In a competitive marketplace, businesses of all sizes should place as much emphasis on content marketing as they do direct advertising.
The purpose of content marketing is to raise brand awareness, as well as fuel interest, educate and inspire consumers through shared knowledge. Content marketing is a low-cost method in staying relevant and top of mind for consumers.
What is Content Marketing?
Content Marketing is an umbrella term that covers the range of strategies and processes which makes use of content and brand assets to maintain communication with consumers.
Generating brand awareness, retention and loyalty is at the heart of content marketing – keeping current customers engaged and capturing the attention of potential customers.
Content Marketing is not trying to sell a product or service, it’s selling your brand, values, and ethos.
Why You Should Embrace Content Marketing
Aside from brand building, creating awareness and fostering loyalty, content marketing strategies are set in place to meet a range of objectives. These objectives may include:
- Relationship building
- Educating
- Generating new leads
- Increasing visibility and authority
With over 70% of companies using content marketing in their overall activity (HubSpot 2022), it makes sense to embrace this valuable marketing method for your brand.
Content Marketing is useful across all platforms. A printed brochure might inspire and educate whilst blogs and infographics may make your website more ‘crawlable’ by search engine bots so that organic site traffic growth can be achieved.
What Exactly is Content?
Content marketing makes use of brand content (aka assets) to inform, educate, and inspire consumers.
Mention of ‘content’ refers to the form the messaging occupies, which can be any of the below:
- Blogs/articles
- Videos
- Social media content: static posts, videos, reels
- Email direct marketing (eDMs)
- Infographics
- How-to guides
- Buying guides
- eBooks
- Online quizzes/games
- Podcasts
Content can either be short-form or long-form, with each to be considered depending on your marketing strategy and the platform used.
- Short form content: aims to inspire or raise awareness, for example, social media posts, social videos
- Long form content: aims to educate and inform, for example, blogs, eDMS, buying guides, ebooks etc
Does Content Marketing Impact Online Visibility?
Put simply, yes. If your business is online, content marketing has a direct correlation with online visibility, site traffic and SEO.
There are some key advantages of content marketing to a brand’s online visibility including establishing authority, building brand awareness, increasing website traffic and user engagement, and adaptability to algorithm changes.
With research showing that only 33% of high-performing blogs are easy to read (Semrush 2023), sharing well-written content consistently, especially if it helps to answer search queries, are easier to find and read by search engine bots that crawl through endless amount of content. Quality content shared on a regular basis means greater visibility and organic traffic to your site and online platforms like social media accounts.
The MM Experience
At MM, our experienced team can assist in creating your content strategy, produce all elements of your content marketing needs, then share and amplify them via the appropriate platforms.
There are many ways to approach marketing of your brand, product or service. We work with you to understand what your needs are and the methods you would like to apply for your content marketing.
Content Strategies and Media Planning
At MM, our team work closely and collaboratively with our valued clients and publisher partners to ensure the style of article, along with the tone and content covered will resonate positively with the intended audience, whilst always respecting the brand’s core values and ensuring the article is a representation of this. – Angela Petersen, Media Director
Every brief for content is unique, and thus will influence the media chosen to amplify your content marketing. With regard to paid content via digital publishers, there are two key ways to approach – via native or advertorial.
Native articles are formatted to blend in with the website’s natural content, with no specific product or brand mentions made within. Our paid association with the article is through the media surrounding the article for a more subtle connection, as well as the topic of the content loosely tying into the product being advertised. An advertorial in contrast, has more client involvement within the actual body of the content, with overt brand and product associations referenced clearly.
As to the right style to choose, it largely depends on the topic of discussion, as typically native articles receive more clicks and reads than advertorials, but there is limited and minimal control from a client on how it is written and the direct mention between the topic, and product on offer.
Creative and Conceptualisation
Creative content is one that is effective and engaging, with the audience top of mind. Addressing customer pain points or the benefits as opposed to merely features, coupled with a unique and memorable execution are key to engagement and traffic.
MM is blessed with a highly creative and diverse team, whose ideas merge, evolve, mould, divide, challenge. Through this collaborative and constructive creative process, whilst using different mediums, we can create content that cuts through in a sea of other content. – Emilie Laugier, Art Director
Content Creation
TV & Videos
Videos, whether for TV or online and social media will speak to your audience and ignite the spark your brand needs. Our TV and video content team are experienced creatives, offering a hands-on approach across all aspects of the process. From creative concepting to scripting, storyboarding, filming, editing and applying audio services, nothing is off limits for your TV or video creation. In-studio, on-site or within our dedicated green room with cutting-edge film and audio equipment, we can help craft content that makes an impact.
Copywriting
Across your business’ touch points, stay engaged with your consumers, build loyalty and even generate leads with high-quality written content, expertly crafted by our writers. Long-form blogs for your website, writing scripts for videos, producing bite-sized copy for social media or writing SEO-optimised copy to drive traffic to your sites – great content begins with well-written and rousing copy.
Digital & Online
In the rapidly-evolving online environment, our digital team are equipped to keep up the pace with your content marketing needs. It doesn’t matter if you’re building a website from scratch, looking to optimise with user testing, in need of an update or transforming into an e-commerce platform, our expert developers and producers will help you meet your business objectives. To better enhance traffic and visibility, our team seamlessly integrate complex backend functionalities, POS systems, third-party applications, as well as effective SEO strategies to ensure effective and efficient web platforms.
Performance Optimisation & Amplification
Raise the bar when it comes to your brand’s online visibility with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies and techniques. Our performance team, in collaboration with our web developers and writers, amplify your content marketing by optimising on-page elements such as meta titles, meta descriptions, header tags, and URL structures. Keyword research, content creation, A/B testing, paid ad campaign setup (e.g. Google Ads, Bing Ads), link building and monitoring and analytics also form part of online performance processes.
