‘Quality content’ is perhaps one of the most misused phrases that effortlessly rolls out of the tongue and has a ring to it. However, its true meaning still eludes even the most experienced of marketers. Some argue that quality, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.
What is quality content in digital marketing?
If you approach it from a Google perspective, quality content satisfies what the user is looking for; it focuses on the value of your content to the user and is determined by the traction it attracts. On the other hand, a business owner will tell you that quality content is any content that drives traffic to their online store and generates sales.
By merging the two perspectives, we can agree that quality content is any form of marketing content that generates sales by giving audiences what they want.
With such an approach, we can conclude that the quality of content determines the effectiveness of an inbound marketing campaign.
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a marketing technique that helps prospective customers locate your brand in a maze of other businesses in your niche. Prospective customers are buyers in the market that haven’t made the first contact with your brand just yet.
For instance, if your brand focuses on baby clothes, your prospective customers are moms and dads, caregivers and guardians seeking to purchase clothes for their babies. Hence, your inbound marketing cannot target teenagers or adults shopping for clothes for grown-ups. Instead, it should focus on what these moms are looking for and guide them to your website.
Where does quality content come in?
The level to which people go to avoid direct marketing and commercials is mind-blowing. This resentment has pushed people to use ad blockers, pop-up blockers, and even make subscriptions to prevent interruptions by direct advertisements. The result has been the wide adoption of inbound marketing as they create the needed two-way street conversation between the consumer and the seller.
Inbound marketing focuses on building a trustworthy relationship and partnership with the customer through interactive storytelling rather than chasing the customer directly. For this reason, inbound marketing techniques are closely tied to content marketing such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, emails, social media, SERPs, and e-Books.
If done right, inbound marketing can establish a solid audience of repeat clients based on trust and partnership. Additionally, it is the best way to enhance brand awareness by showcasing its identity, tone, style, credibility, and strengths, which sets it apart from its competition.
Quality content and inbound marketing
Since inbound marketing entails telling your brand’s story, you must use quality content (content that gives the audience what they are searching for and generates sales). For this reason, quality content forms the foundation of any inbound marketing strategy.
Types quality content in inbound marketing
Different forms of content marketing come into play at various stages of a customer’s journey through the marketing funnel. In simplified terms, the journey starts when the prospective customer comes in contact with your product or service, gets convinced to make a purchase, and becomes a repeat customer.
Let’s have a look at some of the key content marketing techniques used in inbound marketing;
1. SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most complex and highly misunderstood concepts in digital marketing. For most people, it’s all about tossing a couple of Google-friendly keywords into their content and, in extreme cases, stuffing dozens of keywords into their marketing pieces. Unfortunately, if you do this, Google is likely to punish your rankings severely.
Google algorithm’s tastes change by the day, and there are no fixed perfect SEO strategies.
Nonetheless, key pages and blog posts on your website should have the right keywords in the correct positions to drive organic traffic to your website. Hence, the success of any SEO strategy lies in finding the right keywords and using them appropriately to suit Google’s tastes.
2. Video content
With YouTube being the second-highest used search engine after Google, it offers a perfect opportunity for businesses to interact with their customers. The platform is a video search engine and one of the best places to create a personalized connection with your audience.
Apart from YouTube, popular social media sites such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook support video marketing. Therefore, creating quality video marketing content can boost your inbound marketing strategy.
Video content for YouTube can be repurposed for social media platforms or converted into written blog posts. Lastly, visual and graphic content, such as videos, triggers memory, builds a brand’s visual identity, and creates a seamless experience with your audience.
3. Copywriting
Copywriting is creating marketing content that evokes readers’ emotions and builds a connection with your audience. It goes further than simply penning down words on a page; it supports SEO strategy, drives sales, inspires a call to action, and boosts your brand’s digital presence.
To weave an excellent copy, you have to find unique selling points for your business. What sets you apart from your competitors? Then you want to express this information inform of a story that is genuine and inspirational.
Copywriting content forms the core of inbound marketing and can fit into your landing and about us pages, product reviews, subscription guides, emails, social media, and newsletter campaigns.
4. Social media Content
Social media is a free for all gold mine for inbound marketers as long as you keep producing evergreen quality content. There are more than 3 billion daily social media users, and your brand stands a higher chance of reaching a broader and less explored audience through social media platforms.
Facebook and Instagram have tools specifically designed for social media content marketing, and your business can leverage such free features to build a following. For example, you can use your social media content to showcase your portfolio, educate users or create a personalized business community.
Parting shot
Quality content is the heartbeat of inbound marketing. Once you master the art of creating quality content, you are likely to break your marketing barriers and generate insane sales.
However, inbound marketing, like all other forms of digital marketing, takes time to mature and yield a positive return on investment (ROI) and requires patience and consistency. Furthermore, it requires a little bit of marketing wizardly and expert knowledge, hence the need to outsource your inbound marketing needs if necessary.