What are the objectives of content marketing?

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Marketing is marketing. Be it on the internet or off it. But in the current scenario, content marketing stands out as one of the most effective strategies for attracting, engaging and converting customers. But what are the true goals of content marketing? How can it transform your business? In this article, we'll explore content marketing goals in detail and how you can achieve them to maximize your company's results.

Starting… from the beginning

As I said above, content marketing is marketing anyway. What changes is the way of doing it. So, first let's understand this concept.

Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Instead of pitching your products or services directly, you are providing truly useful and relevant content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their problems.

And it's not new. In fact, it has been around for quite some time. From the magazines published by companies in the early 20th century to the blogs and videos of today, the essence of content marketing has always been to provide value to the public to build a relationship of trust and loyalty. In this way, digital evolution has simply amplified its reach and effectiveness.

But how to start? Outlining your goals. After all, any action that doesn't have a goal gets nowhere. Because marketing in itself is not an objective. And the objective is not always to sell, as I already mentioned. But are there specific objectives in content marketing? Isn’t generating content already a goal? Don't crucify yourself if you are lost about this, as these doubts are much more common than we imagine. And the first step to defining objectives is thinking about your target audience.

Defining your persona

The objective has to be, in any case, aligned with your target audience or persona. So, if you don't have your persona designed, it's difficult to define an objective. Therefore, understand who your target audience is, what their needs are and once you have as much information as possible, move on to defining objectives. But what is a persona?

In content marketing, a persona is the fictional but detailed representation of your ideal customer. It goes beyond a simple demographic profile, helping you to deeply understand your desires, needs, motivations, objectives, challenges and even your fears and frustrations.

Imagine having a real character, with a name, face and life story, who represents the type of person you most want to reach with your content. That's the idea behind the persona!

How to create a persona for your content marketing?

1. Define your goals: What do you want to achieve by creating personas? Increase blog traffic? Generate more leads? Sell more products?
2. Gather data: Research and collect information about your current and potential customers. Use surveys, interviews, analysis of website and social media data, etc.
3. Identify the patterns: Group the collected data and identify repeating patterns. This will help you define the different groups of personas you need to create.
4. Create your profiles: For each group of personas, develop a detailed profile that includes:
   • Demographic data: age, gender, location, income, education, etc.
   • Online behavior: browsing habits, preferred communication channels, content consumption, etc.
   • Objectives and challenges: what each persona seeks to achieve and what obstacles they face.
   • Motivations and fears: what drives her to make decisions and what stops her from doing so.
   • Personality: characteristics such as communication style, values and beliefs.
5. Give your persona a name and face: This makes the persona more real and memorable.
6. Validate your personas: Test your profiles with real customers to ensure they are accurate and faithfully represent your target audience.

Some content marketing objectives

Content marketing has several strategic objectives that can be achieved through the creation and distribution of high-quality content. Some of the main objectives include:

Increase brand awareness

Relevant and valuable content helps build brand awareness by exposing the company and its products/services to a wider audience. By providing useful and interesting information, the brand becomes more recognizable and memorable to potential customers.

Improve positioning in search engines

Content optimized for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), with relevant keywords and a well-defined structure, can improve the brand's positioning in search results. This increases visibility and organic traffic to the website, generating more conversion opportunities.

Create authority

This is the most common goal. Content marketing, notably inbound marketing may be aimed at creating authority. In this way, it is a way for you to stand out compared to your competitors and gain the trust of your personas.

Working at purchasing journey, you will provide important information for your potential client to understand that you know what you are talking about. Content marketing supports each step of this journey by providing the right content at the right time. This way, the strategy ensures that your customers receive the guidance and information they need to move smoothly toward conversion.

Generate engagement

The focus of engagement is to create a closer and more constant relationship with your audience. It’s also a way for you to have more information about what your audience is looking for.

Creating a dialogue is one of the main objectives we use in content marketing and it also serves to transform people into advocates for your brand. Thus, engagement is a step further than brand awareness.

