In a world where there is a lot of content produced on a daily basis, you need something more than just great content in order to appeal to your audience. Many companies produce content without ever knowing their audience first. This is a common mistake among many marketers, but all is not lost. We’re witnessing more and more examples of companies getting content marketing right. It is about adopting the right strategies before you even produce content. Today, everyone can create and publish content. The question is: does your content speak to your audience? Even the most brilliant falls short if it targeted at the wrong audience. Find your niche, create fresh and relevant content. Only then can you create your own base of loyal followers, your own tribe.
Back in the day, most companies had a straightforward approach to marketing: come up with a great idea to advertise the product, find a slogan, put an ad on the local newspaper or air it on TV, and then wait for the customers to pour in their shops. Fast forward to today: marketing has gotten more and more sophisticated. Customers are more demanding and competition is getting fierce. The emerging digital marketing technologies, however, are leveling the playing field. Stiff competition among the providers of digital marketing platforms means more quality and cheaper prices for companies that want to implement such technologies. Still, the need for fresh and high-quality content remains.
Getting to know your audience is easier said than done. You need to produce great content on a regular basis. Your content has to resonate with your audience’s hopes and desires. Almost all companies claim they produce brilliant content, and if that’s true, why a few companies thrive and others just start fading away? Those companies who do succeed have a clear strategy before they start producing content. It isn’t just the quality of the content they produce; the content they produce is meaningful, it solves customer’s problems. That’s what most people look for in a company, after all: honesty, authenticity and trustworthiness. Your content has to convey these values. Great content only gets you so far: you need meaningful content.
The temptation to produce more and more content can sometimes be detrimental to your company’s marketing strategy. As the saying goes, “quality over quantity.” You have to make sure your content is fresh and relevant. Today, customers are less and less patient. You have to provide fast and instant access to your content, across all devices. If your website loading time is slow, visitors will leave and look elsewhere to find answers to their questions- no matter how helpful and relevant your content might be. Remember, when visiting your site, customers trade the most important asset they have: time. Make sure the content answers their questions, the dilemmas they may have. If your content makes your readers’ lives better, if it solves their problems, then you’re on the right path to success.
In today’s digital era, customers are getting more and more demanding. Since they have a lot of sources they can get their information from, it is your duty to make them come to you. Audiences, in a way, have gotten more dynamic, more diverse. What worked yesterday may be completely obsolete today. People can and do changes their mind in the blink of an eye. They might not know exactly what they want from you, but they give hints all the time. For example, a visitor goes to your website, sees a certain product and the price, and then adds it to the shopping cart. For some reason, he abandons the cart. Did the visitor change his mind? Maybe. You never know until you ask. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system would help you track the visitor, give you insight about his behavior and then you can act accordingly.
In Flexie CRM, you can automatically send follow-up emails to leads. Maybe the visitor wanted something else, or maybe he wasn’t sure about the product, the price or something else. You can run A/B test and create custom reports to see which emails have got the highest open rate, and which have the lowest.
The more dynamic your audience is, the more prepared you need to be. You have to be there for them, talk to them, answer their questions and use the tools provided by the CRM to boost engagement, offer constant nurturing and deliver an amazing customer experience. Producing fresh and relevant content is only one part of the equation: the other part is ensuring your audience engages with you. Audiences may get even more dynamic in the future. As long as you produce fresh and high-quality content, and add to that the powerful tools offered by a CRM, you will have that competitive edge you need in order to thrive. Fresh and personalized content will win the day- no matter how dynamic the audiences may become.
To stay updated with the latest features, news and how-to articles and videos, please join our group on Facebook, Flexie CRM Academy.