If you are the owner of a small business and you’re looking to grow your brand awareness, you must take advantage of the tools the Internet gives you to hit your target audience. No matter what product or service you sell, there is an audience waiting online to be reached through a content marketing strategy. You just have to know where to get started and what to do once you get there. If your content marketing efforts—basically a few blog posts with hardly any engaging content (especially long-form content) or your somewhat tepid dip of the toe into this kind of media—seems to have failed as it hasn’t led to maximizing lead generation, all is not lost. There are three very popular types of content marketing that are sure to drive up traffic and keep the consumers coming back for more. If you wince at phrases like “content marketing campaign,” “valuable content,” “search engines,” and “influencers,” maybe it is time to admit that you are not a marketing guru and employ the services of a marketing team. After all, creating content that works is a constantly shifting, morphing enigma that should be left to content creators and influencers. Interested? Let’s discuss…
One: Social Media and Blogging
Social media and blogging are key to any successful marketing strategy. But where should you post your blog? Well, let us give you a breakdown of the social media sites and apps, why they are beneficial to different businesses, and the demographics of each site.
Tumblr
- Blogging site/app—users can post videos, images, GIFs, text posts, and links.
- Users are usually teens and young adults. Most make less than $75K per year.
- Tumblr is most useful for those whose businesses and products are targeted toward Gen Z and millennial consumers.
Snapchat
- Image and video-oriented app—content disappears within 24 hours.
- Most users are 18–24 years old and female.
- Makeup and clothing brands would be the most popular channels.
- Site/app to share videos, statuses, links, GIFs, and images as part of your marketing strategy.
- Users span all age ranges, but the majority are still younger than 60; 73% of U.S. users make yearly incomes higher than $75,000. 86% of users live outside of the U.S.
- Effective for most businesses.
- Site/app for sharing images and short videos.
- Most users are women
- This platform is effective for marketing clothing, makeup, and food brands.
- Site/app for sharing images, pictorial tutorials, recipes, and infographics.
- 84% of users are women and tablet owners.
- This platform is effective for hair, makeup, food, and fitness brands, in particular.
The key thing to remember when using social media sites is to tag your posts and use keywords in your content. When users search for these specific keywords, your content will be what pops up first. In fact, using them often helps you get to the front page of Google search results.
Two: Video Content
In recent years, the world of video content has exploded and almost all content marketers worth their salt have moved in this direction. YouTube and Vine captured the attention and devotion of many people of all age ranges. In fact, most consumers on social media spend one-third of their time watching videos, whether they are on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Snapchat. That is a lot of time, and it is certainly a big market you’re currently missing out on. Are you still unsure of whether this is for you? Take a look at this.
Video Marketing Facts and Statistics
- YouTube is the second most popular search engine (the first one being Google).
- 87% of video marketers are using videos to bring attention to their businesses.
- Businesses that put out video content have reported seeing a 54% increase in their brand awareness.
- Almost half of the potential consumers look up videos about businesses and products to assist them in making decisions about whether or not to purchase a product or service.
- 84% of consumers purchase a product after watching informative videos or ads about it.
That should definitely help solidify your marketing campaign decision to reach more potential customers. You want to start creating video content to market your business and products, but now you need to know what kinds of videos draw positive attention to you the most. We will go over the different types of video marketing strategies and how they can help you.
Effective Types of Video Content
- Tutorial and demonstration videos. These are most useful for products that people need to see “in action” to determine quality. For example, a large portion of YouTube videos and blog videos are dedicated to testing out makeup products. If you are selling makeup, either have someone model the products on your channel or send PR packages to beauty YouTubers and have them raise brand awareness among their followers.
- Testimonials. These involve using past consumers to say positive things about your brand through digital marketing. People would rather hear it from someone who has already tried the product than the person selling it. There is more of a sense of honesty and trust in that because the audience knows that brands will always say positive things about their own merchandise. Other consumers will not.
- Ads. Ads are tried and true methods of bringing in consumers. There’s a reason we have been using them for decades. The only difference between then and now is that you can reach a wider audience faster through a different marketing platform.
How to Create Successful Video Content
- Short videos hold the interest and attention of consumers, especially audiences between the ages of 18 and 40. Anything longer than two minutes begins to bore them. Some videos can even be as short as a few seconds if you just want to hook them and leave them asking for more. Compare the latter strategy to the success of the Vine video app.
- Leave the audience with sufficient information, but leave them wanting more. This will drive up traffic to your site when potential consumers ask questions.
Three: Memes
Memes have become quite prominent in pop culture in recent years. What, exactly, is a meme? It is a picture or GIF (animated video without sound) often captioned with a witty and relatable comment. Good memes will go viral more than any other content because they are shareable and eye-catching. Here are some examples:
- “Off-Ramp”
- “Change My Mind”
- “Gru’s Plan”
These memes usually have blank templates in which you can write your own content. Make it relevant to the brand, but still humorous. It draws attention to you in a way that is positive and unique. Your content will stand out among the plain background of text ads done by other businesses.
One thing to remember: meme trends change quickly. You need to be able to keep up. If younger crowds find that your content is outdated, they will quickly lose interest and move on. Instead of seeming cool and up-to-date, you will look like this.
As you can see, there are so many ways you can reach out to potential your target audience both young and old to grow your business traffic and reputation. Marketing and content creation are often free to do! You will save money, and your business will continue to grow. Above all, remember that your marketing efforts really do count!
