The Importance of Content
Need help crafting your brand’s message? At Hunter, we’re experts in creating meaningful content that speaks directly to your consumer, working to build your brand story. Every brand needs a content strategy, but where to start? There’s lots to consider when starting out on your content journey, but at Hunter, we’re here to help. We can assist at every stage, from creating your brand DNA to helping you redefine your existing strategy. We create and manage social media profiles, build brand websites, run brand blogs and everything in-between. When it comes to content, we’ve seen and done it all, and we can do it for you.
But what exactly is content, and how will it help your brand? Simply put, content is everything. Content is your website, your social media, your packaging, branding, and every word that’s used in your communications. Everything customers consume relating to your brand is content - without content, you wouldn’t have a brand.
People are consuming content at a higher rate than ever before - through their phones and laptops, it seems there’s no escape. Content pops up through facebook, email, newsletters, blogposts, Instagram, TikTok and pop up ads. It seems if you’re not creating content at the moment, you and your brand are being left behind.
But creating meaningful content that resonates with consumers is time-consuming, not to mention easier said than done. Creating clever content requires skilled professionals who know how to capture consumers and give them value for their attention. Consumers are clued in and the days of lazy click-bait and lack-lustre social media are over.
So how do you go about creating your brands content? It all starts with content strategy. Without a strategy, you’re communicating to your customers blindly, with no real plan or purpose. Your strategy is the backbone of your brand, enabling you to gain insights into the people you’re communicating with, converting these insights into sales. Your content strategy will be combined of many elements, all working together to build a fool-proof template for which you can build your brand story.
Content Pillars
Content pillars are the who and why of your brand. Who you are trying to talk to, and why you’re creating the content in the first place. Keeping this in mind will help you stay on track with the content you create.
Content pillars are the subset of topics and themes that create the base for your overall content strategy. These pillars should represent relevant topics for your target audience and can be comprised of different types of content, such as social media posts, blogs, e-mailers or videos or even memes to name a few.
These content pillars will help you stay focussed on your strategy. Great content requires skilled creators and forward planning, with room left for ad-hoc reactive content.
Knowing Your Audience
When creating content, it’s important to know who you’re creating this content for. This will determine the tone of voice, avenues to deliver this content and when to seed this content out. Consider the difference in marketing to the Gen Z crowd who are clued in to the latest trends and first on new platforms, as oppose to boomers, who are traditionally slower to adopt new platforms and rely heavier on traditional media. The approach to each of these groups should vary massively, taking each groups consuming habits into account. You need to think about their experience, where they’re consuming their information and who they trust.Taking all of this into account will help you craft your brand message and delivery.
Brand Personality
Consumers buy from people, not brands, so it’s important that your brand has a ‘personality’. You need to know who your brand is, how they speak and sound and deliver all content in this manner. If your brand was a person, who would they be? This will help you when creating content with a consistent voice. When your brand persona is crystal clear, you know exactly what to say and where to place this content. This helps you connect to your consumer, putting their experience at the heart of all that you create. If you’re unsure where to start, think of who your customer is and speak directly to them.
Stay Ahead of the Curve
It’s important your brand stays afloat of the latest innovations and avenues to deliver this content. That’s where a content agency can help you, at Hunter we’re constantly researching and trialling out the newest launches to ensure we know how effective something is, and if it’s relevant to your brand. Strategic spending on content can be useful, but there’s no point in forking out cash on wasted ventures. When working with budgets, we make sure you get the most out of your spend, delivering the content to the right audience and platform that will work the hardest for you.
There’s so much more to content than meets the eye. Good content is the backbone of your brand, helping you and your business to build an engaged audience who believe in what you’re doing. Valuable content deserves the time and attention that your organisation may not have the resources to create. At Hunter we can manage this aspect of your business in a seamless and effective way, that frees you up to focus on the bigger picture. As always, just get in touch, we’re here to help.