There are many companies that don’t think content marketing works. They followed the prescribed recommendations of all the experts, but content marketing failed to attract new customers or increase sales. However, the problem is likely not with content marketing itself, but more a failure to aligning your content and messaging with your company’s core values and principles. If you are having a problem attracting blog subscribers and social media followers, or your online audience does not represent your ideal customer, the most likely cause is a failure to highlight your company’s core values.
Knowing Your Real Company Values
A company with a strong organizational culture will work diligently to align their behaviors and the customer experience with their declared vision, ideas, philosophy, and goals. Don’t you agree? So, a company must have core values and principles that their employees know, embrace, and demonstrate through their interactions and engagements, regardless of how those experiences occur. The secret to success is taking your core values or mission statement off the wall and getting everyone within your organization to actually live by them.
There is a good chance that your company does have core values or a written mission statement. But, if you don’t, now is the time to formalize those ideals and work toward living them every day. It is not enough to have them hanging on the wall or displayed on your website. Your employees need to embrace them, and use your values as the foundation of all decision-making and actions. Displaying them will not make them part of the psychological environment that exists within your company.
The Real Secret to Content Marketing
When talking about content marketing, many experts will discuss delivering high-quality and relevant information. Your company has likely worked to do this, and may actually be providing very useful and valuable content about your company, industry, products, and services. Regardless, they are not enough. The real secret to content marketing is with messaging that aligns your core values with your ideal customer’s needs, interests, wants, desires, and goals. You must clearly identify your ideal customers and any subgroups, and use your blogs, videos, and social posts to spark two-way conversations and highlight your values, ethics, and mission. At the end of everything, people want to do business with those companies that they know, like, and trust.
You can spend all your time researching keywords and trends, optimizing your content for search, creating a calendar and schedule, and publishing well-written content. However, if you do not understand or have the ability to anticipate the needs of your target, your marketing will fall short of expectations. Content marketing’s prime goal is to create and nurture relationships with your audience, which should include both potential and active customers. It makes your business the obvious choice when it is time to buy. Nevertheless, these relationships, like all others, are built on trust and authenticity. When a company’s actions are not in line with their declared core values, principles, and mission, they are perceived as dishonest, untrustworthy, and inauthentic. Does that make sense to you?
Aligning Your Values with Your Content Marketing
1. Understand the Importance of Brand Consistency – It is crucial that your company presents a consistent brand image regardless of platform, on or offline. In order to develop trust, your audience must feel like they know you. This requires a consistent experience. It does not matter if it is online content or printed marketing materials.
2. Pull Content Topics from Your Mission, Values, and Principles – Beyond the visuals, it is a good plan to reflect the ideals and principles that customers identify with your brand in your content strategy. For instance, if you have a stated mission to improve “fair trade”, include information, news, and developments in that area of the business world.
3. Write for Your Audience, Not Yourself – One area where many businesses and marketers fall short is the language and tone used to communicate with their audience. You will more effectively reach your blog readers and social followers if you use a writing style, tone, and language that is in line with the types of people you are trying to reach.
4. Communicate Your Efforts and Achievements – Whether your company’s mission is directed at your local community or global responsibility, you are very likely involved in efforts related to those goals. For example, your company may be focused on fitness and wellness. As a result, you may sponsor the local youth sports leagues. When you engage in these kinds of activities, talk about them.
5. Evaluate Analytics and Audience Reactions – Throughout the entire process of trying to align your core values with your marketing message, it is essential to evaluate the impact and make adjustments. Content marketing is as much an art as it is a science. You need to watch how potential and current customers react and make tweaks along the way.
Today’s article discussed the importance of aligning your content marketing with your company’s core values. There are many organizations that spend a lot of time and effort publishing content that does not attract their target audience. The common reason for this is not incorporating the organization’s core principles and mission with their content marketing strategy. People want to buy from those companies that they trust and feel they know. In order to build strong customer relationships, your company’s messaging must align your core values with your customers’ social views, interests, needs, and goals.
Do you have questions? What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like to talk about the importance of aligning your content marketing with your core values, or a related topic, please contact us.
