Content Marketing Strategies
September 24, 2023
Branding Design and Production Digital Marketing Paid Ads Photo and Video Search Marketing SEO Social Media Web Development
Digital Marketing: Content Marketing Strategies
Technology has opened up so many avenues for us, especially in marketing. Marketing has been constantly evolving and we have now reached a digital age. Digital marketing calls for more complicated strategies that involve technology, and one of the main things to focus on is content marketing. Like so, we’ll be here to guide you through the ins and outs of the different content marketing strategies.
What is Content Marketing?
First of all, we’d like to explain to you what content marketing is. When scrolling through social media, you will sometimes see photos, videos, even simple posts. Google on the other hand will show you articles and other websites. These are all called content, literally anything you can see online is content.
For the most part, its goal is for you to create and maintain an audience for your companies or clients. This will be the main thing you need to focus on when dealing with digital marketing. Sometimes you will need to communicate back and forth with clients and other businesses to ensure that content is up to their standards.
Content marketing on the other hand is the act of optimizing your content for your audience. Every business will have a specific audience they want to cater to, and that’s where content marketing comes in.
The real fight is being able to direct the content you make to your audience, and this requires lots of research about your target audience and whatnot.
Some companies find content marketing a hassle, and that is why digital marketing agencies are also a big deal.
The Branches of Content Marketing
Social media and Google articles aren’t the only thing you need to worry about. Content Marketing also branches out into other specifics that need professionals’ help.
Like so, these branches are:
- Branding
- Graphic Design
- Video Production (which has its own sectors)
- Social Media
- SEO
- Pay-per-Click
In this content marketing guide, we’ll be going over all of these points one by one so you won’t get confused. We promise it won’t be difficult!
Branding
This isn’t really a step-by-step guide, but we’ll have to discuss branding first before the others. You will need to have your business’ branding sorted out before talking about the content marketing strategies.
To put it simply, the branding of a business is its identity. It is how they talk, communicate, and its vibe when engaging with audiences.
An example of this can be how Wendy is seen as ‘savage’ by netizens due to their engagement with other brands, or how Jollibee commercials are always ‘soul-touching.’
To get a more concrete overview on what your branding should be, make sure to brainstorm and communicate clearly with your marketing agency, if you have one of course!
Just remember, your branding is your identity, so pick one that will represent your business and goals well.
Graphic Design
The next most important aspect of content marketing is graphic design. People often underestimate the power of good designing and its part in content. Good marketing agencies have graphic designers that will often do the creative side of content; art and whatnot.
You can also hire graphic designers on your own, if you don’t have a marketing agency that is. These graphic designers will be the backbone of your creative content, which is especially important for social media.
Depending on the platform though, you may want to use different kinds of art styles. Again, communicate with your team! Content marketing relies on a lot of back and forth communication to ensure that the content posted is up to par with the company’s standard.
However, not everyone has funds for graphic artists or marketing agencies and have to do designing themselves. If you’re one of these people, then we’ve got you covered too!
The basics of graphic design aren’t that hard to grasp and you can learn them too!
These basics can be grouped into: line, shape, form, and space.
Line
The line is considered the building block of any design. These can portray movement and emphasize the crucial parts of a design.
Shape
Lines create shapes and shapes can make up literally anything! Get creative with the way you use lines and shapes to emphasize your art.
Form
Three-dimensional shapes create form. These can also be created into literally anything. Form make up what we know as objects and other things.
Space
The two types of space in graphic design is positive and negative. Positive space allows the main point and topic of your design to be noticed more. Negative space is the background and will further emphasize what you’re trying to focus.
It’s important to make the focus of your design the actual main topic and make sure that your backgrounds aren’t too noticeable.
Of course, these can change depending on your audience, so that’s why we recommend doing a bit of research on your target audience before creating designs for them.
Video Production
Video Production is another huge part of content marketing, but some will not be able to use this effectively. This part of content marketing will cost you a bit more than the other aspects, so it’s really mostly used by bigger companies.
If you want to create professionally made videos for either general content or advertisements, we highly recommend hiring your own production team. Doing this does have a lot of upsides to it, mainly having actual good cinematography, sound, etc., but you still may want it to be a bit more cost-effective.
There are a number of things you can do to follow a budget when hiring video production professionals, and the first step in doing so is to simply talk to the team! To negotiate better prices, you must first figure out the key essentials of the video shoot.
Video Concept
The main question you need to ask yourself is: what do I want to highlight? Companies often have different aspects to themselves and/or their products that they like. Before starting the video, you must first have a clear grasp of the things you want to emphasize in the video. These can range from your products’ effectiveness to how well your company acts to its customers, etc.
Location
The next step is to figure out the location of the shoot. Since we want to help you be more cost-effective, you must negotiate properly with the production team on where to have the shoot since some places can cost rent.
To avoid spending more than the budget, coordinate with the team when and where to do the shoot that’ll have the least hassle and budget needed.
