How to Improve Content Marketing with Digital Advertising
This article offers tips to improve your content marketing strategy. Developing an integrated content marketing strategy is smart. Using digital advertising to promote content is brilliant.
Content marketing requires a substantial time investment in research and article writing. This is followed by more time to post and curate content to reach and engage your target audience. But what do you do if your engagement metrics are lacking? One solution, often overlooked, is leveraging digital advertising to boost your reach and improve engagement.
Why You Need an Integrated Content Marketing Strategy
Per a 2018 study by CISION1 “…70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated content strategy. …” which would explain why the article also states “…The majority of content marketing has a limited impact with 75 percent of blog posts getting fewer than 10 social shares and zero links from other domains.”
The lesson to be learned is that simply writing articles for the sake of posting new content is generally a waste of time. To get the best results from content marketing you need to improve your process…enter the integrated content marketing strategy.
What is an Integrated Content Marketing Strategy?
An integrated content marketing strategy is a formal plan and action plan for the content marketing process. Your content marketing strategy should be created to support company sales objectives, brand development goals, and other global company needs. The critical factor is for the marketing department to actively present a clear voice and consistent message, across all marketing communication channels, to engage past, present, and potential new customers.
As with any marketing strategy, the content marketing strategy is crafted when partner departments provide specifics on their needs. Naturally, this means that the marketing department must remain fully informed on how to publicly position the company’s services or products. When your marketing department or digital marketing agency knows the objective they can develop the appropriate content. After reading this article you will know how to get better engagement and interaction.
While increasing the number of views, likes, shares, and reposts are positives, the ultimate mark of success is improving conversions. Conversions are what make the content marketing process a truly worthwhile endeavor. We will discuss how to improve content marketing conversions in a separate article.
How to Improve Content Reach and Engagement
First, create content that has value to the user and they want to share. Unlike conventional advertising, the best content marketing strategy is to inform and gently influence your target audience. This means creating content that includes a somewhat neutral perspective with supporting facts, tips, and ideas. Ask yourself this question, “How many people will Like, Share or Repost advertising?”. Not many, right? Rethink your content style and set a foundation for success.
Identify Content Promotion Channels and Platforms
Develop a solid understanding of the mediums, channels, and platforms for publishing and promoting your content. Generally, this list would include:
- Optimizing Articles for Search Engines
- Social Media Posts
- Social Media Boosting & Promoting
- Paid Search Ads
- Email Marketing
- PR / Press Releases
- Curation Platforms
- Video Marketing
All of these are possibilities to promote your content. It’s worth noting that the optimal channels to use will not be the same for any particular industry, business, or piece of content. It may take you a trial-and-error process to find the best mix for your business. In this article, we are going to discuss the use of digital advertising for promoting content marketing.
How to Leverage Digital Advertising for Content Marketing
Simply posting an article or video to your social media pages, blog, YouTube, or Vimeo channels is not sufficient. You need to become familiar with the various forms of promoting content with paid advertising options. Many of these options can be combined to exceed the potential if otherwise used independently.
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising (social media targeting) refers to paid ads served on social media platforms. Social media advertising allows advertisers to utilize demographic settings to control the target audience, thereby making ads more relevant to viewers. This high degree of relevancy often results is very good conversion rates, and the cost per acquisition is relatively low. Examples of social media advertising are:
- Facebook: offers paid search ads and the ability to boost posts.
- Instagram: allows you to boost posts made on Facebook.
- Twitter: offers the opportunity to publish promoted content.
- Pinterest: offers the opportunity to publish promoted content.
- LinkedIn: allows you to create paid search ads on their site.
- Others: Niche apps such as NextDoor can help you reach local buyers.
- *Google+: As of 12-11-2018 Google will end support for this platform.
Search Engine Advertising (PPC)
PPC advertising (Pay per Click) refers to Google Ads and Bing Ads including paid search ads shown on their partner sites. PPC advertising is ideal to target specific geographic areas with keyword lists that reach specific types of prospects. Expert PPC management is the best way to maximize ROI for PPC advertising. Advanced techniques such as retargeting and remarketing have a very positive impact on conversions.
- Google Ads:2 is the most popular PPC platform. (formerly known as Google AdWords)
- Bing Ads:3 is a reliable PPC platform. (formerly known as MSN adCenter and Microsoft adCenter)
- LinkedIn Advertising:4 is a PPC platform for B2B advertising to reach business professionals.
- Others: You can utilize Google Ads settings to expand your display network to partner sites such as Amazon, The New York Times and AdSense Publisher sites.
Video Content Advertising
Video content marketing continues to grow as a viable way to reach past, present, and potential new customers. While the experts do not all agree on market share, they do agree that video marketing makes sense for B2B and B2C companies. In 2015, Chris Trimble of The Guardian5 quoted a Cisco forecast that “By 2017, the video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic. …”. Similar comments have been made by Nielsen and Forrester Research. The best digital advertising platforms for video content are:
- YouTube: With TrueView ads, reach potential customers on YouTube, and pay only when they show interest.
- Vimeo: With Vimeo Pro or Vimeo Business you can drive traffic to landing pages.
An Example of Video Marketing on Facebook
Statistics and Facts Supporting the Use of Digital Advertising
Trends and Usage Data Show Year-After-Year Growth
As far back as 2013, video marketing research6 reveals some compelling results:
- 93% of marketers are using video in their campaigns
- 84% are using video for website marketing
- 60% are using video for email marketing
- 70% are optimizing video for search engines
- 70% will increase spend on video
- 82% confirmed that video had a positive impact on their business
Using digital advertising is a superb way to get optimal results from your content marketing. Digital advertising enables you to actively seek out a wider audience with the ability to refine the target audience. For help with your content marketing strategies and management we invite you to contact a content marketing expert.
FOOTNOTES
- 1 Dave Chaffey, What percentage of businesses have a digital marketing strategy?, September 7, 2017, Available from Smart Insights
- 2 Google Ads, “Google AdWords”, October 16, 2018, Available from Wikipedia
- 3 Bing Ads, “Bing Ads”, June 13, 2018, Available from Wikipedia
- 4 LinkedIn, “Text Ads”, 2018, Available from LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
- 5 Chris Trimble, “Why Online Video is the Future of Content Marketing”, July 30, 2015, Available from The Guardian
- 6 Hangwon, “Just The Stats: The Science of Marketing Video Engagement”, May 6, 2014, Available from Single Grain
