In an age where brands have fragmented their online advertising channels and clutter is everywhere, a solid digital marketing strategy is key. Consumers spend more hours almost every day consuming online today. This a huge opportunity. A recent survey revealed that 37% of digital marketing strategy goals were to create brand awareness and 26% were to increase the number of leads.
Content marketing isn’t anything new. It has been around for ages, well before the rise of the digital era. In 1900, Michelin published a little book called ‘ The Michelin Guides’, it was a 400-pages book with instructions such as car maintenance, tire repair, hotels locations, gas stations, and other information that could help any of the 3,000 cars travelling around at that time. As a result, it published over 35,000 guides by creating content for a specific audience and not just trying to sell tires. Today, the Guide Michelin is an invaluable guide renown the world over for the stars it allocates to chefs and restaurants around the world.
Times have changed, and so have marketing strategies. With the development of digital platforms and social media, it has become imperative to innovate ways to reach the audience, using the right channels. Easy you say?
Yes, but no.
Facebook page and Tweets can make you acquire an audience, but what is an audience if there is no engagement between fans and your brand? Strauss and Frost identified different levels of engagement: Connectors and Collectors. Connectors like, follow and join brands to get information but their engagement stops here. Collectors, however, like, share, tag, start to choose what they want to see and influences others. In an age where 30% of users use ad-blockers and have banner blindness, creating content that is both appealing and valuable is crucial. Connecting to your audience, telling a story while keeping them interested is important. Not only for clicks but for developing a community and building trust. This trust will later translate to consumer loyalty and conversion.
The Twisties Mauritius brand
Twisties, the crunchy, cheesy, tasty Australian brand has been around for quite some years and has been able to integrate the Mauritian market decently. Everyone in Mauritius has heard about Twisties. Kids from all ages, old ones and even those who lived their precious teenage years in the ‘90s are fans of Twisties. This brand has been communicating mostly on paid media platforms and acquiring new adopters. The brand has settled in many households and is now the snack that many are fond of thanks to word of mouth.
Mauritians are more and more connected. With 894 000 Facebook users in Mauritius that accounts for 70% of the population, it is definitely the time to have a growing online community for your brand. Content is king. And Twisties Mauritius has taken advantage of this. With weekly posts, Twisties Mauritius has generated more than 250,000 average reaches monthly, more than 14,000 engagements and more than 10,000 reactions.*
Building Loyalty With Content
With a growing fan base, having the right content is crucial. Social listening is an important tool to see what people are saying about your brand. Leveraging the right content on earned media channels (Facebook) can be amplified with paid distribution, enabling a wider distribution and a bigger impact. With more than 20,000 followers, Twisties is creating valuable and relevant content, paving the way to build loyalty and create this emotional connection with its audience. The brand wants people to understand that they are not just selling Twisties but they are in their life, accompanying them and understanding the everyday situations they go through.
A few memes have been created around this brand to further encourage humor with a fan base that share the same love for Twisties at heart. Brand advocates are talking about how they enjoy or how they are missing Twisties during this lockdown period. They are the die-hard fans. At first, during the lockdown period, Twisties wasn’t in the list of essential items being delivered by any company. Still, the online community was still active and interacting with the brand because of the engagement it has been creating with its audience. The brand has been extremely responsive to comments, reactions and enabling a one to one response, building trust and living up to its reputation.
Building the right strategies around your buyers and creating the right content for them is the way to promote your brand and to see sales happening. Engaging with the audience through content and having brand advocates that influence others through eWOM strengthen the brand’s image and encourage adherence to a top of mind brand that has a legacy.
Content marketing isn’t an exact science. Some fail at it while some succeed. The key is to understand your target, who they are, and what they consider important for them. The data that you get from this is still useless if you do not know how to use it to create strategies that will drive your brand further into the spotlight and most importantly, to the heart of your audience. In other words, content is the handshake between the brand and its audience.
Content may be king, but aren’t your audience the actual kings and queens?