Category: Interviews

Last Updated : 28-01-2020

Content creation helps in distributing information to the end-user that solves their problem. But content development is just one part of a good content strategy . What’s more important is to have a well- planned robust content marketing campaign – that reaches out to the right customers at the right time in their customer journey.

Vishwas Anand from Aspire Systems has given us some valuable advice on how to go about creating a successful content marketing campaign.

About Aspire Systems

Aspire Systems is a global technology services firm serving as a trusted technology partner for our customers. We work with some of the world’s most innovative enterprises and independent software vendors. And we help them in leveraging technology and outsourcing in our specific areas of expertise.

Our services include Product Engineering, Enterprise Solutions, Independent Testing Services and IT Infrastructure Support services. Our core philosophy of; Attention. Always” communicates our belief in lavishing care and attention on our customers and employees. Aspire has been featured as a Great Place to Work for 8 consecutive years in a row!

About Vishwas Anand

Vishwas Anand is an award-winning Content & Brand Leader who believes in the magic of a Great Content  Narrative to script a brand’s success journey. After his MBA from IIM Kozhikode, he’s started working as the Head of Content & Thought Leadership at Aspire Systems.

Vishwas is rated one of “The Greatest Marketing Influencers” by ET Now and The World Federation of Marketing Professionals, among Asia’s “Most Influential Content Marketing Professionals” by the World Marketing Congress and CMO Asia: He was a Role Player and Speaker at the 2017 Congress.

He is also a Speaker at BrightTALK webinars, a Jury Panel member at DMAasia, and an active Participant at Business Summits like the Gartner Summit (2015), the Futurist Business Conclave (2017), CMS Asia (2018) among others. He’s published White Papers and Articles covering industries like Retail and BFS for leading publications.

These include Tech Republic, Tech in Asia, Finextra, The Indian Retailer among others. His 3A Content Model has been featured by a Forbes Columnist as a go-to-model for Content Score evaluation of global businesses.

What do you think is content marketing and how important is it for your brand?

To me, Content Marketing is more about the Content and less about the Marketing. It stands to reason that if the Content is powerful enough, it would serve the purpose of Marketing itself in this digitally connected ecosystem.

Although it is easier said than done, this is what I’d call True Content Power. For our brand, this would translate into Thought Leadership Content. I strongly believe in True Content Power built around my 3 A Content Model for Content Score evaluation: Authenticity, Accuracy and Agility. For our brand, since a dedicated Content Marketing Practice was set up in early 2016, I’ve seen our blog grow by close to 450%.

I’ve considered just one Content type, i.e. blogs, so we can imagine the kind of outcomes when we look at diverse collateral, some of which have gone on to positively engage with potential customers. We went from ad hoc content creation to cascading content synergies with a structured Content Marketing Practice in just 2 years! This, in a nutshell, is the importance of True Content Power.

I’ve coined this term to underscore its importance in a world that’s seen how People Power can spark revolutions! At the 2017 Content Marketing Summit hosted by the World Marketing Congress, in a panel discussion on the topic “The Present and Future of Content Marketing” I made the point that the future of Content Marketing would be a superior blend of technology and human creativity.

Who is your target audience?

Our target audience ranges from executive level CXOs, IT Directors or other senior IT executives depending on the type of Service Line, Practice, Geography or Vertical. Basically, anyone who is a key decision-maker in the IT space!

What’s the style, tone and voice that you use to address your audience?

I believe every writer has a unique style and shouldn’t be constrained in this regard. I like puns and catchy phrases and see the value of knowing when to alternate from a conversational tone of a blog to a more serious tone of a White Paper.

Since we need to grab the attention of a top CXO, our Thought Leadership Content needs to have a voice that is prescriptive, authoritative and yet emotionally appealing. We constantly strive to keep an active, credible persona in our Content that can engage with a respectable Thought Leader in their respective field.

How do you go about planning a content marketing campaign for your brand?

Content marketing campaigns are planned during March of every year. These are split by Marketing themes for every quarter of the subsequent year. This is done during the yearly planning meeting chaired by our CEO and involves the Delivery Owners, Marketing & Sales Heads, Marketing Partners, and me.

