The 3 Steps to Mastering Your Content Creation

Content Marketing involves the creation and sharing of online materials such as videos, social media posts, blogs, emails etc. The key element of content marketing is that it is not explicitly promoting a brand but rather stimulates interest amongst the audience in its products and/ or services.

‘Content is King’ is a regularly uttered phrase in the marketing industry, first recognised by Bill Gates in 1996, little did he know just how right he was. Content marketing is one of the most effective methods adopted by brands to influence conversions and generate leads, the ultimate goal is to build relationships with customers, as demonstrated in this graphic.

We're going to focus on the 'create' stage, with these 3 steps to mastering your content creation.

Using consistent messaging, tone, themes across all content helps to build brand recognition, e.g. you would never see Coca-Cola create a dark blue ad as it may be confused for Pepsi, and vice versa, the iconic Coca-Cola red is instantly recognisable by most. Your audience is likely to engage with your content if it adds value to them and they recognise you as a familiar, trusted brand, you can build this by remaining consistent in your content.

Understanding your audience is the backbone of your content marketing, without knowing what your audience wants, content marketing could be a waste of time and money. One of our previous articles also touches on this subject.

Some questions you should ask about your audience when designing a content marketing strategy are: 

• What are their demographics - age/ city/ gender/ parental status?
• What are their interests?
• What’s their job?
• Where would they go food shopping?
• What platforms do they use?
• What type of content do they engage with?
• What time of day are they most active online?

The idea is to build a few fictional characters, known as buyer personas, that best represent your clients and then refer to these when creating your content.

Marketing has changed - No longer is advertising as effective as it was, people don’t want to hear ‘look how great we are’ from brand communications, instead they are looking for ‘look how useful we are to you, we can add value in your daily life’.

Think about how you can add value to your clients, then use this to inform your content strategy. Can you boost their confidence with a certain facial treatment? Can you ease their nerves before a treatment by detailing a step-by-step or the safety precautions that are taken? Can you improve their skin by offering expert skincare advice?

The possibilities for content are endless, as long as you look at it from the right angle.

Rule no. 1 - NEVER use automated content creation tools, they are a cheap shortcut that will only produce dry, uninteresting content that won’t engage your audience. You wouldn’t use some back alley dermal filler just because it was cheap because you know the results will not be as good as the industry-leading brands - this is the same deal, you need a real person who is experienced in your industry and/ or marketing to create engaging, exciting content for your brand (enter, Esthetica Digital).

Unsure where to start with your content? Look at what others in your industry are doing. Have they had a huge spike in likes because of a certain video? Is there a way you can use this video as inspiration for your own content?

For example, Reels is a growing feature on Instagram, Instagram itself tends to favour your posts if you are using their new feature. Great examples we’ve seen include walkthroughs of a treatment process, explanations of different treatments/ products/ tools used, educational videos on skincare.

What do all of these have in common? They add value to the viewer, a potential client will likely use this content to find out more about your clinic and your practices, this content will help put them at ease as they can see what is to come and can trust that you know your stuff (adding your face to the videos is always a plus as it adds familiarity).

Here are some of our favourite tools for creating golden content:

• Canva - Easy-to-use editing tool with 1000s of templates to use.
• Pexels - free stock images. Where possible, it’s best to use your own images, but when that isn’t an option, there are loads of free stock photo websites out there to keep your costs down.
• BuzzSumo - find content insights to see what’s trending in your industry.
• MailChimp - email marketing is a must when it comes to your content marketing strategy
• Hootsuite - manage your social media profiles from one place
• Analytics - OK, technically not a tool, more of a recommendation but, definitely monitor your website, social media and email analytics so you can begin to learn what content your audience is interacting with.