Creative content – the new “it” marketing angle that everyone talks about, but few truly understand how to implement. To demystify this, Max Borges Agency’s Creative Strategist, Trisha Nieder talks about the many ways you can leverage creative content to help boost your brand, engage your audience and build your brand’s story.
Why is creative content important in regard to digital marketing?
Content is a way to set your brand apart from everyone else and tell your story in a unique way. Creative content isn’t just an amusing animation, well-composed picture, or colorful illustration. Producing content that’s creative means you’re offering something new and original to your audience, and that’s what gives it value and keeps them coming back for more.
With the proper strategy and planning, content can help brands meet a variety of marketing goals such as increased awareness, lead generation, boosted SEO, brand affinity, customer retention, and more. In 2015, 76% of B2C marketers were using content marketing, so the question is no longer, “Do I need to incorporate content in digital marketing?” The question has become, “How do I create an effective content marketing strategy?”
How do you formulate the right creative content for your brand?
There isn’t a quick solution to creating engaging brand content. Effective content – even the smallest pieces – are thought out in advance and fit into a much larger strategy.
To ensure your content is effective, start by defining your goals, and then determine the metrics you’ll use to measure those goals. Once you know the purpose behind your content, identify your target audience(s). Content should stay loyal to your brand but always relevant to your audience.
What are some unexpected ways you can leverage creative content?
Break up a larger piece of content or content theme into smaller bits. Then extend those smaller pieces of content across multiple channels over a period of time.
For example, if your major piece of content is a blog post about how to boost work productivity, you could create bite-sized infographics that pull out data points about distractions and post those to Facebook leading up to your blog post, setting up the need for it. Post images on Instagram of what a productive person’s office or desk looks like. Interview people and compile their tips in a short video for YouTube. If one of your tips in the main blog post is to use productivity apps, write a follow up blog post with five suggested apps.
You not only want to create content that engages people, but also you want to create a plan to keep them engaged in the topic (and your content) over a long period of time.
What are some examples of a great creative content that you’ve seen?
Brands that put storytelling first and marketing second are always great examples, and some of my favorites are ModCloth, Marriott, Barkbox, HubSpot, and Home Depot. They’re each great examples of knowing your audience, producing content that provides value, and creating content that is relevant but not always directly related to products.
It’s always great to look at other brands for inspiration, but important to remember that mimicking their strategies probably won’t produce the same results for you. Make sure you’re always creating content that tells your brand story in a unique way.