This is done for every Service Line/Practice across Aspire’s service offerings: Software Engineering, Digital Services, Testing and Infrastructure & Application Support. The messages and themes span our targeted industry focus areas: Retail, Banking & Financial Services and Insurance. A Content marketing calendar is conceptualized around specific topics for the chosen Marketing themes and designated Content Writers positioned as Research Analysts are assigned collateral based on this calendar. The Research Analyst collaborates with the Subject Matter Expert for inputs and also conducts extensive research through leading research firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDG and so on.

We also conduct primary research in a few cases. The Research Analyst then writes a compelling story that captures the essence of the subject and stitches it to suit the type of collateral: Blog, Article, White Paper, Case Study, Infographic, Video, Webinar and so forth.

What is more important SEO or SEM for your organisation?

Both components of the digital marketing strategy are equally important for our organization. We create our content to be SEO-friendly and for Google to rank it high for related keywords. We also do SEM to increase the visibility of our content for our targeted audience.

What content formats work well for you?

I don’t think we can really put it down to one format since we’ve had good success with White Papers, Webinars, Blogs and so forth. There are a number of occasions when different formats work in tandem to serve as topic clusters around our Marketing themes.

This helps us rank well and also connect the dots in our Marketing efforts in building a Thought Museum that will stand the test of time. I’ve always dreamt of a Thought Museum where structured thoughts craft unique Content Pillars, Forms and Structures serving as keystones in the architecture that anchor the museum together.

Which companies/brands do you think are doing well with content?

Intel is doing well with Content Marketing. The way they’ve become a Content Brand and redefined Digital Governance is an impressive case study in itself. From having chaotic user journeys, inconsistent brand experiences and an under-optimized marketing-technology stack to bringing about a transformation through self-governing business units with a strong Digital Governance strategy, Intel was actually able to do more with less.

Their webpages dropped from 12,500 to 10,800 and microsites shrunk to 494 from 715. As a result, their upstream content engagement rose by 250%. Capital Group, GE and Red Bull are other brands that come to mind, who think like publishers and are setting new benchmarks with their Content.

Do you think a content marketer is a multi-tasker?

I feel Content Marketers must focus on creating powerful, compelling stories. Anything that comes in the way of their story-telling is a distraction. This can even be the Analytics that don’t paint a rosy picture. This is because one story that underperforms today could make a great one in the future.

Let me draw an analogy with disruptive technologies that need to do well in emerging markets before coming into the mainstream. So, yes a Content Marketer is a multi-tasker: who would do well handling Dedication, Frustration and Patience with the Grit that the future demands.

What all people play an important role in your content marketing team?

In our organization, we have a structured Marketing team with our Marketing Partners who own the theme/message, our Content team that tells the story and a Digital Marketing team that makes this story visible. Every single person plays a vital role in seeing to it that the right message is driven to the right person at the right time!

Do you have any tips for the marketers of today?

In my opinion, marketers that spend time in building a Thought Museum will be the ones who will see good long-term ROI in their marketing efforts. Marketers who go beyond content marketing campaigns would do well, as those are just time-bound but Content is never time-bound.

They could be repurposed in certain cases but if they’re written with a passion for excellence, then it will still stand the test of time. Marketers need to strive to be trendsetters and this is where the courage of conviction comes into play, as analytics will only tell you one part of the story. In the quest for a competitive rivalry, please orient ideas around ethical practices as this is what you’d be known for in the long run.

Some notable work by Vishwas

Why Sustainable Brands Must Build True Content Power

Finextra’s Top Blog Post of the Month (January 2018)- Today’s Banks Need a Millennial Banking Technology Framework

TECHINASIA post on Meaningful conversations with chatbots? Nah.

White Paper published on Tech Republic- Multidimensional Digitization Framework for Digital Transformation

Conclusion

With this, we have come to the end of our blog with Anand. We would like to thank him for giving valuable tips on content marketing. This surely will help content marketers move towards a positive direction!

We interviewed Smitha Hemmigae, who heads marketing at ThoughtWorks India to understand her perspective on content and the trends in content marketing.

Before going to the content marketing tips given by Smitha, here’s a little read about her and ThoughtWorks.

About Smitha

Smitha currently heads marketing at ThoughtWorks India. Prior to joining ThoughtWorks, she was the Sr. Director, Marketing at CSS Corp where she headed influencer relations (analyst and public relation), content and digital marketing. Apart from this, she’s also worked at Unisys Corporation, Logica and Infosys.

