Legos are cool blocks and undeniably some of the most popular toys in the world, among both the young and the old. But there’s something else associated with Lego that binds fans even more strongly to the brand: admirable content.
If you have children, you probably know that on the Lego website, you can play exciting computer games, and on Netflix, you can find many Lego Friends cartoons. Lego’s YouTube channel is packed with short films, assembly tutorials, and user-generated content. On the brand’s social media platforms, you can see fan-made creations and the behind-the-scenes work of the Lego design team. All of this and much more make up Lego’s content marketing, which retains customers and significantly boosts sales.
You might think, sure, but Lego is a giant company with a hefty budget for producing such content. You’re right, but winning customers and increasing sales through content creation is not exclusive to big players because content can be created and distributed across various channels on a small budget or even for free. Read our previous blog posts, for example, about our clients’ success stories: Tene Kaubandus; Avaeksperdid (in Estonian).
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what content creation is, why it’s beneficial, and how to start creating content.
Content – The Key to Customers’ Hearts
Content creation is the production of original, valuable, and relevant material in various formats, such as written articles, social media and blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, etc. Its purpose is to do content marketing, which means engaging, involving, and informing the target audience in a way that eventually leads potential customers to take the desired actions: make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, share the content, or the like.
With diverse and consistent content marketing, both in terms of topics and form, it’s possible to:
- Increase Brand Awareness: Introduce the brand’s personality, values, and knowledge through content, making the brand more visible and known.
- Improve Target Audience Engagement: Engaging content captures attention, encourages interaction, and fosters relationships with customers.
- Increase Website Traffic: Optimize content for search engines, and you’ll soon notice an increase in website visits.
- Build Trust: Who wouldn’t trust a brand that provides useful information and valuable knowledge and helps solve problems?
- Increase Leads and Conversions: By helping the target audience find necessary solutions and sharing tips about products and services through content, you attract interested people who might later become paying customers. HubSpot’s marketing statistics reveal that companies with blogs receive about 67% more leads per month than those without.
- Retain Existing and Find New Loyal Customers: Consistent, relevant, and engaging content strengthens customer relationships, encourages repeat purchases, and promotes brand loyalty.
- Do Marketing Cost-effectively: Content marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing activities, with a return on investment (ROI) of 177%, according to Forbes, i.e., each euro invested in content creation brings an average of 2.77 euros back to the company.
How to Start with Content Creation
Now that it’s clear why to do content marketing, let’s see how to get started.
As with any other marketing activity, start by setting goals. Do you primarily want to increase brand awareness, drive more traffic to your website, boost sales? It’s easier to create a content marketing strategy based on specific goals.
Then define the target audiences and develop as precise customer profiles or personas as possible. The more detailed they are, the easier it is to understand what resonates with them, what channels and formats they prefer to consume content in.
Now, start selecting topics and matching them with the most effective formats. For example, during a brainstorming session, find out what topics are relevant to your target audience. To facilitate the work, you can search for the most popular keywords in your sector using Google. Also, remember that topics must align with your brand’s values because effective content assumes that it speaks the same language as the company’s mission and vision, or the so-called company “why”.
Although the most effective content marketing topics depend on your company, target audience, sector, and business goals, generally, the following approaches work well:
- Educational Content: Share valuable information, tips, tutorials, and guides related to your field or niche that can be both generally interesting and problem-solving.
- Industry Trends and Insights: Keep your audience updated on the latest trends, developments, and news in your field, participate in your industry’s events, and share those experiences.
- Customer Stories and Case Studies: Show how the brand’s products or services have helped customers.
- Product Presentations and Reviews: Highlight the features, benefits, and uses of products or services to educate and help customers make purchase decisions.
- Behind The Scenes: Show design and production processes, introduce company values and culture to bring customers closer and humanize the brand image.
- Q&A: Answer frequently asked questions and hold Q&A sessions to provide explanations.
- Visual Content: Create visually appealing content such as infographics, charts, graphs, pictures, and videos to convey information in a more engaging format that people are more likely to share.
When the range of topics is clear, also create a content calendar assigning responsible individuals for each task, so that all texts, photos, videos, graphics, and other content are ready and published on time. Then, start implementing the plan.
Ensure that the created content is also optimized for search engines and shared across various channels: social media platforms, newsletters, forums, etc. This way, you improve content visibility and bring organic traffic to your website. Also, continuously monitor the work done and its results to adjust strategies, topics, or channels if necessary.
If you fear running out of time or need professional help, there’s no reason to feel bad about it. Nearly half of the companies that do content marketing admit that content creation services, such as graphic design, video or animation creation, or writing, are outsourced. Content marketing and content creation services are also one of the ace cards of Hundred Agency. Visit us, and we’ll review your brand’s current state and sketch a vision for the future to start creating for it!