As customers change their habits and preferences, marketing trends follow suit to reflect these shifting needs. In much the same way, brands adapt their entire strategies in order to appeal to their target demographic and stay relevant in their market. The one constant in all of these changes and shifts? The relevance and unfaltering reign of content.
No matter how many shiny new ideas come to light and how many marketing gimmicks help your brand position itself better, content will never lose its power to help build your image, reputation, and identity. In fact, most new marketing and branding strategies that we create inherently depend on some form of content creation. Social media stories? You need visual content. New web design ideas? You still need great copy and keyword optimization.
If you’ve been neglecting content creation, you’ve likely reduced your chances to increase brand awareness and relevance. To get you to the right side of content creation once again, learn more about how content impacts your business, and how you can use it to grow your brand in 2021.
Building customer engagement
Every industry is competitive to a different degree, but any competitor’s presence can wreak havoc on your chances to earn the spotlight and get people to interact with your business. It doesn’t even have to result in a purchase, but interactions in general are vital for building customer relationships that enable trust, loyalty, and of course, profit.
Content is an essential component in empowering such engagement. Social media posts, website blogs, infographics, case studies, all the way to comments – content gives you the opportunity to interact with your website visitors and social followers. Whenever they share or comment on one of your posts, the ball is in your court, and you’re expected to produce more content in the form of a response that gets the conversation going.
Establishing your authority
It takes time and continuous, consistent effort to build your brand’s reputation in your industry, both among your peers and your customers. You also need content in the mix. Thanks to its versatility, content is the perfect vessel for positioning your brand very carefully in your market.
Educational content is ideal for providing free value to your audience, while at the same time establishing yourself as the authority in the industry.
Posting about your latest certifications and training helps notify your followers of what you’re doing to earn their trust.
Answering questions on forums, responding to customer queries, and similar interactions all require on-brand content creation that ultimately transforms your image into one of expertise.
Of course, content can’t do much if you fail to meet your customers’ expectations and standards in terms of your services or products. Once you do, content is the ideal source of nurturing that reputation for the long haul.
Boosting your ranking
Your digital presence largely impacts your entire reputation and your ability to reach your target customers. To achieve that, you need to work on your SEO strategy, and the very core of SEO is, you’ve guessed it, content creation. When you invest time and effort into effective content marketing for your brand, you actively contribute to optimizing your digital presence to impress search engines and rank higher.
Ongoing content writing allows you to optimize your website for all the right keywords, which means more people will be able to find you online.
Content helps you rank for other search types, such as voice search, making your brand visible for those who use voice assistants.
Posting content on social media allows you to link back to your site and engage customers, and the more people show interest in your site through your social media content, the more search engines will recognize your relevance in your industry.
Improving brand recognition and awareness
Whether you’re running a fitness app, an e-commerce store, or a local beauty salon, content is the main outlet for your business to build brand recognition and market awareness. When you want to promote your business on social media, you need stellar content to capture your customers’ interest, and to inspire them to remember your brand for future reference.
Ongoing content creation on all platforms allows you to consistently engage with your audience and to slowly make your name known in your market and industry. The more people share your content, the more new potential customers will come across your business. As you consistently produce blogs, social content, emails, and everything else that falls under the scope of content, your brand’s visuals and voice will be embedded into your customers’ hearts and minds.
Building brand ambassadors through content
Content creation that benefits your brand is by no means limited to your business alone. In fact, in recent years, the more content you allow others to create, the better it will be for your business.
Entice customer reviews to publish on your site and third-party platforms to build up your reputation through their words.
Create campaigns to inspire people to produce content with your products or brand name tagged in images, blogs, and reviews.
Work with influencers and employees to create brand awareness through their original content output.
When others gladly post content about your business, you’re building brand ambassadors and supporters whose words will resonate with those who haven’t yet decided to trust your brand. This is the main way to tip the scales in your favor.
The phrase might be a cliché, but it’s a cliché for all the listed reasons, and many more that can’t fit into a single blog post. Content has built its own reputation and relevance over the years and the people have spoken: the more quality content you produce and the more you strategically put it to use, the better your chances are of growing your business. Now it’s up to you to apply the knowledge you have and leverage content to your advantage.