Smitha is a seasoned marketing professional who has the experience of working across various industries, and she brings relevant marketing experience in the Public Sector, Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences industries.

About ThoughtWorks

ThoughtWorks is a privately owned, global technology company with 42 offices in 15 countries. It provides software design and delivery, and pioneering tools and consulting services. The company is closely associated with the movement for agile software development and has contributed to a range of open source products.

What’s the true definition of content according to you?

For me, content is anything that is put together in words that helps solve the problems of your target audience and also helps in better branding. Content can be present online and offline – Forums, social media, white papers, case studies, brochures etc.

How important is content marketing according to you?

Content marketing is not just a buzzword, in fact, it is the go-to place for all brands. To sustain in the market today, adopting content marketing is critical. Marketing as a whole has many components – PR, Webinars, offline events etc. And all of these components have an underlying layer – content.

You need to understand the pulse of your audience and solve their problems through the content you create. And while you present your content – you must craft it into a story- because we as humans love compelling stories.

Content is the key differentiator between brands because all other things that your brand does and stand for can be replicated. To beat the competition, you must produce unique content.

Is content curation important?

Original content any day grabs more eyeballs. It will eventually help you achieve your final goals- sales, conversions, traffic etc. But having said that, even curation is important and there’s a way to go about it. For example, you can create whitepapers around stories that trend with your perspective added to it. A topic like “how to do content marketing when the budget is low” is not a new one – but we can add some of our techniques to it.

What are your core priorities in terms of content?

Priority number one is to repurpose content in every format that gets consumed. For example- we can convert a lengthy whitepaper into a quick blog, interactive infographic or a social snippet. This would ensure higher traffic, more brand visibility and eventually more conversions for the brand.

Priority number two is to create content that is tailored to a specific audience. For different audiences, our content needs to be different depending on their needs and requirements. A content piece meant for a CIO will be visibly different from that of a CFO. So the need here is to create persona-based content.

The third priority is to create content that’s conversational – content that involves the users to take action and participate.

How do you create a buyer persona?

We reach out to the customers, and also take customer surveys to understand their current pain points and larger requirements.  We also rely on analyst firms like Nelson Hall to supplement our research.

What are the best content marketing strategies according to you?

There are certain strategies that we follow for our brand, and they are:-

1. Our process starts by building a target persona, and accordingly, we figure out how we can create content that provides value to this persona.
2. We dedicate ample amount of time to blogging. We have about 110 books in 20 years and hundreds of thought-leadership papers that are read and shared extensively. The information that we put up is in-depth, exhaustive and is shared with everyone. We believe that the more you share, the more you learn and the better you collaborate.
3. Thirdly we also try to focus on how our content can enable sales. Prospective clients always evaluate your expertise in the subject matter and would want to see similar case studies. So, we believe that it is important to create content that is well-researched, in-depth and has a competitive edge.
4. We understand the importance of consistency in content creation and distribution and hence we follow that. Consistency can help build a brand’s value in the longer run.
5. For us the measurement of output is critical. And it needn’t just be views, clicks and likes. The metrics are much deeper. For example, we focus on how many times have we been able to repurpose content or how big of an influencer network were we able to create or how many times are we being talked about in forums.

How frequently should you be creating content?

Ideally, 20 pieces of relevant good quality content should be produced in a year. You do not need to create thousands of pieces of irrelevant content. If you do 20 and repurpose each of them 5 times – you easily get about 100 pieces of valuable content. And these pieces should be thoroughly promoted on different channels.

What is more important – Evergreen or Viral Content?

It’s a combination of both. Let me give you an example. Last year we participated in Nasscom Global Conclave, and we wrote a paper on a framework that would allow the GIC’s (Global in-house centres) to transform from shared services centres to innovation centres. This was shared with about 1500-2000 people. At the same time, we were also doing a workshop, where we gave out brochures with the QR code that redirected back them to this paper. We also did PR mentions, emailers – that all again redirected the audience to the same white paper. It garnered a lot of visibility and readership and became viral.

The paper was so relevant to the GIC’s that they took a hard copy of it whenever they had client meetings. Although the whitepaper was created for an event with the purpose of creating virality, it ultimately turned into an evergreen content piece.