Educate the market

One of the most important content marketing goals, especially in niche markets, is market education. It is common for some potential customers not to understand what you are offering, especially if your company is very innovative or is located in a very specific or new market.

Using content marketing to educate the market can be a way to increase your importance and stand out from your competitors.

Generate qualified leads

This is an essential objective, especially when we talk about inbound marketing. The generation of leads This is one of the differences that content generation has in relation to traditional advertising, as you will be able to obtain information from your potential customers.

Furthermore, lead qualification is a powerful way to turn your prospect into a customer. This objective is very common in B2B companies.

With content marketing it is possible to generate more qualified leads, that is, people who show interest and are more likely to become customers. This is done through calls to action (CTAs) and premium content offers such as ebooks and webinars.

Generate sales

A content marketing action, especially when your company already generates leads, can result in sales. An e-commerce, for example, can use inbound marketing to attract customers and sell its products.

This way, guiding leads through sales funnel can be a goal for your content marketing.

Reduce acquisition cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can be reduced through content marketing. Providing materials, such as FAQs, for example, or educational e-books, can be a good way to help reduce the sales process.

Furthermore, reducing the cost per sale can increase the ROI of your campaigns.

Increase Lifetime-Value

Lifetime-Value (LTV) is the total amount spent by the customer with your company. It is much cheaper to sell again to existing customers than to acquire a new customer. This can be done using content, such as after-sales, with exclusive offers.

The customer will then be able to hire your service for longer or consume more products, using content marketing.

Creating effective content to achieve goals

To achieve content marketing goals, it is essential to create effective content. Firstly, it is crucial to deeply understand the target audience, knowing their pains, challenges and needs. This allows you to create content that truly attracts and engages them. Setting clear objectives is also essential. Therefore, establishing specific, measurable goals aligned with the company's general objectives directs the content strategy effectively.

Creating relevant and valuable content is a key to success. Producing informative, educational and inspiring material that adds real value to the target audience is crucial. Another important aspect is optimizing content for SEO. Therefore, applying SEO techniques, such as the use of keywords, title structure and metadata, improves positioning in search engines, increasing visibility.

Another vital point is the distribution of content through the correct digital channels. Therefore, identifying and using the most effective media channels to reach the target audience, such as blogs, social networks and email marketing, maximizes the reach of the content.

Finally, measuring and analyzing performance is essential to adjust your content strategy and obtain better results. Monitoring and analyzing key metrics such as traffic, engagement, and conversions allows for continuous assessment and improvements to your content marketing strategy. With these steps, you can create an effective content marketing strategy and achieve your desired goals.

Examples of content marketing strategies

There are several ways to implement content marketing, each with its own goals and benefits. Some examples include:

• Blogs and Articles: Regularly publishing informative, educational, and relevant content on a company blog is one of the most common and effective content marketing strategies.
• Videos and Podcasts: Creating audiovisual content, such as explainer videos, interviews and podcasts, can help increase engagement and brand authority.
• Ebooks and Whitepapers: Offering premium content like ebooks, guides, and whitepapers in exchange for prospects' contact information is a great way to generate qualified leads.
• Social media: Using social media to share relevant content, interact with your audience, and build relationships is essential to modern content marketing.
• Webinars and Online Events: Organizing webinars, lives and other online events allows the brand to connect directly with the target audience, strengthening relationships and authority.

In short…

Content marketing has become an essential strategy for companies looking to stand out in the highly competitive digital environment. So, from the moment brands create and distribute relevant, valuable and consistent content, they can achieve a wide range of objectives, from increasing brand awareness to generating qualified leads and boosting sales.

However, to be successful, it is essential to deeply understand your target audience, define clear objectives, produce high-quality content and optimize it for search engines. As the market evolves, companies will need to adapt to emerging trends, such as the use of artificial intelligence and content personalization. Therefore, mastering content marketing allows brands to build lasting relationships with their customers and position themselves as leaders in their respective niches.

How about putting together your content marketing strategy? Speak to a Vero Contents expert!