This article explores content marketing, particularly the different strategies that could work in 2021. It discusses content marketing objectives as the brand product and service. Also, it explains the use of business media channels, and phenomenon like artificial intelligence in enhancing effective brand content marketing.
What Strategies Will You Need For Content Marketing In 2021?
Have you ever heard of the phrase “Content is King”? If you are a keen observer of the digital market, you would know this claim is valid.
The reason is not far-fetched. Content tells stories and stories catch people’s attention. So, to be a strong voice in the digital space, you must tame the power of content marketing. With the many advanced growths that content marketing has experienced in the past few decades, you need to strategize on the best content plan for your brand. This is so as not to get lost in the crowd.
So, how then do you know the content marketing strategies that will help you stand out in 2021? This article sheds more light on this.
BRAND POSITIONING
To use content marketing to your leverage, you don’t just start creating content. You must first work on your brand positioning. Brand positioning involves distinguishing yourself from your competitors in the market. It is also the way you get your consumer to recognize and reach out to your brand.
Activating a strong brand position for yourself is the very first step to effectively building content marketing strategies in 2021. It is the pointy end of content marketing that people come in contact with.
To be blunt, there are many people doing the same things that you do or selling the same thing you sell in the market. To get people’s attention via content marketing, you have to give them a reason to turn in your direction. This can be through your graphic designs, your brand’s character on social media, the content tone, etc.
OWNED MEDIA VALUE PROPOSITION
Owned media is a twin of the marketing media triplets of POEM (Paid, Owned, Earned Media). For your brand, your owned media channels are the ones which you have complete marketing control over such as:
- website or blogs,
- social media,
- email lists,
- created content etc.
Creating a value proposition for owned digital media such as website traffic, email newsletter signups or even conversion rates can be quite difficult. However, it is not impossible. Since your value proposition is what you bring to the table as your unique “why” a consumer should engage your business, owned media can be a strong feature in the proposition.
To rise high on the content marketing landscape in 2021, you have to realize that owned media are your mouthpieces. You should leverage content marketing on channels like your blog, social media, email newsletter so as to invite consumers to your unique salespoint.
GROW CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Building communities should be a strategy you put in place for your content marketing in 2021. The rationale for this is that with your content, you create communities of potential customers. And the more this community grows, you have an equally growing pool of leads.
Usually, brands create communities via the use of their owned media channels, especially social media. The communities interact with the uniqueness of the brand via released content tailored towards the niche of people in this community. These people are known as the target audience.
Building content communities help to create what is otherwise known as a fanbase. Some of which are:
- converting others offline to join the community,
- reducing advertising costs and
- increasing social media engagement as well as traffic to products.
Via this, the leads and conversion rate of your brand increases significantly.
THE USE OF LIVE VIDEOS AND WEBINARS
The use of live videos and webinars has become a sure way of generating leads for brands within the past 5 years. And to enhance your content marketing strategies for 2021, you should consider incorporating the use of opportunities like Instagram live video chats, Clubhouse events or Twitter Spaces.
One of the reasons for this is because people want a face and voice to the brand. Hence, live videos and webinars make potential customers connect deeper with the brand and under it better.
Frequent use of a webinar strategy would create more avenues for people to ask questions about the brand and get them answered almost immediately.
SWITCH UP THE CONTENT EXPERIENCE
In observing most blog trends, it appears that most brands and businesses don’t make efforts to switch up their content experience. Leads can get easily bored of unchanging content, losing interest quickly. This is especially true in an era of short attention span like the 21st century.
You should try out many content ideas that are fit for your target audience. Examples could be the videos and webinars mentioned above, infographics, slideshows, or even memes. This could be done with the infusion of copywriting and engagement of search optimization services for your content. It would help to sustain the audience’s attention.
The use of brilliant visual designs also contributes to the content experience. How web design impacts content marketing is psychological. It endears or repels the customer. It also has some weight to how long a customer will interact with the brand’s content.
DRIVE ATTENTION TO YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Which of the following best describes content marketing? Is it marketing the products and services of the business or marketing the visual designs of the brand? If you chose the former, you are right.
It is important not to make the mistake of creating content around just anything as a brand. The strongest of your content marketing objectives should be to increase sales and conversion for your products. Hence, the content should be targeted towards that.
Products and services should be at the heart of every content created. Content should be to bring the attention of the audience to the unique value proposition of your brand and authority in your products and services.
THE USE OF AI-POWERED CONTENT
As a business or brand, one content strategy you should definitely not rule out is the use of artificial intelligence in your content. Largely, AI helps to personalize content to audiences and customers. This would influence them and increase engagement.
A relatable example of this is Facebook Ads, which recommends marketing campaigns to Facebook users based on their interaction and interests on the social media platform. This makes them more interested in engaging with such content, because it relates deeply to their interests.
The introduction of AI, machine learning, and deep learning in the marketing space is gaining traction. And they will undoubtedly be further developed to accommodate new marketing realities. Hence, you could test out AI-powered content in your content marketing strategies in 2021.
Having said this, while it’s not exactly in infancy, AI in content marketing is still fairly new, and far from perfect. A mix of AI and human created content is still a more viable business model at this time.
CONCLUSION
Content is king. Content marketing is the kingmaker. Effective strategies make kings of brands in the content marketing world. You should try out using the ones recommended above. You will find them of great help in your 2021 content marketing strategies.
