Have you ever heard the term 'content in king?'. When it comes to marketing, this couldn't be more true. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways for brands to reach their target audience, grow brand awareness and boost their sales. I'm going to show you the building blocks of great content marketing for your climate positive brand.
Strong and Engaging Brand Story
Before you know who you want to target and the type of content you need to be creating, you need to have a strong, engaging brand story.
For anyone who doesn’t know, your brand story is a detailed narrative that fully encapsulates everything your brand/business stands for.
This includes key facts like how your business started, your brand mission but also, the feelings that you want your brand to portray. Some brands want to evoke feelings of empowerment to women, brands like yourself might go down the eco-positivity route.
Unlike ‘traditional marketing’ which aims to showcase or push specific areas of your business such as the products, your brand story must inspire an emotional reaction.
The stronger and more engaging your brand story is, the more likely your target audience is to invest in the business and go from being paying customers into ‘raving fans’.
It's also important to consider your customer when developing your brand story and how your product or services relates to them. Specifically, how they relate to their pain points.
Think about what specific problem or 'pain point' your customers have, then think about how your products/services help resolve those problems. Finally, think about the results your customer will see after working with you.
If you can encompass these three points throughout your brand story, it will be easier for your customers to understand the benefits of your brand. It will also make it a lot easier when thinking of and creating content too!
Cohesive Marketing Strategy
A key building block for any business is creating a cohesive marketing strategy.
Creating a marketing strategy will allow you to get into the ‘nitty-gritty of your business, helping you to concentrate your marketing efforts on things that will get you results.
What should you include within your marketing strategy?
Every marketing strategy is different and will vary depending on the business and target market. You can go into as much detail as you want but as a minimum, your marketing strategy should include the following:
- Target Market
- SWOT Analysis
- Unique Selling Proposition
- SMART Objectives
- Content Plan
- Distribution Plan
- Marketing Budget
- Timeline
Consistent Social Media Content
A big part of your marketing strategy should be your content and the marketing channels you’ll push your content across, one of the key channels being social media.
Even if you create the most engaging content in the world, if you’re not consistent, you won’t see results.
Many businesses find content creation and social media marketing frustrating. You can spend what seems like hours on your content but don’t see an instant payoff! Unfortunately, social media isn’t a magic wand, it takes months or even years for brands to establish their social media.
When it comes to content for social media, think of the long game.
You should be posting quality content every couple of days across your platforms as a minimum, drip-feeding key marketing message to your target audience.
This content could be created for a specific purpose or to document your business's journey.
Lifestyle Photography that Captures Your Brand, Products and Services
Never underestimate the power of quality photography.
Not only do people want to see more content from their favourite brands, but they also want to see quality content too! If the quality isn’t there, you’ll see a huge drop in engagement, sales, and followers.
Every few weeks or months (depending on your brand and strategy) you need to be taking quality lifestyle photography that captures your brand, products and/or services.
All though professional photography isn’t cheap, it’s worth every penny.
Start to build a bank of photography that you can use throughout your marketing, whether that’s on social, on your website or in print.
A lot of the photos you capture can be reused time and time again but don’t forget how important it is to refresh photography on a regular basis in order to create new content.
Videos that Tell Engaging Stories Which Enhance Human Connections
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know just how powerful videos can be for a brand.
Social media platforms are heavily featuring video content because it’s what people want to see, so it’s your job to give the people what they want!
I would recommend every brand creates video content, but the key is to create videos that tell engaging stories and enhance human connections.
Everyone wants to be able to relate to their favourite brands and what better way to tell your story or the story of your customers than through video?
Don’t be afraid to play around with video. Create DIY style video content yourself but also get professional videos made.
Creating a mixture of video styles for your content marketing will give you the best results.
Back-Up What You Say with Positive Action and Giving Back
Saying you’re a climate positive brand just won’t cut it anymore.
In recent years, hundreds of brands claim to be environmentally friendly or climate positive but in reality, they are greenwashing.
Consumers are becoming more aware of brands that ‘talk the talk but don’t walk the walk’ when it comes to the environment. It’s important that you back up your climate positive brand ethos with positive action.
There are a number of ways a brand like yours could do this, including:
- Getting your B-Corp Certification
- Having a 1% for the planet membership
- Donating to charities that do climate positive work
- Creating climate positive initiatives e.g. planting a tree for every product sold
- Switch to renewable energy
- The list goes on
