Do you know what content marketing is?
Currently, thanks to the democratization of the internet and the popularization of smartphones, a greater number of people have included access to the web in their routine. This proves that the internet is increasingly showing itself to be a fertile field for your company to invest in marketing.
By having more information available and less free time, consumers filter the materials that reach them. Therefore, companies have been betting on content marketing.
Today, the possibilities are many when companies think about marketing actions. In addition, professionals in the field are increasingly challenged to use creativity and think outside the box.
In the world of technology companies, taking advantage of the benefits of Inbound Marketing to gain and retain customers is essential. And this is where content marketing presents its value and importance for achieving the organization's results and expectations.
Why use content marketing in your IT company's strategies?
In recent years, many services and resources have had to be transferred from the physical world to the virtual environment. Among the monitored changes we can mention:
- Several organizations started to conduct webinars;
- There has been an increase in content production for social media;
- Expansion of actions via email marketing;
- More ads on LinkedIn.
However, the consumption of content and information on digital channels, such as social media and blogs, has increased a lot. What becomes an opportunity for all companies, but also represents a challenge. After all, competition increases.
Also, investing in content marketing is the best option to grow your business. This strategy involves creating, selecting, distributing and expanding the quantity and quality of relevant content for your target audience.
To work with content marketing, the professional must be or become a storyteller, because he will need to narrate something that is useful and that will hold the consumer's attention.
What makes content marketing more attractive is the fact that it is accessed through consumer demand, not companies. Customers choose to consume what, when and where they want. If people don't find your product appealing, they won't waste time reading or watching.
It takes a mindset shift to using digital marketing, as your team will also need to create materials that won't directly increase your sales, but will be helpful in creating deeper connections between the brand and the consumer.
Today, content marketing has gained popularity and is being heralded as the present and future of advertising in the digital economy.
We will show you some steps for your company to use content marketing
Set goals:
First, define your goals and what are the goals expected from this process. Goals can generally be classified into two categories:
- Lead generation, sales, Cross-selling (take a product that complements your initial purchase), Up selling (the customer takes a more expensive product than he intended to buy) and sales by recommendation of other customers.
Related to the brand:
- Brand awareness
- Brand association
- Loyalty and brand defense.
If your goal is related to selling, you need to align your content with the sales channels, but if your goal is linked to the issue of metrics, you need to ensure that the content is consistent with the personality of the brand.
Which audience do you want to impact with your content?
Define a specific subset of your target audience, this will help you create something relevant and deep, put yourself in your consumer's shoes and think about your anxieties and fears.
Plan your content:
Don't elaborate your content loosely, there must be a connection between all the material you are going to produce. For, the combination of pertinent themes together with suitable formats ensures a successful content marketing campaign. So, think about what material will be really useful to your audience.
Creation:
Content creation requires an investment of time and budget. If the content isn't of high quality, it's just a waste of time to produce it. Content often doesn't drive the purchase, but it will create an affinity between the brand and the consumer. Make your content original, something different from what the consumer would find in other web searches.
Distribution:
If they don't reach the ideal audience, good content is thrown away. With so much information available on the networks, it is normal for some content to disappear. So, be careful to post on the right channel, social networks have immense power, find out which one best relates to your business.
Enlargement:
The key to strong media distribution is a good content advocacy strategy. When your content reaches key influencers, that content is more likely to go viral. Then, identify who the influencers in your industry are.
Assessment:
Assess whether engagement and sales have increased after sharing your content. Note that the metrics of the 5 As have been achieved in a positive way.
Improvement:
After analyzing the results coming from content marketing, identify the changes to be made. Remember, periodic improvements are critical.
Use different content for each objective
A content marketing strategy can be applied for different purposes. And depending on your goal, the content produced has different characteristics.
Therefore, the Amplifica Digital listed some of the main purposes for which your IT company can provide content:
Contents to attract opportunities:
They are the ones who give more to the person. Therefore, a suggestion is to leave them linked to landing pages and convert visitors and followers into leads. Good content for this is the infographic, as it is light, visual, informative and easy to consume on any device. Also, people are consuming more lives, so another idea is to do a live stream on a trending topic. Suddenly, it's even worth a partnership with another brand for a co-marketing action.
Contents to strengthen the relationship
Maintaining a healthy relationship with your leads and customers is essential. In addition, this must be done through quality content that meets your pains and desires. At this stage, the best content is a weekly newsletter to maintain the relationship with your base. If you don't have a high volume of content production, consider a monthly frequency. The important thing is to always send your content to leads.