Why do some companies fail to do well in content marketing?

Well, many marketing companies might be successful in creating good content, but they often fail at promoting it well. So, the ideal advice to them is to use a combination of online marketing strategies such as SEO, SMM, SEM to promote and distribute content well and have better search engine ranking.

Is it important for a company to have brand guidelines?

Content should be similar in terms of tonality and brand language -It could be either conversational or formal. Not only the types of  content, but even the visuals need to have consistency. Your audience should be able to identify your brand through its tone, font and colours.

Are there any campaigns that did well and you want to share with us?

Yes, there are two that I would want to talk about. The first one was “Talk Tech To Her”. This was an initiative aimed at getting the women back who took a career break to re-enter workspaces. This was not just about incentivising them and having policies and leaves in place. This was about promising them something intangible – The aim was to make sure that their voices are heard and they don’t feel differentiated.

We promoted this event through PR, Hackathons, Webinars, blogs and social media. This helped us in getting a lot of awareness and made this whole initiative a big success.

The second initiative was “Thoughtworks Live India 2017”.

The theme of the event was how successful businesses of the future are always going to be led by courageous executives who embrace digital at their core and help their organisations adapt to change, calibrate and stay nimble.

There were 6 whitepapers written for the event – and they have been the most engaging content pieces that we have sent to the market so far. They have been used in media, newspapers and have also been repurposed by us in blogs and social snippets.

Are there any content marketing tips that you would want to give to the marketers of today?

Yes, there are some content marketing tips that marketers should take a note of.

1. You must create a robust content marketing plan in line with what your market wants
2. Consistency is very important in the creation of content – because there are many players in the market wooing the same audience with similar products.
3. Be a storyteller and cater to the emotions of your audience. You need to be empathetic and take people through various emotions while you create content.
4. You need to keep its simple- avoid using lots of jargons and flowery language – it might distract your user from what you are essentially trying to say.

Conclusion

With this, we have come to the end of our interview with Smitha. We thank her from the bottom of our heart for taking out the time to answer our questions and giving some valuable content marketing tips.

“This post is a part of our Content Salad series, where we invite industry experts to share their knowledge. The content marketing insights of CRY – Child Right and You a top non-profit organization , is offered to give you a glimpse of the thought process of leaders in the industry and a chance to learn from the best”

Alankrita Khera is the Marketing & Communication Head for CRY, one of the most popular non-goverment organization in India. An MBA grad MBA grad from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai, she is passionate about writing and currently working on a book that explores human relationships.
Content marketing for nonprofits is challenging.

A nonprofit organization has its mission and values that speak volumes. A content marketing strategy for nonprofits is needed to drive communications.

The key to communicating a compelling story about your nonprofit organization is developing a content marketing plan. Alankrita Khera from CRY talks to us about developing a content strategy for nonprofits.

About CRY

Child Rights and You is a top non-profit and non-government organization in India working towards the upliftment of underprivileged children across supported child welfare projects and engaged in restoring the children’s basic rights.

About Alankrita

After almost a decade in broadcast media, where she worked with the likes of Times, UTV and Viacom18, Alankrita decided to immerse herself in the non-profit sector – working towards better futures for marginalized children.

She is currently heading marketing and communications at CRY – Child Rights and You. A writer at heart, she is currently working on a book that explores human relationships and is passionate about travelling and immersive experiences. A vocalist trained in classical music, she spends her spare time advocating for animal welfare.

What is your definition of content marketing?

Content marketing, in my opinion, refers to the creation and distribution of content that is interesting and relevant to your target audience – with the objective of acquiring and retaining them as brand patrons.

Such content could be educational, insightful, inspirational or simply entertaining in nature; that doesn’t aim to push your target consumer to make a purchase decision but instead nudges you into their consideration set. Content marketing strategy isn’t just a mix of social media and blogs; it’s a combination of various different channel techniques in today’s context.

Videos, podcasts, emails, webinars, infographics, memes, quizzes, fun score generators, assessments – even books and movies! The Lego movie is a great example; it was essentially a product advertisement marketed in a way that made their TG want to consume it. And guess what, the subsequent increase in their sales offered proof of the pudding when they surpassed even Mattel!

