What digital content marketing strategy should an SME have?
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With the ongoing pandemic, digital content marketing strategies become ever more crucial in ensuring business continuity.
Industries that traditionally relied on face-to-face meetings and events to generate leads will now have to work out alternative marketing strategies.
One of the key factors to a brand’s resilience will be its adaptability. Now is the time to move efforts online to capitalise on potential sales opportunities and explore new marketing channels.
The importance of digital channels
Even before social distancing and lockdowns, consumers were already online. When they have an interest in your business, the first thing that they would do is look your company up online. In the 21st century, they expect to see a website for your brand as well as some form of social media presence. They might want to see what past customers have to say about their experiences before they decide to work with or purchase from you.
If these potential customers can’t find a trace of you online, it is likely to affect their perception regarding the legitimacy of your business. You don’t want to be driving away all these business prospects.
With about 2.95 billion people on social media globally as of 2019, this is a huge market that you’d want to tap on. For Michael Lyons, co-founder of Recovery Systems, the traffic driven by various social media channels is always a moving target.
“For example, LinkedIn is quite important from a B2B point of view, because we have a reseller strategy in different countries. But then it seems like lately Instagram’s been a very good channel for us too,” he says.
Don’t just settle on one social channel; try creating profiles for your brand on various platforms to cater to different demographics.
Why storytelling matters
In this short yinterview, Michael Lyons talks about content creation through storytelling.
However, one thing to bear in mind when it comes to digital marketing is that your competitors are on social media too. This might make it difficult for you to stand out in the sea of brands.
Storytelling can be a great way for your business to engage with consumers on a deeper level. It not only increases brand favourability, but can also be up to 22 times more memorable than facts. Even at the beginning, Michael knew storytelling had to be an essential part of their brand.
“We always thought of it as storytelling and we wanted to involve our customers, some of whom are professional athletes. We wanted to give them a voice via what we’re doing, and bring them into the spotlight,” he says.
When it comes to crafting your brand story, wrap your message up nicely in a relatable or inspiring narrative that evokes emotion. Use storytelling to create a deep connection: get your clients engaged in a conversation, and involve them in what you do as a business.
In a saturated digital marketplace, you cannot afford to be a faceless entity. Storytelling can help your brand capture the attention of your consumers.
A digital marketing strategy should also involve content marketing. Great content is an important asset that is both informative and useful to your client base, which keeps them coming back for more.
Consistently producing quality content is also a way for your business to demonstrate its expertise. Offering this value at no cost to your audience can help build trust and improve your brand reputation. If you can build your company as a credible source of information, you can establish yourself as an industry leader.
This content you create forms a positive association to your company, which then generates leads. When your audience views your content, they’ll more likely to be interested in purchasing from you in the future. In fact, content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing while costing 62% less.
Michael is heavily involved in the content creation process for his brand, frequently conducting interviews and offering various tips and tricks. As physical events are cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he’s been exploring new ways to put out even more content online.
“We’ve increased the number of podcasts that we’ve been doing in order to engage with the different sports and the different athletes that we’re working with, or the segments that we’re trying to reach through storytelling,” says Michael.
A digital transformation
“Doubling down on digital” — That’s the motto that Michael has in order to move forward during this uncertain period.
“So we’re in the middle of doing a website refresh, working on interviews and just taking a look at how we go about getting better at MailChimp and the email nurturing of potential customers. I wish I could say that we’ve all suddenly become experts, but we seem to be far away from that right now. In the end, I think it’s just a case of stumbling in a forward direction.”
While going digital might seem like a reactive move in response to the pandemic, rather than a permanent shift, if marketers can see the benefits that virtual channels can offer, digital marketing may well become a permanent feature of marketing strategies in time to come.
Best practices to improve your digital marketing strategy
- Establish an online presence
- Build a webpage or create social media accounts for your business
- Establish a content marketing strategy
- Generate ideas for new blog posts that’s relevant to your area of expertise
- Share relevant social videos (or create your own)
- Send email marketing to your clients
Read more from Click2View:
- Here’s how to DIY video design, even if you’re an absolute beginner.
- If you haven’t already heard, 2020 is the year of the webinar.
- Making safe video shoots possible amidst COVID-19
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Click2View is Southeast Asia’s premiere full-service independent B2B content marketing agency servicing clients like Microsoft, Google, Visa, Prudential, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
