Coronavirus changes content marketing in a surprising way
You don’t need to be a marketing expert to realize that the outbreak of the coronavirus has had an immense impact on the way business to business (B2B) companies market their products and services.
We have already indicated in an earlier blog post that marketers are likely to shift budgets allocated for participation in exhibitions to online marketing.
The forecast, made in the very early days of corona, was based on what we witnessed from speaking to our current and prospective customers. However, now this trend is supported by real data indicating that marketing investments in physical industry events and conferences is expected to drop by a sharp 88 percent.
A new survey conducted by NewsCred and Sirkin Research to identify marketing trends transforming enterprise marketing teams revealed some interesting insights. The research, which focused on data from more than 250 marketing leaders in the world’s leading organizations, focused on understanding the impact of coronavirus on marketing teams.
A closer look at the survey indicates that 78% of those that survived intend to increase their investments in virtual events, which is not surprising and does not require any explanation.
The real surprise is that 72% intend to invest more on web content. The number even exceeds the 67% of those wishing to invest more on webinars, which I would have expected to come in second, considering that the physical distancing reality is forcing everybody to move to the virtual world.
This is followed by 66% who wish to spend more on social media marketing and 57% who said they will increase blog marketing spending.
Content marketing can deliver
The fact that content marketing is so popular among marketers can be attributed to growing awareness of the benefits of high-quality content, which enables companies to build trust, creates awareness, drives traffic and is great for search engine optimization (SEO).
If you manage to create content that is educational, fun, easy to read and understand, and make sure to leverage it by posting it on different social media outlets, you can gain wide exposure. It will also enable you to demonstrate your professional knowhow and establish your position among existing and future customers.
Content marketing is not as expansive as other marketing practices and if you make sure to analyze the results, you can discern quite quickly which kind of content is favored by different audiences, thus helping you decide how to allocate your resources for producing future posts.
Moreover, content is a great way to generate quality leads. If you create well-presented and distributed useful content, it will help your business to be discovered by potential clients, who are looking for services similar to the ones your company is offering.
By creating great content, including blog posts, video, social media posts, case studies, press releases, and newsletters, you can be sure to offer something for customers at each stage of the marketing funnel.
Not expensive, but not easy
The only problem with content is that it is not easy to craft. We have already mentioned that content is cost effective, but it is not cheap and shouldn’t be done carelessly. It requires careful planning and a good strategy. You need to work according to a well-defined schedule that will enable you to get your message through at the right moment. At the same time, however, you need to maintain some level of flexibility and quickly seize opportunities when they arise.
Creating great content isn’t enough if it doesn’t reach your target audience. You need to know how to present it, how to share and promote it, and how to measure its impact.
If you haven’t done so until now, this is exactly the time to start!
Content marketing requires proactivity, commitment, hard work and some creativity. You can do it yourself or you can hire a professional to help you. The only thing you can’t do is ignore it, because if you won’t do it you can be almost certain that your competitor will, especially these days when marketing pros are looking for cost-effective alternatives to traditional practices that have been put on hold.
Although many companies are cutting their digital and advertising campaigns as a result of the pandemic spread, learning from our experience in previous crises show the effectiveness of continuing your marketing activity in attempt to recover as soon as possible.
A recent survey of more than 35,000 consumers globally by Kantar found that brands that cut all their ad spend during the crisis, would suffer from a 13% decline in sales in the long run and make market share hard to recover. At the same time, a 50% drop in ad spend would result in just a 1% drop in sales.
Although the survey deals with paid advertising it illustrates the need to allocate marketing resources in a smart way.
If you are not sure how to kickstart your content marketing initiative, contact us