We looked at some of the blogs by CRY, and we think they are very inspirational. Take a look at the blogs by CRY.

1. The Colours Of Childhood

1. The more you give, the more you get

3.From Thought To Action

There is a huge increase in the growth of content marketing, what do you think about that?

Advertising today has become more of a nuisance for the average consumer than before. Want to buy a car? Switch on the television or open up Facebook and you’d be sampling a dozen different purchase prompts by a wide variety of brands – all vying for your elusive mind space.

A purchase decision effectively goes through 4 stages – awareness, research, consideration and finally the purchase itself. The period starting with awareness and going all the way to research is what Google calls the Zero Moment Of Truth. That point in the buying cycle where a brand isn’t aware of the potential consumer who is already looking them up in order to evaluate whether they fit in their consideration set or not.

This is the point where traditional advertising fails because of stimulus overload.

The consumer is seeing so many purchase prompts, all of which are effectively saying the same thing. This might lead to your brand getting no brand recall.

Marketers have begun to understand this; thus there has been a sudden spurt in content marketing, and it has become the buzzword for so many brands.

In fact, it’s also a great tool to aid the second moment of truth – which is essentially the point at which the consumer decides how his experience with your brand has been. Through content like product tutorials, FAQs and even community updates, you can ensure a holistic experience for your existing customers which, of course, aids retention.

Which aspect(s) of content marketing are the most important to you?

There isn’t any single aspect that warrants more importance than the other. As a marketer, I essentially like to follow a three-pronged process that starts with evaluating the objective of my content marketing strategy and identifying pain points that it aims to address my target audience.

Then will come the part of conceptualizing and creating the said content in a way that’s mapped to the said pain points and is interesting as well as relevant for my targeted audience. The final step will be building outreach and engagement for the same and analysing performance to make tweaks real time as and when required.

The one thing that encompasses this entire process is an understanding of your target group itself – demographics and psychographics that influence your strategy right from content creation to platforms for outreach. Content mapping to the customer journey is critical.

What according to you makes for a remarkable piece of content?

1. An attention-grabbing title/headline – a sparkling introduction that fuels audience curiosity
2. A topical and popular topic that’s relevant to and is customized for the identified audience base
3. Something that creates value for the end user/viewer and has long-term rather than short-lived relevance
4. A narrative that invokes emotion in addition to laying down facts – it increases the chances of the content piece being shared by the end user/viewer
5. Something that establishes a unique opinion or perspective on behalf of the brand
6. Short form content that tells a story – that is quick and relatable to the audience

Is there a need for you to constantly create new content?

For me, specifically in my current role, yes. The non-profit sector does not function like other industries; we’re not addressing a consumer pain point through a product or service. The idea of charity weighs on everyone’s mind as everyone wants to be a good citizen and do good for those who need it the most. But it is not a priority that drives regular/focused action in most of the cases.

A core non-profit marketing objective is to generate awareness about the problem and break the apathy around it to facilitate donor/volunteer action.

For this, it is essential to create content that catches your attention and stands apart and is very prevalent.

How important is it for you share content on social media?

Social media remains to be the biggest platform on which content marketing is hinged – especially if you do not have marketing budgets. And a non-profit needs to reach a massive amount of people within any said target segment. So, it is very important.
Instagram Posts of CRY

Facebook posts of CRY

What is more important – Evergreen Content or Viral Content?

In general, evergreen content has a longer shelf life than viral content. It can facilitate prolonged and sustained traffic and can control the context effectively without the brand running the risk of building up negative sentiment – which is often the case with viral content.

To be able to choose one depends on the brand and its objectives. Personally, however, I feel like brands should build a solid foundation of lasting engaging content that is mapped to their consumer base. Longevity always wins, in my experience.

Is there any campaign that you are proud of and would share with us?

At CRY, we created 16 short films in 2017-18 on either extremely negligible budgets or completely pro-bono thanks to the support of our partners. This film on child marriage won a gold at the Woodpecker Film Festival, this one helped us build salience around the issue of child labour, this reminded our audience that all children have dreams irrespective of their socio-economic background and this brought back the focus on girl child. Such content not only helped us raise our brand recall but also kickstarted conversations around the issues in question – through last year, our social media audiences have grown almost 4 times in size!

