How can technology truly make content the king?

Do you remember the time when you wanted to watch that movie you dreamed about the whole weekend? You rushed to a DVD rental store early from work on a Friday night, spending your time in the traffic just to get that one DVD of the movie. Imagine the grudge you had for that person who snatched it up just before you reached.

You must also remember the late fees that you had to pay for renting those DVDs. And God forbid you plan a long weekend at home watching films and missed the deadline to return them, it would surely cost you a small fortune.

Only people born before 1990 would have witnessed such hurries. Because what the next generation saw was a completely different side of the table. The idea of Netflix came about when Reed Hastings saw a local gym’s business model, ’pay one monthly fee and have unlimited access to the gym’. And thus began the video streaming revolution.

Content marketing is like a new born baby. You have to take the utmost care while the baby is quite young, with maintenance processes like regular oil massages to help your baby’s growth and development. Similarly, content marketing will probably not show results in the initial stage, but once it starts, you may be shocked by the results.

Content Marketing & Advertising are not growing exponentially, they are exploding – According to a 2013 study by Google & Neilsen, of 85% searches on smartphones, 81% are seen to be taking an action. This huge conversion rate is what drives marketers towards mobile advertising. It has already started justifying all the hype that was created over the years.

With technology you can help create content which resonates with your consumers – But before doing that, how do you find the right consumer? Well, most of the time you don’t find a ‘right’ consumer, you create them. Zomato, an online food search and delivery platform has been setting trends by means of technology with content which brings out the foodie you. Zomato’s major part of content comprises of entertainment and higher degree of creativity.

Appointment based TV viewing is nearly dead – There has been a huge shift in the way that people watch TV. World over, fewer and fewer people are watching TV at the assigned program times. Users like to read or watch whatever they want to and whenever they want to, on whichever device is most handy at the moment. The cue here is to make content available at the time and on the medium that is most convenient to them. And with technology, this is as easy as pie.

While you must not put all eggs in one basket, don’t lose sight of that basket – It’s 2016 already and marketers are already creating more content than ever before even while the term ‘Diversify or Die’ is driving them to madness. For diversification, what can be a better vehicle than digital & social media! The trick to developing better content is to add as many graphical explanations, videos, webinars, testimonials as possible, so that you can increase resonance and better engagement.

You bought that tic-tac because you were dog-tired. – Impulse buying probably started when a person, tired after spending an hour at the grocery store and having expended decision-making skills, is expected to make a bad choice. Never confuse consumers with a barrage of content, because when you have over 150 pension policies or more than 1,110 kinds of toilet brushes to choose from, consumers will either get bored, frustrated or lazy enough not to go ahead. Thus, content should be concise, specific and personalized.

As a brand, do more than what you’re supposed to do – Consumers love it when a brand reaches out from across unexpected platforms shakes things up a bit. And there is a very thin line between content which engages and content which looks sales-y.

Consumers don’t share ads, they share the content – The chances of consumers sharing an advert are much more when it either engages or excites them, or maybe both. In this fast-paced world, it’s not about grabbing the attention of your consumers but holding it too.

Key takeaway: Keep the spirit always high – Technology can be a great way to draw attention towards your marketing or advertising content but at the same time, it is extremely important to quantify you returns. Creating a content which differentiates you from your competitors will help in building brand loyalty. When carried out effectively, content marketing can generate significant results even for business which are undeveloped. While having diversified content techniques will obviously see more results than going with a single approach and not adjusting to the changes, it is must to have a track of your social mentions with tools like TweetDeck, Buzzsumo and Google Analytics, etcetra.