Today we discuss how content marketing can help you grow your business. Businesses worldwide are not exactly what they used to be, and you know that better than anyone. If you still believe a traditional approach will make you successful, then you are in trouble and we’ll tell you why in the next few lines.
Simply posting billboards or running ads on tv or social media while hoping for customers to buy your products and services is not a magic formula anymore. The same can be said about starting a simple Instagram account or sharing your achievements on Facebook. Do you react to those principles on your social media as a user? Then why should your audience? It turns out that it’s time to become far more creative, and right away.
Business and Content Marketing are Inseparable
A business without content marketing is a bit like a fish out of the water. It’s not like the concept didn’t exist before. But naturally, the discussion surrounding this topic has also evolved quickly. Over the coming years the influence of online content will keep growing, and the more you wait, the more you’re left behind.
Now, it goes beyond just randomly producing content. It’s all about presenting the right content to the right audiences. You need to focus more on personalization, innovative ideas, uniqueness, and making a lasting impression. How we go about that is very much our daily work: we brainstorm, develop ideas and turn them into actionable content that your audience wants to consume.
What is Content Marketing and Why is it Important?
In our previous post, we discussed and covered this section in detail. Here’s the link to that article listing 6 reasons why your business needs content marketing. Please feel free to jump in to discover how our team learned from experience across multiple disciplines and nowadays adapts specific methods to develop strategies and actionable content implementation.
How Does Content Marketing Work?
Content marketing is very much about storytelling. The more proficiency in this area, the greater is the likelihood of success. The reason why it works is that our brains are programmed for stories. The neuronal activity in our brain increases five times when we hear a terrific story. Transport that concept to a brand or service and you have a winning formula.
According to neuroscientists, information is retained considerably more effective when it is conveyed through stories. And if they are great stories, they become more resonating with the audience. The point here is that our brains only react to really amazing stories. They don’t care about subpar ones. If the content isn’t actually good in the first place, no amount of personalisation, referrals, lucrative offers or email automation will be able to save your firm since people can’t connect mentally.
How does Content Marketing Strategy work?
When salespeople meet with clients, they frequently come prepared with a variety of information and figures. Despite the apparent importance of data, studies show that only 5% of audience members retain statistics following a presentation. But following a presentation, an astounding 63% of audience members recall stories. The stories of relevant experiences of people who have benefited from utilising their goods and services should be available to sales professionals.
All of the genuinely effective content marketing initiatives, including those from Red Bull, Chase, Dove, Adidas, Marriott, Dollar Shave Club, Hubspot, GE or Nike have one thing in common: a dedication to producing compelling stories. They hire talented creative individuals who will produce material that can compete with everything else vying for the attention of their audience. Plus, they offer their content teams the opportunity to take calculated risks.
Neuroscientists have made tremendous progress over the past years in understanding and quantifying how different stories affect our brains. They have succeeded in identifying the components of storytelling that have the greatest influence. Nothing else you do actually counts if your content isn’t great.
Want to know more? Have a look at our content marketing strategy essential guide piece for details on how to develop and implement a winning formula.
A Case Study of Content Marketing of a Famous Company
Let us prove that our words are indeed facts with the help of a valid content marketing example. Here’s one of the most successful content marketing case studies with some lessons for all of us:
Capgemini Uses storytelling as part of its content marketing strategy to build connections and generate Sales.
Background
A consulting firm named Capgemini had a serious issue: its consultants’ reputations needed a significant boost since their brand awareness was low. Despite working with some of the biggest names in the industry, like Deloitte, Accenture, and KPMG yet the company’s revenue growth remained sluggish and it was losing ground to rivals.
Executives at Capgemini believed that the solution was spending money on paid advertising in magazines and airports, as well as on professional sponsorship and a brand ambassador. They had observed rival businesses employ this tactic and assumed there was nothing to lose and much to gain.
The Content Marketing Strategy
Rena Patel, manager of digital advertising and brand campaigns and a famous content marketing strategist, has previously used this pricy marketing strategy with poor results. Ms Rena was aware that the brand wasn’t connecting with its audience and that its clients would not be interested in the suggested plan. They didn’t even know the names of the celebrities who the executives wanted to sponsor.
Ms. Rena instead devised a content marketing strategy that would connect Capgemini with its target market on a much smaller budget. She did the job by herself. She mapped out a plan and set a goal to bring in nearly a million additional website users, risking her personal image in the process.
A storytelling website served as the foundation of Rena’s approach to Capgemini. Customers’ genuine queries and problems about subjects like big data and the cloud were addressed on this website.
The Final Outcome
After a year, the website met Rena’s initial objective of bringing close to one million new visits to the company website. Additionally, it resulted in 1.8 million content shares and more than 100,000 new followers for their LinkedIn page. In its first year, that strategy yielded sales of around $1 million, and in its second year, sales of an even more remarkable $5 million. The content marketing initiative pioneered by Rena is now thought to generate a whopping $20 million in revenue annually.
Key Takeaways from Content Marketing Strategy
Sales aren’t always about going analytics. No amount of money can substitute poor client connection. Therefore, always put your audience’s needs first, then focus your resources on a plan that will help you achieve that. Content marketing helps to connect with your customers, while building trust, and finally, generating leads/sales.
Great content marketing requires creativity and unconventional thinking, and that’s where our agency excels. Your content can be far better than 95% of the brands out there in a few weeks time. Hence, whatever your business line is, if you’re looking to implement a winning strategy, ou team, Portuguese Content, can share its insight and let you see the results yourself.
Contact us today for a free quote and we’ll help you determine specific needs for specific results.
Frequently Asked Questions
How expensive is a good content marketing strategy?
Not at all expensive. Let us put it like this: how expensive has it been NOT having a good content marketing strategy? Any strategy will then outperform what you’ve been missing out on. In practical terms, we’ve seen that even a $1,000 monthly budget tends to deliver sustainable growth on deserted platforms with up to 10-20k visitors a month. It takes time and effort and won’t happen overnight, but the ROI is quite impressive.
What sort of content strategy can I get with $5,000?
With a more muscular approach, you’re getting a small team attending to your content needs. We’re talking content writing, copywriting, and social media. There is room to apply good SEO tactics and interact with your users. Think that large/medium companies easily invest 10-20x more. Even though more isn’t always better, it does allow for enough resources allocated to look after your brand.
What sort of guarantees do I get that your content strategy will work?
Our content services are incredibly flexible and we’ve proven that our work delivers results. The first step is ensuring your expectations are well placed, and that is an integral part of our initial strategy design. If you have no strategy yet, you won’t be worse than where you started. On the other hand, if you already rely on a team to do it for you, we tend to prove our worth in 2-3 months. You can stop working with us at any moment and any funds paid upfront will be 100% refunded. Funds already used can’t be refunded, but we’ll happily leave everything in place for the next team to take on from there – not that we believe you’ll need it, but that’s how confident we are about our work.
Can I get a content strategy for my business?
Yes. On every first approach, we’re either asked for simple content services or clients ask us if we can help with their business by developing a unique content strategy. If that’s the case, we like to start by learning more about your business: what you do, what you’ve done in terms of content and where you’d like to move from there. Our initial conversation and quote cost nothing, and we’ll share a few ideas for free before signing any deals that will look after your content needs.
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