Props
Obviously every video shoto needs props. Don’t get this mixed up with the professional equipment as production teams mostly have their own. Props are the things used that will show up in the video. These can be your products, company items, logos, etc.
Back to negotiating with the team, the most simple thing to do is just communicate! There are some things that can be left out and not used to ensure that you stick to the budget and the production team will be more than happy to comply with your wishes.
Although there are still some things that are non-negotiable, the best thing you can do is to mention with your team the budget you will be sticking to in order to avoid confusion.
Social Media
Most of the dealings of content marketing will be on social media. There are different types of social media and each one has its own user base that varies. In this day in age, it is kind of difficult to find someone who doesn’t use social media, and that is why it’s such a good platform for content.
The 5 main social media platforms that everyone uses are: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, and TikTok. Each provides users with different kinds of interaction and the culture of these platforms are all different by nature.
Facebook is probably the most famous one of all since it is one of the first social media platforms to actually become a huge hit amongst boomers and millennials alike. That doesn’t mean that members of Generation Z don’t use it though, but mostly limited from them.
In terms of content, Facebook users can post images, videos, and just plain text to interact with audiences.
Remember to be formal and family-friendly on this platform as it’s mostly used by the boomer generation after all!
Instagram was born out of people’s love for photography. It was given to us by the creators of Facebook as a platform to post good pictures of ourselves and our interests. This one is mostly used by millennials so you do have a bit more room to being informal with your interaction.
To post here, pictures are almost always needed, and in terms of businesses, they mostly use Instagram to relate with an audience on a personal level. Post lifestyle pictures if you use Instagram!
Another way of interaction here is using stories. Instagram stories typically last for only 24 hours and it’s used primarily for announcements and the sort.
Gen Z people often hang out on Twitter and the culture on this app is mostly fun and outgoing. Twitter content is similar to Facebook, but it offers way more engagement as people are allowed to directly interact with people’s posts by replying or retweeting.
Moreover, it is important to tread carefully on Twitter since the generation nowadays is becoming much more aware of issues that need concern and a slip-up from your business can instantly mean the end of it if you are not careful.
TikTok
The most popular platform used by everyone right now is TikTok. Posting content here
Search Engine Optimization
Probably the most cost-effective and cheapest of the content marketing strategies, SEO allows companies to earn more attention online. If you don’t know what search engines are, then they are literally just engines that allow you to search things online, the most popular one being Google!
To give you a better example, imagine you have a simple coffee shop. People who want coffee will now go to Google and search ‘coffee shops,’ and the first one that pops up are the most popular brands. This is because they have what we call domain authority, as well as optimized content. Smaller coffee businesses will often show up in the later pages of Google results since content their either isn’t optimized or their domain authority is low.
Traffic
SEO is the act of optimizing the content you post so that more people will engage with it. Most probably by now, your company will have a website of its own and within that website you will have text and other articles. SEO plays a big part in optimizing the text shown so that Google and other search engines will be able to show them to people.
When people click on your link, it’s called traffic, and the more traffic the better since it increases your overall domain authority.
Domain Authority
Now, what is domain authority? Simply put, it is basically how relevant a business is to a certain domain. Back to coffee shops, the domain can be ‘cafe’ or ‘coffee,’ etc. A big established company like Starbucks would have insane domain authority since it has been in the business for so long already, meanwhile smaller coffee shops that aren’t famous won’t be able to compete.
To summarize, SEO is basically just modifying your content so that Google will be able to make it show up on the first page of results, ideally. Seasoned SEO writers will know how to do this and it does require a bit more practice than usual, so you may want to hire a marketing agency to help you through this.
Pay-per-Click
Since we’ve discussed what traffic is, PPC essentially drives more traffic to your website, but it is paid for. Have you ever accidentally clicked on an ad that immediately drove you to a website? These can mostly be seen on social media and other websites.
PPC will often cost a lot since the ads will be placed strategically on famous platforms that people use, so it may not be best-suited for businesses that are just starting out.
In PPC, advertisers will pay that platform each time someone clicks on an ad, and prices will always vary depending on the platform used, so make sure your ads will look as enticing as possible.
One of the most popular PPC systems is Google Ads. Whenever you search something on Google, you may notice how the very first link that pops up is an ad. This is essentially what PPC is, and every time someone clicks on that first link, advertisers for that website will have to pay Google.
If you’re just starting out, we heavily reject this idea as it will be insanely difficult to budget.
Our Final Thoughts on these Strategies
You made it! These are essentially the basics of content marketing and what it’s supposed to do for you. Overall, content marketing is technically just making your content as pretty and optimized as possible so that your business will grow.
Mastering content marketing strategies alone can be difficult, especially since the BerMonths will make businesses more competitive in nature. If you think you’ll have trouble, you always have the option to seek out a marketing agency to help you.
If you think you’ll need some assistance with your content, don’t be afraid to reach out to us!
