MY DIGITAL MARKETING JOURNEY

MY DIGITAL MARKETING JOURNEY

Last week was the second week of my digital marketing class, and i must say it doesn’t get any simpler.

we proceeded into the most exciting part of the class, which was particularly the part i’ve been waiting for. The content marketing class. who would have thought creating content goes beyond just making videos and talking in front of cameras, like the instagram, tiktok, youtube, and the likes.

In this class, i learnt that content is any message that carries the value proposition of your business. now value proposition simply means what your business represents, the purpose, objectives and goals that its set to achieve. Content isn’t just about videos, it could be as simple as a thank you message, an email, a flier, etc. therefore, when putting out any form of content out there that represents your brand, be intentional about it.

We dive further into the process of writing content. to write content you have four process you must follow,
you have to plan, create, distribute and analyze your content , then repeat.
to plan your content is simply mapping out what you want to do,
create means executing the planned content ,
then distribute to your various channels, analyze the results of your content and see if your marketing ojective was achieved, then you repeat the same process.

As we all know that content is the information you give to people about your business and could do 4 things to your audience,
it could attract, promote, nurture or persuade your audience towards your business.
It is important to know that content is described by 3 things
purpose, format and topic.
The purpose of a content is simply what you aim to achieve with the said content, it could be an offer which is usually gated by a landing page. offer such as subscribe to our newsletter to enjoy 10% discount, etc like we often see now these days or blog post which could be on the website, social media pages etc.
Format, which simply means the style of your content, are you writing a blog post, or making a tiktok video, sending emails, creating ebooks etc. all these are the styles or format you intend to pass your message to achieve your purpose.
Most importantly, i was taught that, the format your content would take depends on your audience, which takes us back to the target persona.
TARGET PERSONA is the personality that represents the audience your content which carries your business objectives attracts.
now that you understand that, lets get to the last of the trio which is topic.
Topic, the topic of your content depends on your customer and where they are in your customer’s journey.
I know you must be wondering that, what is a customer journey?
customer journey is simply the route your audience take in other for you to fulfill your business objective.
the customer’s journey stages are 5 in numbers , we have the awareness stage, the interest stage, the desire stage, the action stage and the post action stage.
this is as simple as the meaning of the words, before you select your content topic, you need to know the stage, the buyer persona you have created for your content objective is, in the customers’ journey .
now there are several ways to identify the topic that matters relating to your business. we have key words research, faqs, buyer persona goals and problems etc.
It is important to know that contents about problems is most suitable for awareness stage, contents about solution is most suitable for interest/desire stage.

i hope you this aren’t bored yet? lmao it gets interesting you’ll see
now lets get into the categories of content. content are categorized into three, HUB, HERO AND HYGEINE content.
A HUB content which can also be called a push content is a an everyday content, which could either be inform of blogpost, videos etc. it is the type of content you post daily or weekly to communicate to your audience, it usually focuses on the clients concerns/pain points.
HERO content on the other hand can also be called a pull content, this content are evergreen contents, they are not everyday or weekly unlike the hub content. they are usually created like once or twice a year.
they are contents that serve a long time purpose, examples are ebook, white paper, or a well planned, organised and detailed video contents. e.g if you are a digital marketer for a company and you want to launch a new product, the best type of content you should create for the launch is a hero content.
hero content is most suitable for the awareness stage in the customer journey.
and lastly HYGIENE content is the type of content that customers would search for themselves, they contain the how to informations or faqs.
could be questions about a particular products, you could create this type of contents on a regular basis, either on your websites, blogposts, youtube etc.

having understood this, we moved to the elements of contents,
elements of contents are the must haves your content should include before being pushed out there to get the best results.
1. Personalization: your content must be niched down to your business in such a way that when your audience go through it, they can relate to it. this will help your content achieve its goals. people love relatable contents.
2. length: when curating contents, it is important to put you audience time into consideration, your content must be time conscious. if you’re not telling a story, writing a depth white paper, ebooks, your content shouldn’t take so much of your audience time, it should be concise and straightforward, delivers on headline that way, your audience can know what it entails, so the purpose of your content could be achieved.
3. language: the language you speak to your audience depends on your type of business, your target audience and the format of your content.
if you run a B2B( business to business) business your language should be formal, because target audience are CEO’s or Hr’s, serious minded people, who are focused on what you have to offer, so if you introduce an informal language, jargon or slangs, you might not be able to achieve your said objective for the content.
you can be more flexible with your language if your business is a B2C( business to consumers) type , depending on your targeted audience for the said content.
4. voice and tone: the voice and tone you use while passing your message is very impotant, is your tone persuasive or coersive? how your talk to your audience matters alot, because the tone you use while talking to someone above you is not the same voice you use while talking to your friends. so you have to consider your clients mood while creating contents.

how are we feeling? should we take a commercial break or we should proceed? heard proceed (laughs)
now we have 3 core elements of content asides the four listed above, they are; Memory, motivation and emotion
humans tends to remember things they see in pictures, more than reading, so when writing your cintent include infographics to enable your audience remember and relate to it.
Motivation is an internal states that affects the behaviour. lets say for example you sell pen, and your call your pen success pen. your content can motivate a student who is about to write an exam buy your pen, even though he already has a pen.
and lastly Emotion, humans by nature have different reactions to the different emotions they feel. popularly, it is said that the best time to ask your parents for something is when they are happy. same goes to the content you create as a digital marketer, the emotions your content portrays should be reflection of your buyer persona, and the reaction your audience takes should achieve your objectives.
research shows that happiness can prompt people to share, while anger can prompt people to action etc.
now you know that they emotions your content portray can positively or negatively affect your marketing objectives.

Learnt so much interesting stuffs about content. cant wait to share more of my week 3 with y’all. see yo same time nextweek
thank you.