How To Differentiate Your Brand With a Content Marketing Strategy
Whether you work in an up-and-coming startup or a large international company, a content marketing strategy can truly transform the way you conduct business.
In terms of comparing two brands in the same industry, customers’ only way to know a good one from bad is through content marketing they provide.
According to HubSpot Marketing Statistics, however, only 22% of brands are satisfied with their contents’ conversion rates. 61% of them claim that their organic online presence growth is a top priority.
This goes to show that many businesses approach content marketing strategy creation without a plan on how to differentiate their brand from others.
Let’s take a look at how you can do just that through adequate, well-planned content marketing. This will, in turn, increase your traffic, engagement and conversion rates.
1. Define your industry niche
Trying to appease every stakeholder out there simply won’t work, no matter how wide-spread of an appeal your products or services might have.
Your main customer or client base should have a clearly defined profile in terms of their age, gender, lifestyle and professional development choices. Make sure to define your niche within the industry you operate in with as much precision as possible.
For example, McDonald’s is a global fast-food brand. But they do not offer every fast food option on the planet, instead opting to carve out a niche.
Specialize your company within a certain field. So, you will not only have an easier time attracting stakeholders but also open the possibility of increasing your prices due to product exclusivity.
2. Define your brand goals
Once you have a product or service portfolio set in stone, you should define your company’s goals, vision, and mission statement. These abstract elements might not seem relevant at first. But they will allow your customers and clients to identify with what you do.
As we’ve previously mentioned, the only thing that separates three beverage companies apart from one another in terms of marketing is the vision and culture they cultivate.
Allow potential customers and clients to draw parallels between themselves and your products in order to differentiate your brand and make it stand out from the industry.
3. Set visual brand standards
Every successful brand has a very clearly defined visual style and company standards.
These are also used to differentiate a brand from others in the same industry, especially in competitive markets such as finance, legalities or eCommerce.
The head of the
Your visual standards can often make or break your online presence and marketing efforts. Pay close attention to the colors you associate with your brand and the original photos or graphics you create for your branding and advertisement. These will help clients identify with your brand just as much as your mission or vision will.
Your visual standards should consist of a logo or logotype, a standardized color palette and several design elements which will be used throughout your content marketing strateg.
This is one of the best ways to turn the heads of your stakeholders and make them notice your brand without even reading through the content at first glance.
4. Create a social media presence
Social media platforms are a great communication channel in terms of approachability and interactivity.
You should create dedicated pages on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn with your brand name if you haven’t already. This will enable you access to a large audience who may or may not be aware of your business and service portfolio.
You can share your content through these pages and interact with people who comment and engage with your posts. This is also a
Your social media presence should be bolstered by live sessions in which you can answer community questions, showcase new products or host quizzes and giveaways to further differentiate your brand from the competition.
In the video below, Marketing 360 tells about social media management, why you need it, and how it works:
5. Place employees front and center
Every company under the sun is operated by office employees and departments filled with professionals in their respective fields. You can easily incorporate your employees into the content marketing strategy by introducing them to your customer and client bases.
For example, an employee of the month can offer a short review of their achievements and what drove them to work so hard that month.
Another piece of content can be centered on team building activities that took place in your offices last week. These types of content pieces are heartfelt and work well as emotional triggers for potential and recurring customers alike.
6. Showcase your social proof for an effective B2B content marketing strategy
Once you establish communication channels with your audience (through social media, your blog,
This can be anything from reviews, video testimonials, quotes
Don’t settle for stock photography and cliché marketing phrases which audiences see everywhere. Differentiate by thinking outside of what your competition already does.
Social proof can be showcased in future content marketing in order to “prove” your level of quality and professionalism to the public.
Providing social proof to other potential stakeholders is the best way to help them make the final purchase decision in terms of your service portfolio.
7. Measure results iterate
Lastly, you should never rely on any type of content marketing strategy without active performance tracking and analysis.
Platforms such as Google Analytics are specifically designed to allow for in-depth data to be collected in terms of your content’s performance. This will allow you to quickly gauge whether or not your content marketing strategy is working and what you can do to make it better.
Once you are certain of which elements didn’t work as intended, you will be able to eliminate them entirely or to confidently build upon the foundations.
Never stop tracking your content and how the public takes to your marketing strategies, messages, and products in order to stay in touch with the market.
Differentiating your brand from other companies in your industry should be fairly straightforward provided you define your goals and mission statement. It’s useful to get help from content editing tools to do it.
Don’t copy content marketing elements from others since both B2C and B2B stakeholders will see through it. Carve out your identity through original content, ideas, and branding – the right audience will always find its way to you.
