Fact: customers prefer to buy from brands they know.
Here, let me tell you how this usually goes.
Your prospect realises she has a problem. A rumble in her belly tells her she’s hungry. Or a mess with the mailing list suggests the company needs to finally take a closer look at their email strategies perhaps.
Based on the facts her brain creates a category to describe what solution she needs.
If she’s hungry, the category is food.
If she’s got trouble with sending emails, the category is software.
She starts to look for available solutions and immediately; brand names begin to pop up.
And that’s where brand awareness comes in.
Because you see, she will pay more attention to brands she’s familiar with.
If you’re not in that category for your potential customers, you might have a problem trying to sell to them.
I already wrote about it here on SERPs blog last week explaining the importance of using content to drive brand awareness.
Today I want to show you what content types are ideal to achieve that.
Videos
According to Searchmetrics, videos are the most frequent content displayed in Google search results. They show up in over 70% of search results.
And that’s only part of a potential reach they could have.
There’s Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and other places people might be sharing them with others.
All this makes videos one of the best content to reach a wide audience.
Just look at the success of the Dollar Shave Club, a company that built their awareness with just one video.
Infographics
Infographics go viral. If done well of course, they are shared and reposted on many sites. This often includes getting mentions on top publications you try to target.
Many audiences love them too.
40% of people are visual learners and thus, will respond better to visual information (source)
And infographics help visualise information and statistics in a simple way. They are more eye catching than printed text while still showing an expert understanding on the topic.
All in all, a great content type to reach a wide audience.
Images / Memes / Comics
Humour is one of the best ways to connect with your audience on emotional level. If done well, such humour creates a deeper connection with a brand and encourages sharing (making the shearer an advocate of your brand) (Source)
And what’s a better way to induce humour into content marketing than through images?
First of all, we naturally process image-based content better. Our brains are wired to process graphical content faster than text. 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual and1/2 of our brains are dedicated to visual function (source)
What’s more, 40% of Earth’s population are visual learners.
Therefore, nothing will beat a good image in conveying a humorous message. But since this message might have your logo attached …it will also help spread brand awareness.
Here’s one example:
List Posts
We’re all suckers for more information. Yet it often takes time to collect all the information you might currently need.
So how you feel when you come across a well-researched and organised list of resources on your topic of interest?
List posts tend to reach a wider audience, partially because they also do well in search and social, making them irreplaceable content type to position your site in front of people who haven’t heard of you yet.
Interviews
Sometimes the best way to get noticed is by piggybacking on someone else’s reputation. Industry leaders, thought influencers, VIPs, high ranked individuals from your company – they not only might have something interesting to say but their position might help to promote the piece and reach many interested parties.
We successfully used this technique here at SERPs with interviewing Julie Joyce and Paddy Moogan.
Long Form Content
In his book “Launch” Michael Stelzner advocates for the idea of a creating a propelling content – one that’s designed to take your brand to new levels and have a bigger impact on your audience.
As he explains it, this content “is carefully designed to have a lasting impact on significant numbers of your ideal reader base”.
Whitepapers, ebooks, reports on microevents and many other forms of long form content can achieve this goal while staying relevant and relevant to your audience.
But here is the catch – to make them work such content must always be free. There should be no signups or other gates preventing anyone to access them.
Newsjacking
Everyday something new happens in your industry. Or your prospect’s one. Or in one your prospects are interested in. Or… doesn’t matter. The point is; you can capitalise on those events to raise awareness of your brand.
Newsjacking isn’t a new strategy. And not a seldom used one either. Just think of what happens in our industry whenever Google publishes a new update. Almost at an instant, tens of related posts pop up – some offer advice, recovery tips while others provide analysis and list winners and losers.
If there are any events happening in an industry you target, quickly create and promote related content to attract new visitors to the site.
Guest Posts
There’s this thing with guest posts now, isn’t it? As a link building strategy they certainly no longer work.
But when you’re trying to raise awareness of your company….well then, that’s a different cup of tea.
Buffer is a great example of a company that used guest blogging to propagate their brand and build a user base.
Creative commons image by Graham Smith / Flickr
Last updated by at October 15, 2014.
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