The importance of Content Creation in Digital Marketing
Hello there!
In this article, I will provide a definition of content in digital marketing. I will mention the
types of digital content and will talk about why content is a key component of internet
marketing. Additionally, I will share with you some of the most popular digital content
creation tools. Finally, I will wrap up commenting about why you should start creating
content now.
What is digital content?
Digital content is any piece of information published on the internet. Digital content is also known as
digital media or digital information.
Anything that you read, hear, and see-through digital devices such as e-readers, speakers, and
smartphones are digital content. Digital media can be created for personal use, or to be shared
with restricted groups or, in many cases, with the general public, depending on the creator’s purpose.
Digital content has different properties like the digital channels in which it can be properly
consumed, its usage rights, its purpose, audience size, interactiveness, synchrony, ease of use,
and many more.
Digital media can be displayed, transmitted, or shared in many devices depending on the type of
content. Some examples of digital content are e-music, digital newspaper, Interactive TV, and games.
Following I mention the main type of digital content and its formats.
What are the types of content?
There are several types of digital media made out of one or more formats. Here is a table that
illustrates many of the different types of content and their formats:
Why is content key in digital marketing?
Simply put, content is key in digital marketing because digital content carries information.
The goal of digital marketing is reaching out to our target market, as well as increasing the
probabilities of being found by those target customers. In order to accomplish the goal,
marketers publish digital media that carry different messages for different niches. These
messages or content are created with the customer intent, the customer journey, and the
sales funnel in mind. Additionally, the type of content to be created will change depending
on the chosen digital channels.
In order to further understand how the ‘shape’ of the message (content-type) is decided,
let’s review some of the most important concepts.
What is Customer Intent?
Reflektion, a US company that is deploying artificial intelligence to analyze customer
behaviors defines customer intent as “the thoughts directing a customers’ decisions or
actions toward a particular purchasing event.”
The idea of understanding the customer intent is to create digital media that is available
and useful for our target market when needed.
Referring to customer intent, Google says, “Be there. When your potential customers
turn to Google and YouTube in their moments of need, make sure you are there”.
The article continues to say …”Be useful. Once you've ensured you're there to meet
your customer, you then need to be useful at that moment. Otherwise, they will
simply move on to another brand. Our research shows 51% of smartphone users have
purchased from a company/brand other than the one they intended to because the
information provided was useful”.
What is Customer Journey and the Sales Funnel?
According to Mailchimp, “The customer journey tells the story of a prospect encountering
your business and the steps they take toward conversion, or purchase, and beyond. It’s not
necessarily a linear journey—not all customers follow the same path from one step to
another. They may encounter obstacles that delay or prevent them from making a purchase.
They might also receive marketing content that propels them toward a purchase,
subscription, brand loyalty, or another end goal for your business”.
On the other hand, according to Crazy Egg, The sales funnel is each step that someone has
to take in order to become your customer.
Contrary to some people’s opinions, the customer journey and the sales funnel are strongly
related. To explain this point, first see the following image.
In this illustration, the customer journey is the blue line winding downwards. Each yellow
dot represents one of the 8 steps of the customer journey; aware, engage, subscribe,
convert, excite, ascend, advocate, and promote.
The AIDA model is a representation of the 4 levels that make the sales funnel; Attention,
Interest, Desire, and Action.
In the image above, every step of the customer journey is aligned with the one or more
levels of the AIDA sales funnel. For instance, the first step of the customer journey coincides
with the first AIDA level; awareness. Another example is Excite, which is aligned with both
awareness and interest, meaning that in order to inspire our customers on board, it is
necessary to create content that makes customers both aware and interested in using
the product previously transacted in step 4 (the conversion).
The main idea here is that content is created to meet a specific customer’s intent.
The content must be created to be available and useful at different steps of the customer’s
journey. The type of digital content depends heavily on the digital channel to be used, and
the message that the content carries should be conceived with the AIDA sales funnel in mind.
So, what are digital channels?
In a previous post, I mentioned a couple of good definitions, including the one provided by
the official Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM); "The methods used by a company to
communicate and interact with its customers". For more information about digital channels
read “Digital Marketing Channels”.
How to create content?
If you are the person in charge of creating content, you will probably have to create digital
media in many types to satisfy the customer’s intent. The content will be delivered through
multiple digital channels for personas at different steps of the customer journey and
different levels of the sales funnel.
Before creating content you must understand what the customer intent is. Then, think of
creating useful content (usually content that inspires, entertains, or educates) that can
be available when the persona (prospect, lead, or customer) is searching for it.
Keep in mind that the piece of content must be suitable for the digital channel chosen.
Additionally, It is important that the content you create is high quality and consistent.
A recommended good practice is to make a work-frame for the content creation flow and
the dates and times that this content must be published or uploaded.
Digital Content Creation Tools
There are many options available for content creation, from free to paid software to online
or downloadable apps, and much more.
There is no one size fits all option, and the tool you choose should be based on your technical
knowledge, budget, system requirements, and content type.
I have favorite tools depending on the format I will be working on (text, image+text, photo,
illustration, audio, video, VR, AR, tables, gifs, boomerang, graphs, etc)
What are some of the most popular tools for content creation?
I personally like adobe suite software, online tools like Canva, pixlr-x, and computer programs like GIMP, DaVinci Resolve, and several others.
Here are two lists of digital media creation tools for you to choose from. The first one is “51 Best Free Visual Content Creation Tools To Make Marketing Easy” by Optin Monster. The second list is “The Ultimate List of Free Content Creation Tools & Resources” by HubSpot.
Wrapping up
Now that you understand the importance of content creation, I urge you to start creating digital
media following the steps mentioned in this article.
Asking a cold prospect to purchase your products without them knowing and trusting your brand, is
like proposing marriage to someone on a first date: the success rate is low.
For your target market to become aware and interested you have to create content that serves this
purpose. Then, in order to have your prospects making decisions and taking actions that are
favorable for your business you, again, have to create content.
With the amount of easily available content creation tools and a wide variety of digital channels,
creating content is not enough. Your content must be useful, high quality, and consistent with your
brand and schedules.
Digital content is present where the internet or electronic devices are being used. Possibilities are
unlimited. Be creative.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, please, let me know down below. Every opinion
on how to improve the content of this blog will allow me to make adjustments on the go, with
the objective of providing quality information for you, my dear readers.
If you would like to read my previous post about
“What are Metrics, KPI, and ROI in Digital Marketing?” click here.
Sincerely,
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