Whether in everyday life or in marketing, the power to influence is in demand. But what really influences people? The content marketing method has it's influence through aligning content to a specific buyer persona. This content - whether designed for a blog, a company website or an online shop, whether in text, image or video format - should not only inform, but also inspire, advise, brings clarity, . Explore 3 approaches to influence with content marketing.
The ability to influence others, is not at all easy. Knowing the rules of influence can make it a lot easier. Which is our first approach, involves exploring the 3 lessons about how to create influential content from the very inventor of the art, Aristotle.
The first principle of influential content, according to Aristotle, is ethos, or ethics. Ethics are what make your potential audience feel they can trust you. So the first step to influencing is to show your credibility.
Long gone are the times when a company could say pretty much anything they wanted in their advertising and rest peacefully knowing there was no way of disproving it. Want to strengthen the credibility of your content? Here are some ideas that might come in handy:
More importantly, ethics is a long-term value. We may sometimes be tempted to sacrifice it in order to see results and achieve goals more immediately, but it is never worth it. Keep your promises, treat your clients well, be honest and your efforts will pay off.
Aristotle’s second tool of persuasion was pathos, the use of emotion. Some psychologists believe that the whole process of human reasoning is simply an attempt to justify our emotional decisions. Whether this is right or not, the fact that emotions have the power to convince and trigger action is undeniable: although most consumers do their homework, it is calculated that 50% of purchasing decisions are made based on emotions. In fact, the mere concept of branding is based on brands’ ability to cause emotional reactions.
Without pathos, marketing would just be a list of facts… and no one likes to be bored. On the other hand, an emotion overload without a basis on reality and facts can make the user feel unfairly manipulated. So proceed with caution, but proceed. How?
Aristotle’s third rule of rhetoric is none other than logos, or reason. According to this philosopher, the logic of an argument involves syllogism, in other words, two premises that combine to reach a conclusion. For example, “I want to launch a small business to make additional money. Oberlo is a marketplace that makes it easy to find products to sell online. I could look into business ideas from Oberlo”.
To use logic in your marketing strategies, the first thing you need to make sure of is that your audience agrees with both of your premises: if not, it will be impossible for them to reach the conclusion you are aiming for. You should also remember that it's about empathizing with your users and convincing them, but you should never insult their intelligence. Lastly, you should not only present a convincing syllogism, but also be prepared to answer any counter arguments: marketing’s classic “objections”.
Aristotle’s three lessons for rhetoric fundamentally address how human beings are influenced. Whether giving a speech for Athens or creating a landing page for marketing, ethos, pathos and logos have had the ability to influence throughout the centuries.
In the words of Aristotle himself, the art of persuasion lies in knowing how to combine these three principles in just the right amounts, and choosing the rights mediums in each occasion. Luckily, nowadays, you have an entire arsenal of digital tools to take your persuasive content so much further than the Ancient Greeks could have ever even dreamed.
Have you already included influencers in your marketing strategies? These socialites have the power to create and multiply word of mouth, since their social authority makes them the source of recommendations for many users. What advertisers aim for with influencer collaborations is to create associations between the brand or product and users favorite ‘local socialites’.
Influencers are considered the most reliable source of social media content (most of them make an average of 4 publications a day, as regards Instagram). Active influencers find themselves at the center of an active audience, with international influencers seeing multiple publicity spikes throughout their 24h day.
More and more of millennial influencers are approaching the "lifestyle" segment, which makes them have a much wider audience. A wider audience means a wider potential to market a diverse array of products, and the more brands they can collaborate with.
Influencers are modern day celebrities, yet they are much more accessible than a coveted athlete or a pop star. They are simply millennials who ‘know what’s good’, and so have an incredible audience reach power.
Influencers tend to take great care of their audiences and take special care not to appear "sponsored". In this way, they become a kind of "inexhaustible source" of mass marketing without coming off intrusive. As influencers know the importance of staying true to their audiences, they offer valuable content - often in the form of contests or funny videos.
Influencers with a large number of followers but not large enough to appear "sponsored" or having commercial intentions are known as micro influencers. If Beyoncé recommends a product, we immediately associate it with advertising because she is an almost unreal character. The same thing has begun to happen, on a smaller scale, with influencers such as Chiara Ferragni. People interpret the messages of these micro-influencers as sincere advice and, therefore, the publicity they make is very efficient.
Marketers have unprecedented 360 degree individual customer insights. Content marketing flawlessly serves individual needs and content design is becoming increasingly intuitive to users. Users have reached a state where distinguishing between influential marketing content from other content has gotten difficult.
Often influencer marketing techniques targets un alert customers when their mental ad avoidance strategies are off-guard. Harvard Business Review has outlined 3 factors that help you marketers shape positive relationships through influencer marketing.
Try looking to the offline world to understand how to appropriately influence users through content. Keep your focus on adding value for your customer - if your thinking customer centric, they will thank you for it and it will pay off.
Content Marketing is in a state of constant evolution, changing along with the consumer habits and preference and the trending of new technologies and tools. Despite that, its main goal remains the same: to influence traffic towards your website and add value to users, in order to convert them into customers.
Explore techniques to make the impression you're striving for and influencing with content marketing.
The sheer amount of data we have access to nowadays is simply incredible, but there are very few brands who actually use this to their advantage. Collecting and analyzing relevant data and turning this information into concrete actions could just de the advantage you need over your competition.
For your strategy to be successful, the key is not to drown yourself in a sea of data, but rather to find intelligent and justified answers to the most basic questions: What kind of content works best for your business? What time should you publish at? Which channels offer you the best conversion rates?
Among this year’s content marketing trends lies an old friend that seems to be gaining more and more traction every day: video.
As mobile screens improve in quality and size, along with the improvements in data connections and internet speed, video seems to be taking over. According to studies, 74% of 2017’s internet traffic is related to video.
Behind this success lies a peaking trend that has completely revolutionized the way we consume video: live streaming. Over the past few years, all of the main social networks have welcomed live video and brands didn’t hesitate about making the most of this tool to create a more authentic connection with their audience.
As well as drawing attention all on their own, video can also be used to strengthen the effect of other digital marketing tools. Including video in an email marketing campaign, for example, can increase your CTR by 200-300%. If you haven’t already, 2017 is definitely the year to include video into your content marketing strategy.
Content personalization is such a strong content marketing trend, that some people even prefer the term “hyper-personalization”. Personalizing your content makes it much more relevant to the person who is reading it, and, as such, considerably improves results compared to mass-campaigns.
In order to personalize effectively, there are two tools you cannot miss out on: social listening and marketing automation. The former will help you gain access to your audience’s real time conversations, while the latter allows you to automate and optimize the process for your team to be able to dedicate more time and resources to strategy and creativity.
Year after year, email marketing still manages to keep its spot among the top content marketing trends. And with good reason: although it has been around for what seems like forever, this tools is constantly being renovated and proves itself as one of the most effective.
The mass popularization of smartphones in recent years has revolutionized the way we use our emails, and hence brought new life to email marketing. Nowadays, a large portion of emails are read on mobile devices, making responsive formats an absolute must. Video and interactive content are also trending and are very effective in drawing users attention.
Email marketing proves to be particularly effective for B2B companies, who have longer sales processes and as such need ways to maintain potential clients’ interest over time.
Although content curation can be very useful for your strategy, there is no denying whole much people love original and unique content. After all, content marketing is all based on offering the user values, and what better value to offer than information that no one else has? To present your data and finding in an attractive way, downloadable eBooks and infographics are very popular.