Brands want to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their buying decisions. Delivering the right content at the right stage of the journey, moving consumers seamlessly towards purchase, is key to successful content marketing. Crafting the right content means understanding what your audience wants and needs at any given moment. Which is why those ad hoc, one-off content ideas sent down from the C-Suite can be a waste of resource.

For example, in the awareness or discovery stage, people are researching products or services and will be open to learning about your brand and its offering. Inspiring brand and product storytelling that displays your values, communicates your USP and offers a solution to a problem is a must. Just don’t pressure people to buy. At this early stage, it’s about capturing audiences’ imaginations and hooking them in with a shared passion, so, for example, a gym brand might publish a blog post about the best exercises to strengthen your glutes, or an educational video about running technique, demonstrating their expertise and positioning their offering.

In the next stage, the consideration or engagement stage, consumers will be hungry for more detail as they recognise that they have a problem to solve, and they consider your product or service as a potential solution. In short, your prospect has become a lead and you need to help them trust you.

This is the time to showcase your wares, so an automotive brand might post a short product video demonstrating its latest model’s fuel economy and spacious interior to highlight a solution to a common challenge — combining cost-effectiveness and comfort.

In the final stage, consumers are ready to make a purchase decision, and will need the nitty gritty that gives your brand and product the edge over competition. A customer review or case study can be powerful at this stage. An outdoor clothing brand could have a short customer video shot on a head-mounted cam, for example, showing how the company’s hiking boots look great and still grip in wet and muddy conditions, convincing viewers to choose your brand over your competitors’.

Use audience data to drill into what your audience needs, what they respond well to, and what has worked well (or not so well) in the past. Approach every piece of content as a value exchange. Constantly iterate to resonate, and use this data to personalise content where possible.

Authenticity also underpins a clear brand purpose and a strong and consistent point of view. This is key to ensuring that your content stands out from competitors’ and, critically, makes people feel something. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of millennials and Gen Z express a preference for brands that have a point of view and stand for something, according to Kantar Consulting's Purpose 2020 report ‘Inspiring Purpose-Led Growth’.

A brand must know what it stands for, substantiate these values in its actions, and involve and engage consumers in its cause. Take Patagonia as an example. The outdoor clothing brand is committed to sustainability and reducing consumption, and its content marketing consistently reinforces this stance, with a focus on educating, discussing and provoking thought — not selling.

One of its recent Instagram images showed a rainbow over the Alabama Hills, commenting on its ‘rapid transformation’ due to the ‘popularity of rock climbing surging at an unsustainable pace’. The image linked to a blog post on the ‘Stories' section of Patagonia’s website, which talked about the environmental dangers of overuse.

Successful brands are clear about what they stand for and what they believe in, and effective content marketing strategies are built around this. Don't simply jump on the latest topical bandwagon.

Marketers need to understand their audience and what they want or need from the company’s brand or product. Simply telling them what the marketing department wants to tell them won’t cut it. By researching your target audience and developing strong audience personas, and creating content that is genuinely useful to these prospective customers, brands can resonate and engage with the right people. This lays the foundations for an enduring relationship.

Think about how your audience can access and consume this content easily too. Providing engaging digital experiences is key to reaching many of today's audiences, and getting this right means people come back for more. ‘Spray and pay’ is wasteful and damaging…

Is your content marketing working as hard as it should? Talk to our content specialists to identify your weak spots.