We’ve all heard content is king, meaning content marketing is its PR manager. The strategies you employ to create relevant content for your target audience are essential for engagement, so content marketing can be highly effective in building brand authority.
General principles and best practices apply to all businesses, including service-based ones. However, you must understand your niche’s nuances and unique challenges to refine your content marketing and build brand authority.
Brand Building Facts
Most (90 percent) marketers include content in their marketing plans. Still, you might be surprised at how they spend the collective $600 billion budget earmarked for it.
Source: Forbes
As you can see, most marketers spend a significant portion of their resources on community building and analytics. The key takeaway is not quantity but quality because that builds trust and credibility, eventually leading to authority. Here are five interesting facts about content for brand building that you can use to develop a winning strategy.
Only a few will conquer
Creating content and managing a content marketing strategy at scale might seem intimidating until you realize it doesn’t require constantly posting something new. Reports suggest that only 2.5 percent of content across industries converts visitors into customers. Your focus should be on identifying that little bit of content and optimizing them across your channels. You can do that by auditing your site and social media channels to determine what attracts the most traffic.
You should also note that the average time a user spends on content is 5.59 seconds unless they find what they need. In that case, they will engage with it for as long as it takes. Long-form content generates more engagement than short-form content, provided it is meaningful for your audience. The lesson here is to focus on creating and optimizing branded content that builds credibility and trust, regardless of length and channel.
Create content based on a promotion plan
Most businesses would focus solely on creating content for their site or channel that will elevate engagement. However, the best way to promote content is outside the bubble. With that in mind, it would be best to come up with a promotion plan before creating content.
Identify the sites and channels you want to promote your business and find out the types of topics they cover, their target audience, and brand identity. For example, if you offer marketing services for lawyers, you can create content that is of interest to a specific legal or business podcast channel.
Traditional media still works
While TV, radio, and newspapers no longer enjoy the same prominence they once did, they can still help build brand authority. Appearing as a topic expert on a local radio or television show can generate positive exposure for you and your service, reaching people who may not spend all their time online. Additionally, traditional media also have an online presence, so you might see a multiplier effect if you pull it off successfully.
SEO is not the goal
Working on your ranking through search engine optimization (SEO) is great for generating awareness, but it is not the goal of brand building. You might argue that you need people to know you’re around before you can build your brand, and you would be right.
However, you need to strike a balance between SEO and brand building to attract new people and keep them coming back. Otherwise, you’re just wasting resources on getting people on your site or channels but not improving brand recall. Invest in strategic SEO to win the ranking battle while working on delivering quality content that wins the brand-building war.
Retargeting works
Suppose you have a great SEO strategy that brings in people in droves. The cookies they leave behind allow you to collect user data you can use in retargeting (AKA remarketing). These are paid search, pop-up, email, and social media ads targeting users who expressed an interest in what you offer. It might be filling up a survey form, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter, but they failed to go through with it for some reason. It gives you a chance to reconnect with users and remind them about what they were doing on your website.
Retargeting brings back about a quarter (26 percent) of previous visitors to your website, which is why many (56 percent) businesses use it as a strategy to win customers. Almost half (42 percent) of those who use retargeting ads also do so to build brand awareness.
Understanding Brand Authority
The facts above are well and good when making the case for content marketing as a strategy for brand building. However, that is not the end of the line for service-based companies.
The primary goal of brand building is to increase recall in a positive light. Users with a good experience with a product will more likely recommend it to others and have more trust in other products of the same brand. The thing is, service-based businesses have to take it one step further. They must also build brand authority.
Brand authority is the trust and expertise that others have in your business. It’s not just about awareness or recall but the perception of value. Sometimes, it starts with registering a business in the local community where you plan to operate and start working. Reviews from happy customers can serve as a bedrock for reputation building online.
However, there is no magic pill that will help you build brand authority overnight, even if you get rave reviews. It requires consistency and dedication to deliver quality and relevant content to an audience that doesn’t know you.
So how can you do that? Check out the following suggestions.
Blog articles
You’ve guessed it. Blog articles are still the best way to convey experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) because they are effective. Surveys show that 61 percent of Americans engage more with articles than emails, and 71 percent of B2B use blog content to inform their purchases.
With blog articles, you can also hit two birds with one stone: SEO and brand building. You can optimize blog articles to improve visibility while providing relevant and useful content to people who click on the link to your site. You can create in-depth opinion pieces, long-form articles to inform or instruct, and other resources to signal that, yes, we are the go-to site for this topic. As a bonus, human reviewers on Google will reward you with a high-quality rating if you can satisfy the E-E-A-T framework.
Social media
It is not surprising that social media would significantly impact brand visibility, but service-based industries must be mindful about constructing their online presence. It can be fatally easy to cross the line with social media posts that can hurt their hard-won reputation as an authority. One example is the now-deleted 2019 Chase tweet that appeared to blame and shame their customers for having no money.
Social media can significantly boost a brand’s authority, provided the post conveys a clear message that the target audience will not misinterpret. Suppose you published industry insights or thought leadership articles relevant to your audience. You can choose an interesting finding or quote to share on your Facebook page and provide a link to your website. That will generate interest in your company and increase your visibility as an authority in the space.
Videos
People love to watch videos, and the demand keeps increasing yearly. Video content is an engaging and flexible way of conveying a message, whether in the form of did-you-know, how-to, product demos, behind-the-scenes, or testimonial videos.
The best way to understand the allure of videos is translation. It is easier to keep your audience’s attention when explaining even the most complicated concepts when you show them how it works.
Carefully planned and executed videos can significantly boost a brand’s authority because they show a knowledge of the subject and target audience. A company that shows they understand their audience demonstrates a commitment to serving them in whatever way they can. Videos are also highly shareable, so the more effort you put into it, the better the feedback will likely be. If it goes viral, you’re made.
Of course, while virality is the dream, the more realistic goal is reinforcing trust through consistency in your brand’s voice, quality, and messaging. When you use videos to build your brand authority, be ready to adapt to changing circumstances. You should also always be on the lookout for opportunities to drive your message home in the best possible way through feedback and data analysis.
Newsletters
It might sound boring, but you’ll be surprised how effective newsletters can build brand authority. Think of newsletters as a community circular that engages your audience personally and directly every week or month. It can be updates on your company, relevant news about the industry, or valuable tips that can benefit your subscribers significantly.
Perhaps more importantly, newsletters keep your brand on top of mind with subscribers; they might even share them with their network if you make it interesting enough. The point of newsletters is to strengthen the relationship between the brand and the subscribers through relevant and engaging content.
Practical Brand Authority Building Through Content
Brand authority built through content helps service-based businesses acquire customer trust and credibility. While the facts and suggestions above can help inform your content marketing strategy, your best guide is your target audience. Make every effort to understand what they want and need through feedback, analysis, and conversations so you can provide them with relevant and engaging content.
Building a reputation as the go-to for your service industry will take time, but it will help you build strong relationships that will make it worthwhile.