Check out their campaigns here.

CRY | Mothers Day Campaigns

CRY | The Power of Your Hands | Child Labour Campaigns

CRY | Dreams Unlimited Campaign

CRY | Women of Tomorrow Campaign

Any tips for marketers of today?

1. When formulating your content marketing strategy, do not go solely by mass trends or ape what your competition is doing. The idea is to stand out in a way that’s specifically targeted to your target consumer. Understand your reader personas (those who’ll consume your content but may not necessarily buy). Then filter that understanding into a narrower set of buyer personas (a subset of the reader funnel who’re more likely to make a purchase decision). Then conceptualize your content marketing mix accordingly.
2. Focus on quality over quantity. While you do not want to have long gaps between serving consumable content to your audience to keep them engaged, you also don’t want to fall prey to putting out stuff that isn’t valuable enough to your target consumer. Also, analyse how your content is doing regularly through website content audits against set key metrics – traffic, engagement and conversions. Your strategy should be fluid, not set in stone.

Conclusion

We would like to thank Alankrita for taking out the time to respond to our questions and telling us about content marketing for non-profits. Content Marketing for any industry is challenging, and Alankrita has given some valuable insights that are extremely beneficial to us and other content marketers out there.
If you want to get your content strategy right, download the e-book below.

Content marketing is not just a buzzword, it is the go-to place for all marketers. A brand gets noticed by its users if the content that it produces is helpful. To drive profitable customer action, it is important to have a content marketing strategy that focuses on creating valuable, relevant, and consistent content. Priyam Jha, from WebEngage talks to us about the importance of content marketing, the dos, and don’ts of content marketing, and the way to go about creating an effective content marketing strategy. Before you read up on the interview, here’s a little information about WebEngage and Priyam.

About WebEngage

WebEngage is a multi-channel user engagement platform that automates communication across users’ life-cycle. It enables you to connect with them through these channels – Web Messages (notification, survey, and feedback), In-App Messages, Push Notifications, Emails, and Text Messages.

Quick Demonstration of how WebEngage works

About Priyam

Priyam works as the content marketer for WebEngage. He is responsible for all content marketing initiatives to drive traffic, engagement, and leads, that deliver sales and customer retention. Content categorization, structure, development, distribution, and measurement all come under his area of work. He has previously worked and interned with organizations like Zepo.ini, and MTR FOODS PVT. LTD and Chevrolet India.

What is content marketing according to you?

Content marketing according to me is the process of creating helpful information that actually helps to solve the problems of various people. The reason we create content is to impart knowledge and empower our consumers. It helps us in establishing ourselves as thought leaders in our domain of work and also builds trust amongst our users. And I am happy to admit that we have been able to create a big funnel of visitors for our website, without being overly promotional about what we do.

What aspects of content marketing are the most important to you?

Content marketing is the sum of content creation and content promotion. Let me talk about them one by one.

Content Creation

Content creation is extremely important. But you need to know the intent of your target audience and create the right types of content. You need to solve a palatable problem that most of them might have – and not just shoot in the dark.

Content Promotion

The other half of a content marketing strategy is content promotion and most marketers don’t give enough importance to it. Your content might not be able to grab enough eyeballs if you do not promote it well. Creating a good blog might capture the attention of your already existing audience, but if you distribute it on various channels, you can amplify the reach by manifolds.

What according to you is a remarkable piece of content?

Personally, for me, there are three things that make content a remarkable piece – structure, purpose, and readability.

Content flow and structure are imperative.

If you have a good structure around your content, then you can talk about your product in a more compelling way. Also, a good structure can help you craft a story around your product or services, and your audience would love that piece of content. For example, our blog “Why Multi-Channel Marketing Is The Key To Growth “is well-structured, has a defined flow, and showcases some comprehensible examples.

Then you need to ask yourself the purpose of writing content. You can ask yourself questions like

• who is it that I am targeting?
• Is it better than the rest of the blogs on the same topic
• is it going to solve some problems for x users

An example is our blog called  11 In-App Messaging Best Practices To Boost User Retention Rate This blog is made with the purpose of giving tips to marketers about In-App Messaging practices that will help them retain their customers better.

Finally, your content needs to be very simple and readable.

