Integral to digital marketing, is an effective content strategy focused on what your audience’s values, needs or desires. This is because the purpose of digital marketing is to exert influence, thereby changing behaviour, whether that be a shopping habit or an intuitive disposition towards a service or brand.
The other advantage of content is that, if it is regular, it becomes habitually consumed and enjoyed by your audience, becoming integrated into their media diet. Content can take many forms, across written word, images, videos, music, games and in many more formats. This enables brands to stay in contact with their audience, interact with them and then understand them better. By doing so, a brand can be better positioned to engage with the same audience in relation to product launches, special offers, thought leadership and a variety of other important moments for a brand.
This approach works because it adds to the outer cone of your sales funnel, creating the potential for new leads, or priming future leads through regular interaction. By taking this approach, you increase your probability of gaining new leads, but even those who never convert may act as advocates of your brand, just because they like your content and style.
Having quality content is a necessity, rather than a luxury. This is because it is through content that audiences build associations with a brand, who in cases of strong brand associations, incorporate a brand into their own social identity. This is important, because audience members that incorporate a brand into their social identity, have increased levels of brand loyalty, which translates into loyalty displaying behaviours such as: repurchasing a product or service over multiple iterations, or having increased resistance to the influence of competitors’ marketing.
By building associations between your audience and your brand, you are doing more than just building an emotional relationship, rather, you’re building a practical one. This is because good quality content will seek to inform and educate, instead of entertaining alone. This means finding the problems your audience has and demonstrating how you can help address them, with your product, service or values based opinion.
By helping your audience, you will help yourself. This is because if your audience is engaged with effectively they may start to create user-generated content, providing social proof that you are a trustworthy brand. This entices new leads and conversions, helping you build your brand’s credibility with potential new customers or loyal fans.
There are lots of reasons why content is king, as outlined here. That’s why for many businesses having high quality professional content should be, and is, a paramount concern. That’s why many businesses choose to let professionals with experience manage their content for them. Here at Social Gamma, we are experienced digital marketers with a love for creating high-quality captivating content for our clients and partners.
