If you’ve ever read a blog on a website or an op-ed by a CEO on social media, attended a webinar by famous brands, or downloaded a digital report, then you’ve seen content marketing in action.
But what is content marketing, and why do brands invest in it?
Simply put, it’s marketing that aims to generate interest in your products and services using material that audiences might find helpful or interesting. The material can be written or designed (blogs, op-eds, digital reports or infographics), or it can be recorded (videos, webinars or podcasts). Unlike other forms of marketing that “interrupt” an audience to get in front of them, content marketing places more emphasis on being discovered through organic means, like search or word of mouth.
Content marketing works best when delivered through digital platforms such as social media, websites and search engines. While not a magic bullet, it’s one of the many tools you can use to build your brand, establish trust, and make your products or services more attractive to customers.
Here are a few ways strong content can help your brand’s digital marketing efforts:
Sell without selling
Whether your target audience is in Singapore or beyond, strong content can raise awareness of your brand by making your digital outreach more helpful, engaging or entertaining. Sales may happen indirectly or later once potential customers become more familiar with your brand, but it’s not the immediate goal. Content marketing works best when it’s clear of anything that can be perceived as a direct sales pitch from companies. Your content, especially short-form videos on social media, has to provide value on its own. It has to be something that people would want to share naturally, which can then differentiate your brand from others.
Position you as an expert
Content marketing can help cement your brand as a thought leader in your industry. This means establishing your reputation as an expert and problem-solver for issues frequently faced by your target audience. When producing this type of content, make sure it is backed by a mix of facts, statistics, stories, and examples. There are a number of ways to do this – for example, companies in Singapore may submit digital op-eds in local or regional publications to establish their credibility and ensure their company’s services remain top of mind for potential and existing customers. Other examples of press-worthy content include industry or sector reports, whitepapers, surveys, and more.
Empower your customers
Content marketing doesn’t just benefit your brand. It empowers your customers, too. When your content has the ability to inform audiences, address pain points, and solve complex challenges, it increases the chances of brand discovery and recall. In turn, this makes them more likely to come back, giving you an opportunity to nudge them further down the marketing funnel and towards conversion.
Develop trust and enable word of mouth
Content marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customers. When people see that your content is genuinely helpful or delightful without being outrightly self-serving, they’re more likely to share or recommend it to others.
Recommendations from friends and family can go a long way: a global survey by Nielson found that 88% of consumers in Southeast Asia trusted recommendations from friends and family. With 83% of respondents in Singapore sharing these sentiments, strong content that promotes word-of-mouth can be a powerful way to build credibility for your brand.
Provide a foundation for social media and search engine marketing
Consumers increasingly prefer researching and discovering products online, and brands are responding to this. According to media-buying agency GroupM, spending on digital marketing platforms and their services will surpass that of traditional marketing this year, with Google, Facebook and Amazon as the main beneficiaries. Informative and entertaining blogs, videos, infographics and other visuals can be excellent foundations on which to build your digital outreach strategy.
Shareable content can help attract likes, comments, followers, and messages on social media, while reputable and high-quality content can help drive more traffic to your site. Outside of conversion, website traffic (cited by 44%) and social media engagement (cited by 43%) are seen as two of the most important metrics for content marketing, according to a March 2021 survey of 318 marketing professionals worldwide.
Generate leads
Leads are people who have shown interest in your product or service — in other words, potential customers. Done properly, content can generate a variety of leads, such as people who visited your website, liked a LinkedIn blog, downloaded your digital report, attended your webinar, shared your company’s Instagram meme post, sent you an email, added something to their cart, or purchased from your business before. They can also come in through a referral.
While a content marketing strategy is not the only way to obtain leads, it can be an extremely effective one. In one survey of marketers globally, 52% of marketers said content marketing helped them generate more leads or demand.
Unleash the Power of Content Marketing with Mutant Communications
Digital marketing is more than just content. But when planned well, content should work in tandem with your other efforts to drive people down the marketing funnel. It can increase your brand visibility, promote word of mouth, and establish your reputation while empowering your customers. In a landscape that’s increasingly reliant on major digital platforms to drive marketing efforts, content is here to stay.
At Mutant Communications, we understand this. Our team of former news editors and journalists can help you reach your marketing goals through copywriting, social media marketing, and other content development services that drive results and resonate with your target audience in Singapore and beyond.
Need a solid content marketing strategy? You’ve come to the right place: [email protected]
Sources:
Ascend2, “Measuring Content Marketing Performance”, 4 March 2021
Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, “11th Annual B2C Content Marketing: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Insights for 2021”, 27 Jan 2021