Simple content doesn’t mean mediocre content. For example, a technical piece has a certain tonality and an audience. But the author should make sure that it’s also readable to people with lesser or no knowledge of the subject. An example that I would like to explain this to you with is our blog – What is a WebHook? Many people might not know what a WebHook is, but the way our author has written it, someone new to it with no prior knowledge can also easily get a grip on it. And would not bother looking elsewhere for answers.

What are the essential steps for creating a good content marketing strategy?

Personally, I follow set of steps, that I will share with you. They are:-

1. Understanding my target audience
2. Creating a buyer persona or a user profile
3. Understanding the search intent for my product.
4. Conducting research on the market, and our competitors.
5. Determining the end goal of my content marketing strategy.
6. Determining the key metrics
7. Plan and create a quarterly content calendar.
8. Plan content distribution alongside content development and mark those dates on the calendar.

Here’s a simple guide by WittyPen for creating an editorial calendar.

What platforms do you use for content sharing?

For a platform like WebEngage, platforms like Twitter and Linkedin work well. The reason is – We have positioned ourselves as thought leaders in the domain in that we work, and we find people with the same bent of mind on those platforms. They relate to our content and have opinions on it as well.

How important are keywords for you?

Crucial is the word. If you don’t focus on the right keywords, you are painting in the dark. You need to know the keywords that your users are using. Keywords help you in understanding the user’s intent. For us, a mix of head and tail keywords work well.

Head keywords drive the necessary traffic and spread the word like fire, whereas tail keywords help us in meeting targetted audience.  We have a very good SEO team, that goes an extra mile to optimize our website. In fact, I am proud to share that we have been ranking number 1 on page one for the keyword “b2c marketing automation” for the longest time. Also, there has been a mammoth increase of 70% in our website traffic.

What’s more important – Viral Content or Evergreen Content?

Well, content helps both marketers and customers and it has to be a healthy blend of both. While viral marketing through content grabs eyeballs, evergreen content, on the other hand, is there to stay and gives your brand the status of a thought leader.

Any tips for marketers?

So the first tip for them is to be educated about the latest trends in the industry. Content marketing as a field is ever-evolving, and therefore it is imperative to stay knowledgeable to be ahead of everyone else.

And the second tip is to research. You must research your industry, competitors, your audience, and everything that can help you produce the best content for your brand.

Conclusion

This was our last question on the list and we are grateful to Priyam for taking out the time to answer our questions. His content marketing tips are very beneficial, and would surely help us and others become better at what we do – Content marketing.

“This post is a part of our Content Salad series, where we invite industry experts to share their knowledge. FactorDaily is a technology news site from India that offers us insights on technology and the world around us. This interview with Abhash Kumar, who was the Head of Marketing at FactorDaily till February this year is offered to give you a glimpse of the thought process of leaders in the industry and a chance to learn from the best.”

An MIT Alumnus, Abhash Kumar has gained marketing experience from renowned companies like YourStory Media and FactorDaily. He is passionate about humanizing the online marketing space, psychology, and experimentation-based systems. In this interview, he has provided valuable insights about the importance of content marketing with FactorDaily as an example.

Promotion through flashy ad banners might catch the attention of your users for a small while. But soon, it will be a forgotten memory for them. So, if you want to go for something permanent that doesn’t constantly burn a hole in your pocket – then look no further.

Your answer lies in content marketing, Content is the most powerful tool for any brand that works multiway – It drives brand awareness, creates brand authority and most importantly forms a connection between the brand and its users.

We discussed the importance of content marketing with Abhash who, at the time of this interview, headed marketing at FactorDaily. And he gave us some really interesting insights. We will get to them. But first, take a moment and read up a little on FactorDaily and also get to know Abhash.

About FactorDaily

FactorDaily is a technology news site based in India that provides insights on companies, culture, future, and lifestyles.

About Abhash

Abhash is a seasoned professional in digital marketing and has over 4 years of experience in the same. Before FactorDaily, he has been an early employee at now renowned brands like YourStory and Byju’s. He had also helped co-found Gyan Lab (kidovators.com in its current avatar) and has freelanced for a variety of education and training based projects. He is crazily passionate about humanizing the Online marketing space. And believes that education will turn on its head by 2035. He specialises in helping organizations with their online outreach, blogging, marketing products to netizens effectively and building reputations via human connections for Online businesses

Why is content important?

