by Alex Lazear
Marketing at its core is telling a story, the story of your company, your products and services, and the customers you serve. Storytelling allows you to connect in a mutually beneficial way, to find partners to work with you. Content marketing is about reaching those core audiences and connecting with them in a way that speaks to the niche of what you do, and how others talk about your brand. Ensuring creative and unique content is not only the goal of modern content marketing, but it’s also essential to its success.
Finding a niche
You already have a niche. It’s the product or service you provide. But finding a voice, a unique way of reaching your audience, is based on more than that. Potential clients or customers are looking for something that speaks to them. They want to not only receive information from your content, they want to enjoy reading it. Finding your niche is about finding out what makes your client interested in you.
There’s no such thing as one size fits all
Once upon a time, the goal of content marketing was attracting the attention of a broad swath of potential customers. Patterns arose for how to produce content that applied to everyone. The problem is that in the digital age everyone is producing content, which is directed toward the same targeted audiences. People are reaching content exhaustion, unless the content is exceptionally good. Every company needs to find their own unique voice in order to stand out from the cacophony of voices cluttering up the digital airways. What works for one company won’t work all.
Your niche is going to have a certain way of communicating, and personifying that voice is essential to creating the content which will not only attract an audience, but convince them that you are worth building a long-term, and credible relationship. A voice can be fun and goofy, intellectual and professional, or any spectrum in-between. What is important is that the audience not only has a reason to view your content but wants to.
More than just words
Not all content is writing. Sometimes it can include videos, images, Gifs, or audio. But every piece needs to draw in your audience from the very moment they lay eyes on it. Every blog post needs an inviting headline, every image an interesting reason for existing, and every video an engaging opening shot. Mediocre content is a dime a dozen. Having content that not only looks professional but speaks to your clientele, is key to not only speaking to your niche but claiming it as your own.
Location, location, location
Where is your audience seeing your content? Is it on social media, and if so which platform? Are audiences connecting with you on your website? Your content channels will affect not only who sees specific items, but how each piece is produced. Social media platforms work better for short, pithy written work and visual media, while content hosted on your website can be longer and more thoroughly produced. Your voice can remain the same, but the style of content needs to grow and change based on the channels that are connecting with the viewer.
Location is also about the core goal of the content. Informative content that drives sales is better suited to a website, while information delivered in quick bursts is better for social media. What should remain the same with each piece delivered is that the content should welcome the viewer to want to learn more about you. It should draw them to your physical location or the easiest way to connect with you.
Content marketing can be fun, it can be engaging, and it can be unique. It need not only draw the consumer in but also connect with them and present them with meaningful offers. A great campaign is measured in how it drives sales, how the viewers are responding to it, and its creativity. This is a unique balancing act, but not an impossible one. With right partners by your side, it can be an invigorating and rewarding process.
