What types of content should I create for my digital strategy?

We've already defined digital marketing, listed the mistakes you should avoid and paid special attention to content marketing. We now turn to this question: what types of content should I create for my digital strategy?

Taking the definition outlined by Hubspot, “digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your company's online marketing efforts” - we can say that it has become increasingly important with the expansion of the internet. In practice, digital marketing consists of "action plans and tactics" overseen by an organisation's marketing department and whoever is responsible for managing the brand's relationship with their fans on social media or increasing the company's audience on their website.

Having given a possible definition for digital marketing, let's start from the idea, illustrated in several Hubspot articles, that the content you should create will always, no matter what, depend on what stage of the journey your buyer is at. It's clear that, first and foremost, you will have created buyer personas in order to best categorise your audience's goals and challenges having come across your business. This stage is called content mapping.

Facing the three stages of your buyer's journey - awareness, consideration and decision - there are different types of content that you should include in your digital marketing strategy.

1. The awareness stage

Blog articles: From Hubspot's perspective, this is a great way to “increase your organic traffic”, something that requires an SEO strategy and the correct choice and use of key words.

Videos: Videos with subtitles, we might add. By this we mean short, shareable videos that can help your brand be found more easily by new audiences on platforms like, for example, YouTube.

2. The consideration stage

E-books: A great solution for when your goal is to generate leads, seeing as this content is more comprehensive and complete than a blog article. And, we should remind you that it's a clever way to get contact information in return.

Webinars: This is a more effective format than a video for this stage, since “they offer more comprehensive and complete content than a blog post or a short video”.

3. The decision stage

Case studies: Providing detailed case studies on your website or blog is, without a doubt, an “effective type of content for those who are ready to make a decision on whether to buy”. Why? It helps to influence their decision.

Testimonies: This is your plan B if you don't have any case studies, but a great solution for B2C brands (business to customer).

Inbound and digital marketing with content

We can all agree: no inbound or digital marketing strategy can work without content marketing. One cannot exist without the other and alone they are doomed to fail. Why? It is through your website or blog's content - which should be multilingual - that your brand will attract “your audience's attention” and, equally important, “make sure they stay on your site browsing for longer”. Before calling it a day on this first point, we should mention that any content marketing strategy must be, without fail, accompanied by techniques such as SEO, link building, CTAs, landing pages and forms...

SEO from the get-go

You've made the decision to design a website adhering to your inbound and digital marketing strategies, therefore being aware of the importance of content. And, just as importantly, don't wait until the end to do all that work to insert keywords. It's best to do this while your website is being developed.

This work is constantly ongoing and, consequently, your choice of CMS (Content Management System) should, in every way, respect the need to update your content in the best and quickest way possible. There are many valid options. At AP Portugal - Tech Language Solutions we use Hubspot's CMS.

Digital marketing for all companies

Let's return to the question that brought us here: does digital marketing work for all companies? Put bluntly: yes. There is a digital marketing strategy for every type of organisation, whether they are start-ups, SMEs or large companies.

What's essential is that none of these companies gets lost in the terms and concepts of marketing, which nowadays are multiplying with the expansion of the internet.

"Digital marketing can work for any company, in any sector", this sentence by Lucy Alexander, from Hubspot’s Marketing Acquisition team, leaves no room for doubts. There are no exceptions: whatever your business area, creating buyer personas opens the door to digital marketing for your company, and - most importantly - you should bear in mind that the same strategy doesn't work for all companies and organisations. In fact, each case is unique.

Two digital marketing strategies

Let's start with B2B companies, highlighting in detail what we mean by business to business (B2B). This abbreviation business to business essentially means that two companies do business as client and provider.

Now, if your company is a B2B there are details to consider when establishing your digital marketing strategy. First of all, your attention should be channelled into generating leads online, as Lucy highlights "the role of your marketing strategy is to attract and convert the highest quality leads for your salespeople via your website and supporting digital channels."

What if your company is B2C? Before we begin, let's define business to consumer. This essentially involves commercial transactions between companies and consumers. Going back to Lucy’s definition once again, when we talk about B2C “it's likely that the goal of your digital marketing efforts is to attract people to your website and have them become customers without ever needing to speak to a salesperson”.

In this sense, it's important to remember some essential characteristics of B2C digital marketing:

• Short and simple buying process;
• Broad target audience;
• Emotional purchase decision, based on status, willingness and price;
• Decisions made by individuals;
• Generally, lower sales values;
• Higher quantity of consumers.

For this reason, the best digital marketing strategy will always result in "faster sales" which should lead to, for example, using stronger CTAs than those used for B2B digital marketing.

Digital marketing: avoid these 11 mistakes

At AP Portugal Tech Language Solutions we have solutions and human resources that can help your digital marketing strategy from the moment you choose the CMS, to content translation and localisation, SEO and even SEA.

To this end, we think we should warn you about the mistakes you need to avoid when investing in a digital marketing strategy. As such, we've compiled a list of the 11 most common mistakes that are still made today in digital marketing.

1. Not knowing about inbound marketing
2. Not using email marketing
3. Not having a digital marketing strategy
4. Not investing in the company’s website
5. Not promoting content on social media
6. Highlighting the company's importance and not the product
7. Not knowing the company's buyer personas
8. Not understanding the buyer's journey (Awareness, Consideration and Decision);
9. Not investing in SEO
10. Not producing relevant content
11. Disregarding the site layout, blog, CTA or landing page.

Our final note is simple: don't venture into the challenging universe of digital marketing, make sure you first understand where you stand and also, choose to make the journey with experts in such demanding areas as implementation of multilingual SEO, SEA, translation and content localisation multilingual SEO implementation, SEA, translation and content localisation.

This text was not written by a native English speaker, but by a language lover. However, all our language services are always provided by native speakers.

ABOUT US

AP  PORTUGAL - Tech Language Solutions is a Portuguese translation company certified by the ISO 17100 International Quality Standard. The company offers a wide range of language services, which include translation (TEP), post-editing machine translation (PEMT), transcription, desktop publishing and subtitling, voice talent, software and website localisation technology, SEO and consulting. It invests enthusiastically in the development of partnerships and cooperation anywhere in the world where your organization may need a partner for the African, Brazilian and European Portuguese language.

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