Content Marketing has changed dramatically in recent years, particularly in the era of the web, social media, and mobile devices, when consumers are always in demand and promotional communications abound, diminishing their effectiveness.
Today, we communicate differently than we used to – or, more accurately, we should communicate differently than we did in the days of brand-to-consumer one-way communication.
Not only is communication bidirectional between companies and consumers, but it is also multidirectional between people through social media and discussion boards.
The four phases of creating a content marketing strategy are as follows:
- Define the objectives
I cannot emphasise this enough: a content marketing strategy should serve economic goals, not the whims of management or the pure creative ideals of an agency.
Your business may have one or more of the following goals for the next year:
Revenue and sales increased.
Increased awareness of a certain brand or service Reduced operational, recruitment, and other costs.
Retain segmented clientele.
Revenue growth by client type
Increase the yield of a certain kind of product (room, headquarters, etc.)
Enhance the views of particular market segments about your products or brand
Obviously, we will use a different approach and distribute money differently in light of these objectives. As a result, communication methods must develop from strategies aimed at achieving these objectives, such as choosing between Facebook and a company brochure.
2. Determine the markets and demographics of your intended customers:
I’ve often wondered, “Who is your typical client?” throughout the years, and especially after I started dealing with a range of clients. Are you aware of the perfect client for your product or service? Others, we agree, but the absolute worst answer is: seven to seventy-seven year olds. What are you saying, everyone?
Even mass-market products such as Coca-Cola do not appeal to everyone – some people abstain from alcohol and junk food. Who is your client, in a nutshell? Similarly, we’ll want to identify which target markets will provide the most return on your marketing expenditures.
Is it better for a small-budget Quebec tourism business to invest in the Montreal market or the North Shore (Laval and the lower Laurentians)? Perhaps the bigger Quebec City metropolitan region, or perhaps Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, would be more buoyant in light of the fiscal constraints?
To make these decisions, you must first get a thorough understanding of the target markets in which you want to carve out an attractive market share.
3. Arrange the axes of communication and placement in a logical order (Product):
As with the preceding point – your product should not try to appeal to everyone, from 7 to 77 years old – it is essential to ask yourself the ultimate question: how can you differentiate yourself from the competition?
In other words, what is your competitive advantage, the quality or trait that makes you “unique”?
Perhaps this is an exceptional beachfront location for a hotelier. For a restaurateur, it will be a table showcasing regional foods cooked by a rising star chef. This phase is important because it relates to the most fundamental element of any business: the strength of the product or service.
You may have the best marketing campaign in the world, but if your product is poor, you will fail to accomplish a miracle. Unfortunately, the opposite is not always true: even if you have the best product in the world, if no one knows about it or if your price does not properly represent market demand, you are headed in the wrong direction.
Which leads us to the next two elements of the marketing plan: price and promotion.
4. Establish a pricing plan (Price):
When we examine revenue management in hotels, airlines, and a number of other industries, we see that pricing has developed into a science, or almost so.
Numerous factors are at work, and facing this reality is seldom simple. Nonetheless, we consider the following:
The demand for the product or service fluctuates by day and season.
Peak season, low season, shoulder season, and so on are all seasonal phrases.
Operating costs vary depending to whether or not a region has unions vs metropolitan regions. Competitive intelligence is used to ascertain the activities of competitors.
It is important to emphasise at this point that pricing should often be guided by a market positioning strategy.
Do we want to increase our prices and retain better profit margins at the cost of lower sales volume, or do we want to maximise sales at the risk of a low profit margin? Numerous scenarios exist, each with its own set of benefits and drawbacks.
