Mind and emotions work together to control behavior
Studies have shown that the mind and emotions play a role in decision making. Reason affects motivation and behavior, causing feelings that just motivate and behavior. Here is an example. Suppose you are going to eat a third piece of cake, but at the same time you recall how bad you felt the last time you ate the same three pieces. And here the feeling of disgust will outweigh your sense of desire to eat another piece of cake.
“And what does this have to do with content marketing?” - you ask.
Everything is simple. People do not buy based solely on logic or emotions. Making decisions is always a combination of both. For this reason, you need to create relevant content that will simultaneously involve at each stage the emotions of your potential customers and the processes of rational thinking.
In order to develop such content for yourself, first you need to consider what types of content generally exist, and only then decide how you can best use each of them in your case.
1. Brand advertising
The role of brand advertising is to create an emotional connection with potential customers. A great example of such advertising is Google AdWords Stories. For example, through a video created by the founders of the brand, farmers, they can easily and unobtrusively tell users about the history of their business, the idea and goals that were laid in it.
Advertising will undoubtedly include your brand, but only here it should recede into the background, as if to dissolve in the advertisement itself. Its goal is to shape the feelings that potential buyers will experience when thinking about your brand.
2. Quizzes
Quizzes will perform two tasks at once simultaneously. Firstly, they demonstrate your company, its experience, and secondly, they attract attention, because they cause people to naturally become curious. Quizzes can take various forms: practical jokes, games on social networks, tests, audience engagement, etc.
3. Events and conferences
Events and conferences can also be held in real time or online. This method of conducting gives participants the opportunity not only to meet with members of your team, but also to get to know other people, while creating valuable contacts and studying information that will be useful to them in the future.
Although a lot of costs are required to conduct events and conferences, even in online format, they can still pay dividends in terms of raising awareness and providing opportunities for referring existing potential customers to the next stage of the funnel.
4. Competitions
Competitions are ideal for creating word of mouth and user generated content. Today, photo contests, photo captions and others are effectively used by B2B brands. In fact, there are a fairly large number of ways to conduct such contests, so you can create one that emphasizes the personality of your brand.
5. Infographics
Visual content is easily and quickly perceived and remembered. In the case of potential customers who are not yet ready to delve into the details, infographics will attract attention and make you think about the problem, because of which they appeared on your page.
6. Educational videos
Another popular form of visual content is educational videos, which undoubtedly will appeal to many potential customers. Videos are especially effective in combination with articles: after potential customers are interested in watching a video, they will read further to get additional information for themselves.
7. Podcasts
Audio content is also ideal for awareness, as it allows potential customers to get the right information on the go, doing other things in parallel. Podcasts, of course, are resource intensive, but they can be extremely effective in attracting potential customers.
8. Posts on social networks
Social networks are often used to repurpose existing content. But do not forget that they also need to use copyrighted content. As it turned out, jokes, memes and posts with thought-provoking questions attract a B2B audience.
9. Blogging
Now let's move from visual content to written content. Blogging is always a reliable way to attract potential customers. And this is also extremely important for SEO - after all, writing a series of articles is ideal for creating internal links and encourages potential customers to visit additional pages on your site.
10. E-books
When potential customers are ready to dive into the topic of their interest in more detail, e-books in this case will also be a good option. After all, they too can affect emotions and the mind.
11. Press Releases
Creating a press release that the media will find interesting is already a science in itself. But still it’s worth trying and adding press releases to your content strategy, because there is a reason: they create trust in your company, even if the media do not pay any attention to them.
12. Newsletters
Newsletters are great for keeping in touch with your audience, and they are also an ideal format for sending potential customers further down the funnel. If you manage to dilute your content with any brief thematic studies and reviews, then potential customers will already begin to look at your company differently and think about how you can help them.