Attracting and retaining talents
Produce relevant content for suppliers and partners, show that your company is there to help them. Social media can be your best ally right now.
New feature releases
Your technology company needs to be in constant motion. That way, when launching new products and features that will make your customers’ day-to-day life easier, use content marketing to spread the word. Videos, infographics and tutorials from these releases help capture the attention and pique the interest of your customers and prospects.
Lead generation and conversion
Webinars, e-books, infographics, whitepapers, customer testimonials and videos, among many other formats, are contents that value your investment. Run publicity campaigns for these materials to increase the number of leads. In addition, with the content marketing tips for IT companies above, you will be able to boost your business and gain more customers every day.
The importance of Video Content Creation for your company
With the popularization of smartphones, there was a democratization not only of the internet, but also of the production and circulation of videos. Because it has become cheap to make and consume videos.
Why use videos in your company's marketing?
Many people do not have the time or patience to read a text, but would watch a video. As we pointed out earlier, the greater circulation of videos is due to the popularization of smartphones, we agree that it is much easier to watch a video than to read a large text on the small screens.
In addition, as they use two senses (sight and hearing), videos convey the message in a more understandable way. In this way, it will be easier to generate trust and the acquisition of the marketed product.
We have some numbers for you:
- In Brazil, approximately 58 million online videos are watched monthly.
- Internet users spend an average of 6 hours a day watching videos online.
- 80% of Internet users prefer to watch video rather than read text content.
- When a person watches a video of a company, the chance that they will understand the message is 74% greater.
- Videos have 41% more clicks on searches than text content.
- More than 4 billion views on Youtube per day.
A video advertisement can have thousands of views and go viral in a few hours.
The consumer has greater identification with a company when watching a quality video produced by it. Therefore, video has greater conversion power than other types of publication, but care must be taken to ensure that the material produced is useful.
What to take into account when using videos:
- Audience
- Disclosure channel (Linkedin, Instagram IGTV, Facebook and Youtube are great for this purpose).
- Research on how to make the customer understand the product.
- The image you want to show.
- Focus on a line of reasoning.
- Avoid too much information (This can make it difficult for the main idea to be captured)
Structure your content and message to be delivered in textual format before recording. The end result will be much better. Additionally, using videos makes it easy to monitor how your brand is being received. Through the reaction of the public you already have feedback.
Video helps a lot in your SEO strategies. When publishing your video on social networks, also include its transcription, that is, the text applied in the description.
Video production + SEO are strategies capable of placing your website pages in the top positions in search engines. That way, think to use it in the best possible way.
Bet on storytelling, people like to hear stories, and it's a pleasant format that brings your audience closer.
The marketing team must segment the target audience and direct the content of the video, to customers who want to know the brand better and who will share the video, thus making a free advertisement for your company.
Today, video content creation is one of the most preferred materials by consumers.
How about investing in video production in your Marketing strategies?
Content marketing audit: how to do it?
Creating more content doesn't necessarily mean bringing more traffic to your pages. Then, o SEO, and to be more specific, Google and some social networks prioritize content that follows some quality requirements and generally dismisses those that are not relevant.
However, to maintain good traffic on your pages, periodically perform an audit. Analysis of what your brand has already produced and how that content behaves. With this practice you will be able to notice which paths should be followed or which strategies should be changed.
After an audit, you will have an idea of what needs to be produced, that is, what your brand left to be desired in social networks and web pages.
There are audit templates you can follow:
Quantitative Audit:
- Map everything you've ever produced.
- Where is your content being directed?
- How are the contents organized?
- Another necessary information is who produced them.
- Finally, see if they have generated good results.
Qualitative Audit:
- Is the content created useful?
- Is its format attractive?
- Is the tone of voice used the correct one?
- Specialized Auditing:
- Does your content follow the requirements charged by SEO?
- What was produced has good readability?
- Is it easy to be located?
- Generates an audience for your page.
- Is what you produce connected to each other?
After this audit, remove that content that does not generate any results.
Share the audit result with your marketing team, especially those who produce content.
However, in order to achieve effectiveness and results, it is necessary to follow the audit with the implementation of an action plan to improve the creation and dissemination of content.
With the completion of the content audit, it is possible to more accurately establish the short, medium and long term marketing plan, which will result in significant improvements.
Systematization and frequency of data collection is essential, but not enough. In order to have an effect, the audit must be organized in reports, only then will you see if changes are happening or not.
Do you need help producing content for your company? A Amplifica Digital can help you!
