Content Marketing Process
As I have explained in the article on Digital Marketing Overview, Content Marketing is one of the key components in Digital Marketing. It sits on top of the overall components. Once the content strategy is finalised, we will then extend it to the distribution strategy at respective digital channels such as website, mobile app, email, social media, and ad campaign.
The consumer is King & Content is Queen
This may be cliche but it is the whole idea to produce quality content that is able to attract & engage with our target audience. Therefore, it is a standard practice to map the content from the user's journey (Or the Customer's Lifecycle Stage/ Marketing Funnel). According to Hubspot & Smart Insights (2018), content mapping starts from understanding your buyer persona's pain points and provide solutions to them according to the standard marketing funnel. We can summarise the entire content marketing process as below:
Understand your buyer persona's pain points
Plan the content (Solutions to their pain points) according to standard user's journey
*This is equivalent to your content goal and you can expand it to a SMART goal with the dedicated KPI & timeline
Identify the content format & distribution channel
Proceed to budget planning & content creation
Finally, content distribution & evaluation (KPI Review)
Source: Smart Insights & Hubspot (2018)
Content Marketing Matrix
There are many types of content formats and the matrix given here is a good reference point for us to understand the function according to standard practice. 'Awareness' to 'Purchase/ Conversion' stage is merely the first 3 stages according to the standard marketing funnel, but we need to also look at the further stages after conversion which is retention and amplification (Or advocacy).
Understand consumer's needs by listening
Market survey is a common practice for us to understand the pain points and challenges facing by our buyer personas. On top of that, we also able to collect insights using social and content tools such as Google Trends and Talkwalkers. From our daily monitoring, we understand what are the latest thoughts, needs and wants of our target audience. It is always good to be part of them, be supportive and respond by providing relevant solutions through content distribution.
The power of content re-purpose & re-mixing
As we said, 'the consumer is king'. It is important for us to listen to what the king wants and re-post what they have said about us. Re-purpose User-generated Content (UGC) such as re-posting user's posts and stories is one of the strategies that we use to increase the content reach and engagement. With the emergence of Tik-Tok and Instagram Reels, we also see the rising trend of re-mixing UGC which brands would want to think about the potential content template that generates user's interest.
Source: Hubspot & Talkwalker (2021)
Content Marketing is one of my topics of discussion during the below courses with Redbeat Academy:
16-hours Digital Marketing 101 (Day 1 Content Marketing)
3-months (+1 month Capstone Project) Digital Marketing Course (3.4 Content Tools)
References:
Hubspot & Smart Insights (2018) eBook. Content Marketing Planning Template
Hubspot & Talkwalker (2021) eBook. Social Media Trends Report