How To Apply Content Marketing To Create Brand Awareness

What is Content Marketing?

A study by Content Marketing Institute found that many marketers are using content marketing. The most notable organisations applying content marketing are P&G, John Deere, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. But it’s not limited to big companies, even smaller businesses are applying content marketing to create brand awareness. 

The marketing strategy focused on creating and dispersing consistent, valuable and relevant content to draw and retain an audience, and eventually drive profitable customer action is known as content marketing.

How Content Marketing Impacts Your Brand

Relevant content lets you show your customers what your company is about and what your brand represents. 

Brand awareness isn’t limited to people knowing the name of your brand, it extends to your audience knowing what makes your brand unique. To create this distinction, your content needs to focus on the qualities that set your brand apart from others. For this, you gotta share details about your organisation that will help you stand out in your industry and show potential customers why they should pick you over your competitors. 

For example, you can describe your company culture on your website and explain why you’re different. You can also outline the many ways your brand varies from others in a similar category, whether it be the diverse ingredients or materials that you use, or something particular, like the fact that you provide 24×7 real-time support.

How To Apply Content Marketing For Your Brand

Developing brand awareness is difficult, but you can follow these four steps to accomplish your branding goals.

• Produce Relevant Content

Nothing is quite as powerful as relevant and timely content when it comes to connecting with your customers. From infographics to blog posts, different kinds of content can highlight your services, offer meaningful information and explain your mission. 

When you begin developing your content plan, ask yourself the following questions to address what your audience needs:

1. What are the pain points and how can you resolve them for your customers?
2. What is your audience’s objective when reading your content?
3. How can you offer value beyond your services and products?

Determining your audience and their reasons for engaging with your brand becomes easier when you answer these questions. It will aid you to create high-impact content that can cater to your audience’s needs.

• Focus on Value

The number one goal of your content strategy should be boosting your brand presence, but it need not be the only goal. To truly build trust, try to offer value. 

Among the best way to do this is through educating your audience. If you’re a B2B organisation, this can mean providing insights relevant to your industry or diving deep into a particular topic. If you’re a B2C company, offer expert advice associated with customer pain points. This can help them holistically consider your brand and motivate them to turn to you for guidance.

• Be Authentic

Customers want to engage more with brands that are genuine. In fact, 90% of customers value authenticity when determining which brands they want to support. 

If you can’t be genuine, it might hurt your company more than you realise. When it comes to consumer engagement, this becomes particularly true. However, it’s worth mentioning that a lack of authenticity might also hurt your bottom line. 

It might look discouraging, but it’s important to consider this is as an opportunity. If authenticity becomes the DNA of your brand, your efforts of content marketing will reflect that. Here’s how you can bring authenticity to your content:

1. Develop your brand voice
   A powerful brand voice is the key to a convincing narrative. To establish yours, focus on emphasising the details that define your brand.
2. Engage with your customers
   Great customer service is important in almost any business, but to really develop relationships with your customers, you may need to go a step further, including being responsive across all of your channels and looking closer at how you can personalise the customer experience.
3. Address negative feedback
   Dealing with negative feedback can be difficult, but it’s also an excellent way to let your customers know you care. Don’t be afraid to own a mistake. Your customers will appreciate your honesty and the fact that you’re actively working to improve the situation.
4. Share Customer Stories
   Customers as brand ambassadors—after all, who can highlight your value better than your customers who use your service or product every day?

There are many ways to do this, but the best approach is through social proof points such as testimonials, reviews and social media comments. The key is to find ways to incorporate them into your content strategy. Social posts and newsletters are also great starting points. Buying decisions can be heavily influenced by custom content. 

Among the best ways to build trust is through a strong brand presence, and content marketing can be a driving factor. When you prioritise the needs of your customers and offer them valuable content, you can move past transactions and create enduring brand loyalty.