Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools you have in your arsenal as a business. It can help build a strong relationship with your customers, create a positive image for your brand, and drive traffic to your website.
But content marketing isn’t just all about writing great articles and posting them online. It’s also about understanding the context in which your content will be seen.
This means understanding the audience you’re targeting, the platform on which your content will be published, and the environment in which it will be viewed. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of context marketing and why it matters to say the right thing to the right people at the right time for your content marketing strategy to work.
Understanding contextual marketing
Content that is likable, readable, relevant, and shareable is at the heart of getting that much-needed bump of approval from search engines if you are to make it to the top spot. This is what convinces search engines that you’re an authority on a particular topic and should get rewarded by being more visible in the search results.
Effective content writing is not just a good piece of article that people will want to read. It also needs to be something convincing enough for them to want to take action— hence, the importance of context in an effective marketing scheme.
A strong context marketing campaign can bring about such benefits as improving your click-through rates, increasing loyalty to your brand, as well as increasing your overall conversion rate. Since you are delivering a message that is of relevance to your target audience, it reduces annoyance and frustration which can significantly decrease your bounce rate.
Elevating your marketing efforts using context
At the heart of a successful context marketing strategy is content. However, instead of just being concerned about how to write for SEO, now more than ever, you will consider the specific audience, platforms, and situations in which you’re delivering the content so it will make the impact you want. To elevate your content marketing efforts, consider the following:
Get to know your audience
It is important to remember that regardless of the type of business you operate, your target will always be a person. That person will have certain needs, fears, priorities, wants, and hopes which could constantly evolve depending on their specific situation in life.
Your content is only going to work if it is written with empathy for the people it is intended to reach. You’ll need to offer something of importance, interest, and significance to your target audience or they will not pay attention to what you have to say.
This is where information gathering will be most relevant. To get to know your audience better, you’ll need to know not just their demographics but also their preferences, frustrations, needs, their online behavior, preferred digital content, as well as the kinds of questions they are asking when they make online queries.
Personalize your campaigns
Thanks to automation tools, it is easy to just come up with a message blast to potential customers and just hope that a percentage of those you’ve reached out to will read them, check out what you have to say, and sign up. However, refining your messages to make them more personalized will bring about better results.
This doesn’t mean you have to ditch email marketing automation or other similar digitalization tools in your arsenal. You will still use them only this time, in a more refined and targeted manner. For instance, email campaigns should be automated while taking into account the customer’s time zone, demographics, and most recent purchases among others.
Create content that answers consumers’ questions
It doesn’t matter what search engine people were using to make queries online. Even when they click a specific hashtag on social media, it still means that they are looking for specific information because they have a question that needs to be answered.
For your content to be effective, it needs to effectively answer these customers’ questions. Actively creating specific content based on the questions being searched online is crucial if you want to enjoy the rewards of these online users paying your website a visit.
If you still haven’t, this may be a good time to go over all the content already published on your website. Do a content audit to make sure that everything is still current and relevant and to update them accordingly if they no longer are not. For instance, if you have a blog about Japan where you’ve not only talked about Japanese life but also places to visit, make it a point to keep updating your content to make sure they are still current and relevant.
Engage your audience
Initiating two-way communication with your target audience is essential. This is where your social media platforms can play a crucial role. Since these channels allow brands to directly engage with their audience, it becomes so much easier to communicate with them, answer their questions, address their concerns, and resolve their problems in real-time.
In picking a social platform, take into consideration what your target audience prefers and how it will work for the type of business you run. It wouldn’t hurt to consider some essential social media best practices to get the most out of the channel.
Always have a purpose
There is just no way you can create effective content without having clear goals in mind. A piece of content that does not have a clear goal established will just be effort gone to waste because you do not even have a clear notion about what you want to achieve in the first place.
Content goals could be letting your audience know of new products or services you are offering, emphasizing a call to action, or encouraging customers to take advantage of a special offer. It could also be a piece that emphasizes where you stand on certain topics relevant to your business or it could just be a general entertainment piece that is meant to elicit a positive reaction and engagement from your audience.
Context is key to successful marketing campaigns
Content marketing is one of the most important strategies that businesses can use to reach their target audience. However, for truly good content to reach its intended target, it needs to be relevant. This is where context comes into play.
It is not enough that you have a good message. It needs to be the right message, said to the right audience, and delivered to them at the right time. When you get all these boxes ticked off, then you have truly harnessed the power of effective content marketing.