Turbo-charge Your Content

Branded content is everywhere. It is now an essential tool in the marketer’s armoury, with stats indicating that 91%[i] of B2B marketers now use it to engage customers and build trust. This is hardly surprising with content marketing being shown to cost 62% less than traditional marketing, whilst generating around 3 times as many leads[ii].

By the same measure, customers now expect brands they know to keep up with this trend and deliver to them quality content that is fresh, consistent and, most importantly, relevant to their needs.

With a sea of brands vying for attention on social newsfeeds and email inboxes, you may be feeling doubtful if your approach to content is cutting the mustard. Don’t despair! With careful thought and planning, you can ensure your content creates impact AND results.

Read on to learn three key trends you’ll want to consider for your content marketing approach in 2021.

1. A content marketing strategy that maximises ROI.

 A content marketing strategy is, in essence, the ‘thinking’ behind the ‘action’ of creating and implementing your content campaigns. It ensures you have a clearly signposted pathway for success, rather than an inconsistent or scattergun approach. Whilst this is shown to be a key stage for content marketing success, a recent report showed that, in 2020, less than half (48%)[iii] of marketers had a documented content marketing strategy.

If you’re looking to create your own content marketing strategy, you may want to consider who you’re looking to target and at what stage of their buying journey. Also, be clear on the action you want people to take after seeing your content that will feed directly into your marketing goals. If content marketing strategy isn’t your forté, you may want to get some professional advice to ensure your approach is on-point prior to going live.

2. Using brand positioning to create an authentic voice.

 Having a clear position for your brand in market, incorporating its USPs (unique selling propositions) and key messaging, helps to guide and frame your content in a more compelling way that is relevant to your business. While the content needs to be based on the consumer and their needs, ensuring your brand style and ‘point of view’ is front and centre will help you to stand out and be more genuine and engaging. In addition to this, it will serve as a guide and focus for your content over time, helping you to home in on topics that align well with your USPs and giving you consistency over time.

If you haven’t nailed your brand positioning, this might be a valuable starting point prior to developing your content marketing strategy. Again, getting the advice of an expert here to define your USPs and messaging will help you maximise your cut-through and, ultimately, your return on investment.

3. Creating content that serves, not just sells.

Great content is utilitarian. Offering your audience content that is genuinely useful for them at the present time is the most effective way to build trust with them over time.

A lot of brands fall into the trap of focusing the bulk of their content on their own products and services. However, the most effective content is audience-centric, that is, considering the needs and problems your audience have and helping them to progress through their buyer journey by addressing common questions and concerns.

Whilst you may wish to allocate some of your content to focus on your offering, it’s important to ensure this type of content is targeted to people who are further along in their buying process (i.e. ready to make a purchase). You may identify them as having engaged with previous content or made an enquiry about your services. Do your research!

Are you looking for help to guide, create or refresh your content marketing?

So, there you have it. We have selected just three key trends in this article but there are many more ways to ensure your content really hits the mark. To sum up in 3 words the key to making your content sing is planning, consistency and authenticity.

 If you’re looking for further advice on this topic, we are here to help.

As a research-led content and marketing agency, we dig deep to get to the heart of your audience’s challenges, creating content approaches that will get you seen, heard and remembered.

From infographics to blog posts, social campaign videos, white papers and automated martech campaigns, the Juntos Marketing team can guide you across all stages of the process from content marketing strategy to implementation to analysis and refinement.

Contact the team today for a chat.

[i] CMI  – B2B content marketing statistics

[ii] DemandMetric

[iii] ‘B2B Marketing Research Report 2021’ Green Hot