By Hauwa Abubakar
The year has already got us putting on our running shoes for the 365-day race. In the new year, many businesses would take stock from the previous year, others would re-strategize and for some, well, it would be business as usual. After all, if it’s not broken, why fix it? There’s an old adage that says that he who fails to plan, plans to fail. You may think you may not need a new strategy every New Year, but considering one won’t hurt.
Year after year, businesses are beginning to get clearer understanding of the relevance of being online and actually using the cyberspace to expand their reach. Whether it is a website, a social media channel or through email marketing, the key ingredient that drives online activities is content.
A new year is always pregnant. No one knows how it would go but even though we know nothing about what the year holds, perhaps the only thing one is certain about is what he/she wants to achieve in the year. At this point as a business, you are already planning to use many instruments at your disposal to reach your goals.
One of such instruments is your online identity through your website or social media and the content you drive through these channels.
Content:
According to Heinze etal., (2016) “Content marketing, is the strategic process of creating and amplifying content for the purpose of informing, entertaining and/or building awareness of your brand, products or services within a target audience.”
For the purpose of analysis, this definition would be broken in to three:
Strategic process: A workable and realistic step by step approach
Creating: Research, identifying key topics, producing content in various formats such as articles, blogs, white papers, email contents, videos, images, infographics, etc.
Amplifying: Promoting, publicizing, marketing, reaching a large target audience.
Content marketing gives brands the opportunity to identify issues that are relevant to target customers and give them information that would help them with their purchase.
Why is it important?
The world we live in now is increasingly digital in nature. More and more customers are going online to do research about a product or service before making a purchase or subscription. Some of them already know what they want to buy, others do not. They want to find out the specific features of the product or service, they want to know how it would meet their needs, how it would function, etc. If your brand is not among the many or few providing these information to a potential customer online, chances are that, you may not be meeting the expectations of your target customer or you may not be reachable.
Having reviewed these last year, there are certain things you may want to tweak about your business, hence the need for a new content strategy:
- Reach new customers: There is no doubt that new customers can walk through your doors any day and visit your website any time. A new content strategy keeps you ready and shows that you value new customers and their patronage.
- Build stronger relationships: It is not always easy to cater for every customer’s needs. Sometimes in our crave for new customers, we forget that the returning customers play a significant role as well. Let your content strategy also consider the returning customer, who chooses you out of all your competitors every time. Let your content also speak to them. Listen to them, hear what their expectations are of you, and try to meet them. Target them in your marketing campaigns and don’t make them feel like you’re shoving a new product or service down their throats every year without appreciating their patronage.
- Stay relevant: Living in an informed and digital age comes with its challenges. A lot of things might be easier to do these days, but so many things happen almost at the same time and keeping up can be really difficult. For instance, as a tech company, you can’t be blogging about the significance of 3G when your competitors have moved past 4G. A new content strategy helps you to stay aware and motivates you to keep in touch with trends and latest developments in your industry.
Can you think of any other reasons why you need a new content strategy for your website? Share your thoughts in the comments’ section.
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