When a lot of businesses consider creating content, their first thought is often social media. Social media marketing is a huge part of marketing campaigns for businesses today, but it is by no means the only place where content should be created for.
Content should play a key role for businesses in guiding the customer journey. From initially capturing the attention to checking in with a customer in the after-sales process, there are always opportunities to enhance your interactions with content. But getting this right takes planning, direction and thought.
All of your content should have a “why” behind it. Why do you want to make it? What is its purpose? Are you just doing it because someone told you it was a good idea, or does it have real motivation behind it? A cohesive and well thought-out plan for your content can completely transform the way your business interacts with clients. Content isn’t an afterthought or something to focus on if you get around to it. It should be a priority to grow your brand, increase your sales and drive your business forward!
I said that content isn’t just for social media - but there is a place for social media content!
Social media offers a free platform for promoting your business, reaching new clients and building relationships. There is one thing that content for social media should do above all else, though: engage your audience!
On social media, businesses have to battle for the attention of clients not only with competitors, but with everything else that is being shared! So it’s important that social media content has an interesting visual style and is short and snappy. This captures attention and keeps it there!
But social media content shouldn’t be made purely for the sake of capturing attention. There is scope to add value, too. With educational, entertaining or useful content you will build up a trusting relationship between your clients and your business. So once you’ve captured the attention, your goal should be to keep it there with value-adding content.
Read up on our advice for social media content.
Your website plays a crucial role in your customer journey. Prospective clients may land on your website after searching for the products or services you provide, or perhaps after seeing a social media post. This means that by the time someone enters your website they’re already further along the customer journey than if they’re seeing your social media posts. You don’t need to focus so much on capturing attention, rather the aim should be to add value. If someone has entered your website this is your chance to impress and convince them that your products or services are what they have been looking for.
To make your website as appealing and effective as possible it should do these things:
- Explain what your business does.
- Connect visitors with your business and your people.
- Educate and engage.
If it does these things you will see conversion rates increase and sales as a result. Some good ideas for the type of content you should be using on your website include: tutorials, FAQs, testimonials and team bios.
Read more about how to increase conversion rates through your website.
Email campaigns are a great way to build a trusting and personal relationship between your business and customers. They offer a way to directly communicate with someone, so content for email marketing should be tailored to this use. This separates email marketing from social media marketing or paid ads.
In most cases, if someone is receiving an email they’ll know about your business. Again, this is different from social media marketing. You don’t need to focus so much on making your brand recognisable or memorable. Customers will be familiar with you already, so they’ll be further along in the customer journey. This means your focus should be different in accordance with this.
Here are some ideas for types of content that you could include:
As you can see, content can play an important and varied role in many aspects of your business. Throughout the customer journey, on multiple platforms, content can transform the way your business interacts with clients. Having a plan for how you want to use your content to enhance these interactions can give your business the edge over your competitors and generate trusting, long-term relationships between you and your customers.
Get in touch to see how we can improve your content strategy!
