing a book is good for your image, let’s talk about practical steps and the tools an author needs for writing a book.

And if your brand has been utilising (or thinking about using) influencer marketing – think about it carefully: global fame alone is no longer enough to sway opinion: instead, smaller influencers who speak directly to a niche market are far more trusted.

#3 Show Your True Colours

Combining attractive visuals and compelling content is crucial for effective content marketing and client communications. “Content will get shorter, sweeter, more unique, and punchy,” says growth marketer, Sujan Patel. Search engines are getting better and better at recognising and analysing visual messaging. Ensure your blog posts, ebooks, white papers, social media conversations etc. grab attention; not just through outstanding content, but also by being visually appealing. Think edgy images that align with your brand, gifs, video explainers and infographics, to name but a few.

As content marketers, we must be good not only at posting conversation starters – the acquisition of leads. We also must be focused on keeping the connections we’ve made alive to achieve retention (and ultimately sales). Shift your focus to achieving growth within your existing audiences by engaging in conversations, answering grievances and questions,. By being quick with replies, and measuring what works and what doesn’t. Be open, responsive and authentic.

Your Content Marketing To-Dos

To set yourself apart, you must be clear about your brand and target market, deeply and regularly connect with your customer, and have a content plan – then stick by all of them.