Creative content marketing is a way of creating and distributing content that is not only valuable, relevant, and consistent, but also original, innovative, and entertaining.
Creative content marketing can help you stand out from the crowd. It can help you attract and engage your audience and drive profitable customer action. In this article, we will explore the benefits and challenges of creative content marketing. And how you can implement it for your own business.
Why Creative Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a powerful and effective way to market your business. However, it is also becoming more competitive and saturated.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their strategy. This means that you are not only competing with your direct rivals but also with thousands of other businesses and individuals who are creating and sharing content online.
To succeed in content marketing, you need to differentiate yourself from the noise. And you can do that by capturing the attention and interest of your audience. This is where creative content marketing comes in.
Creative content marketing is not about following the rules or copying the best practices. Rather, it is about breaking the mold and surprising your audience with something new, different, and remarkable. Creative content marketing can help you:
Increase Your Brand Awareness
Creative content marketing can help you reach and attract more potential customers. By creating and distributing content that showcases your brand’s personality, values, and uniqueness.
Creative content marketing can also help you improve your search engine rankings, social media presence, and word-of-mouth referrals. It could be done by creating and sharing content that is viral, shareable, and memorable.
Build Your Customer Loyalty
Creative content marketing can help you retain and nurture your existing customers by creating and delivering valuable content.
Creative content marketing can also help you increase your customer satisfaction, retention, and advocacy, by creating and fostering a community of loyal and engaged fans and followers.
Drive Your Sales and Revenue
Creative content marketing can help you convert and close more leads. It can help you create and offer content that educates, informs, or entertains your prospects. And guides them through the buyer’s journey.
Creative content marketing can also help you increase your sales and revenue. It could be done by creating and promoting content that showcases your products or services and encourages your customers to take action.
How to do Creative Content Marketing?
Creative content marketing is not easy. It requires a lot of planning, research, creativity, and execution. It also requires a lot of testing, measuring, and optimizing. Here are some tips and steps on how to do creative content marketing for your business:
Know Your Audience
The first step of creative content marketing is to understand your target audience, and their needs, wants, challenges, preferences, and behavior. You can use tools such as surveys, interviews, analytics, and personas to gather data about your audience. This will help you create and deliver content that is relevant, useful, and appealing to them.
Define Your Goals
The second step is to define your content marketing goals. Such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, boosting sales, or building loyalty. You should also define your key performance indicators (KPIs). Such as traffic, engagement, conversion, or revenue, to measure and evaluate your content marketing success.
Create Your Content
The third step of creative content marketing is to create your content, based on your audience’s needs and your goals.
You should choose the format and channel that best suits your audience’s preferences and behavior. Such as blogs, videos, podcasts, ebooks, newsletters, webinars, infographics, case studies, white papers, and more.
You should also use your targeted keyword in your content. To optimize it for search engines and attract more organic traffic. However, you should not use the keyword for an excessive amount of time.
As it could lead to keyword stuffing.
You should also use easy-to-read and small words. And avoid consecutive sentences. All these will make your content more readable and engaging.
Here are some examples of creative content marketing formats and channels:
Blogs
Blogs are one of the most popular and versatile forms of content marketing. They can cover a wide range of topics, formats, and styles. You can use blogs to educate, inform, or entertain your audience, and to showcase your expertise, authority, and credibility.
You can also use blogs to generate leads, by offering free downloads, trials, or consultations, in exchange for your audience’s contact information.
For example, HubSpot, a marketing software company, uses its blog to provide valuable and relevant information and tips on marketing, sales, and customer service, and to offer free ebooks, templates, and tools, to capture leads.
Videos
Videos are one of the most engaging and effective forms of content marketing, as they can convey complex or emotional messages in a simple and captivating way.
You can use videos to educate, inform, or entertain your audience, and to showcase your products, services, or stories. You can also use videos to drive sales, by adding calls to action, such as links, buttons, or coupons, to encourage your audience to buy your products or services.
For example, Dollar Shave Club, a razor subscription service, used a video to introduce its brand, explain its value proposition, and persuade its audience to sign up for its service, in a humorous and memorable way.
Podcasts
Podcasts are one of the most convenient and personal forms of content marketing, as they can be consumed anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
You can use podcasts to educate, inform, or entertain your audience, and to showcase your personality, voice, and opinions. You can also use podcasts to build loyalty, by creating and fostering a community of listeners, who can interact with you and each other, through comments, reviews, or social media.
For example, Shopify, an e-commerce platform, uses its podcast to provide valuable and relevant information and stories on entrepreneurship and to create and nurture a community of entrepreneurs.
Distribute Your Content
The fourth step of creative content marketing is to distribute your content, across various channels and platforms, such as search engines, social media, email, and more.
You should choose the channel and platform that best suits your content’s format and style, and your audience’s preferences and behavior.
You should also use tools such as SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, and content syndication, to optimize, promote, and amplify your content, and to reach and attract more potential customers.
Analyze Your Content
The fifth and final step of creative content marketing is to analyze your content, based on your KPIs, such as traffic, engagement, conversion, or revenue.
You should use tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or HubSpot, to collect and interpret data about your content’s performance and impact.
You should also use tools such as surveys, feedback, or testimonials, to collect and understand your audience’s opinions and satisfaction. This will help you evaluate and improve your content marketing strategy, and to achieve your content marketing goals.
Summary
Creative content marketing is a way of creating and distributing content that is not only valuable, relevant, and consistent, but also original, innovative, and entertaining. Creative content marketing can help you grow your business, by increasing your brand awareness, building your customer loyalty, and driving your sales and revenue.
However, creative content marketing is not easy. It requires a lot of planning, research, creativity, and execution. It also requires a lot of testing, measuring, and optimizing.
That’s why you need professional and reliable web design services to help you with your creative content marketing strategy.