Content drives marketing. Today’s businesses rely more heavily on Internet Marketing than ever before. Corporations today are trying to maximize their marketing budgets to reach an ever growing population in need of their products and services. Traditional advertising, while still profitable and useful, has always been a barrier for smaller companies that do not have the finances to launch multi-million dollar campaigns. The internet has enabled small businesses to compete with larger entities through online marketing and has leveled the playing field in regards to how companies reach their audience. Brand awareness and trust are still paramount when it comes to building a relationship between a company and its customers, and the traditional one-way communication from years past has given way to near real-time, two-way communications via the use of social media marketing though sites such as Facebook and Twitter. More users are turning to the internet to conduct research at manufacturer’s websites and gain information from friends and acquaintances before making purchasing decisions.
These trends are growing and by 2016, according to Forrester Research, Inc., “more than half of the dollars spent in US retail will be influenced by the Web” Mulpuru, 2012. If the web is influencing purchasing decisions currently and is continuing to grow, how can small businesses ensure they are reaching their potential customers? In today’s media saturated society, finding the correct information can be a difficult task. While many people turn to search engines for content discovery, these results may not deliver the content your customers want or need. Today’s businesses need to develop a plan that will enable them to “create, deliver, and manage content their customers find useful and that they can use when making a purchasing decision” Halvorson 2008. This concept is known as a Digital Content Strategy Plan. By thinking about content is delivered, steps can be taken to improve existing content by producing quality content writing or developing an internal content strategy template. Businesses that are able to deliver valuable, relevant information to their potential clients increase their brand awareness and increase sales.
In order to create valuable information that is relevant to potential customers, a business must first determine who their customers are and what their customers want. By conducting adequate research, a company can gain valuable insights into how to best meet the needs of their customers. If the company manufactures a product, this research can help find a niche in the marketplace, determine correct pricing, or alter the manufacture of a product to suit different market segments. While many large corporations can afford to conduct focus group testing with many different groups, small businesses generally do not have the capital to do so. By using the internet and various social tools, small businesses can gain valuable insight into the demographics of their potential customers. Once a company knows who they are targeting, they can begin creating their content and online marketing strategy. As Rachel Lovinger points out, content is not only written text but also encompasses imagery, audio, video, motion graphics, design, and anything else created to provide information to potential customers Lovinger, 2007. In a nutshell, anything you create that is about your company, its products, or its services can be considered content.
This content is used in various ways on the internet to drive traffic back to the company’s website or a product landing page and must be of high enough quality to keep the customer on page long enough to provide the information to them. Creating high quality content is not easy and there are companies that claim to be “internet marketing companies” who focus only on getting to the top of Google results pages without creating compelling content. These companies have a habit of referring to content as “fluff” that is used only for page rankings. This makes sense to small business owners because these so-called internet marketing companies show how higher ranked sites get so many clicks per month while lower ranked sites do not. While this ranking is important, one must always think about the customer. Why are they coming to a particular site?
If the site is a product site, chances are good customers are either looking for information or looking to make a purchase. Selling a product online can be akin to buying a car. If a customer walks into a car dealership looking for a new car and the salesperson says, “We sell cars. We sell blue ones, red ones, black ones, and white ones,” how likely is it that the customer will purchase from that dealership? It’s not likely because there are many different car dealerships that offer the same types of cars. Unfortunately, this happens with companies who hire poor content writers. Companies must not fall into the trap of content creation for the purpose of rankings. When creating content, care must be taken to create high quality content. High quality content is content that, “builds links, relationships, and lasting value” DeMers, 2012. Links, relationships, and lasting value are all building blocks a company can use to increase their brand awareness.
This is Part 1 in a Multi-Part series on Quality Content.