Content is the king according to me. For a media company like FactorDaily, it is their bread and butter. Even for the non-media companies content serves as a crucial element in communicating the brand’s language to the audience. You should not go wrong with your content marketing strategy and it should be in sync with your audience’s thought process

What’s your target audience?

Well, at FactorDaily, we cater to the tech Junta, people who live and breathe technology. These guys want to be on the top of their technology game. This set of people are looking for insights that will help them make sense of the way our world is changing because of technology, and also empower them with ideas to compete in this new world. They are specifically interested in upcoming tech trends and topics such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, drones and machine learning etc.

Tell us about your team. How do they work around creating good content?

Well, the team is comprised of veteran tech journalists, who work their fingers to the bone to deliver quality content.  This is pure-play journalism.

The reporters go out and get the scoops.  And the stories are original, in-depth, fact-based and very comprehensive. The reporters do a maximum of 1 to 2 stories a week. This results in a high-quality output.

What is the revenue model?

At this stage, our aim is to build a strong set of loyal readers, and that is the utmost priority. Ensuring that will take care of the revenue and the revenue channels are being figured out along the way.

We want to be in the league of ” WIRED” and “Harvard Business Review”. Currently, there is the website and mobile web version where serve quality, fact-based, deeply-researched journalism to our audience. This content is free for consumption.

What social media channel works the best for you?

Twitter works very well for us as opposed to Facebook. The reason is our audience – our audience is discerned and well-read. Secondly, our content does not fall into the category of “viral content” and is of the deeply-researched and long-form kind and hence, Twitter is our realm.

Also currently we are not investing in paid ads – our kind of content is not the one that you shove into people’s feeds with a google or a facebook ad. The high quality of journalism speaks for itself and our readers refer our work to newer set of audiences. Apart from Twitter, we do very well on Google News also.

Additionally, our presence on Hacker News and Reddit is also good.

Is there any referral traffic?

Yes, there is. Our content is very unique – most of our pieces are breaking news. This leads to us being quoted and backlinked by established media players. So, there is a lot of referral traffic as well.

What’s your customer journey like?

Well, the reader lands on our website to read one of our pieces, and there we have two lead capture forms – Email Newsletter and Whatsapp Capture form. The first one which is a newsletter – if someone subscribes to that, we start sending them the day’s stories through email. These stories are about companies with a huge technological footprint in India  or about frontier technologies (like AI, Blockchain, Drones, Robotics etc)

The other is a WhatsApp capture box, where the user can choose to subscribe to our stories and breaking news on their whatsapp. It is a simple process. They will be redirected to their phone whatsapp or whatsapp web after entering their name in the capture box.

What are your core priorities in terms of content?

Like I said earlier, our high quality of journalism speaks for itself.   But as far as marketing is concerned, we want to focus on emails as our primary channel. We want to make email our content hub, and not just a place where people click and get redirected to other places. The email campaign content should be extremely powerful.

Any tools that you use for measuring the impact of content?

We don’t invest in a lot of unnecessary tools. We stick to Google Analytics. Impressions and pageviews don’t matter as much as subscriptions to newsletters, Whatsapp does. Another important metric that we track is the time spent on each article. That helps us in gathering information about what our reader’s preference is.

What’s your strong suit?

There are three. And I am proud to talk about them. One is the editorial perspective that we get from the seasoned journalists who have previously worked with media giants. The content they produce is first rate and first hand. Second is the clean design that we have – many of our design creatives have the look of graphic novels. The best part is that our designers sit with the editorial team, so the story ideas are discussed at the same time as creative ideas. Therefore, the results are streamlined well.

The third is our readability – Since we don’t have myriad of ads on our websites, our readers find it easy to browse through our site. Their experience is by default good.

Any tip to young marketers?

Yes. Content marketers today should focus on content distribution. Most of the marketers spend all their time in creating content but don’t promote it well.

80% of the time should be spent on distribution. An example of good content distribution is ClearTax- They are in the right forums such as Quora and they do their content distribution very well.

Secondly, Content marketing can be a trap for many. Content marketing doesn’t come for cheap considering the resources that are involved from ideating to implementing it. For example, I was in touch with this ticketing company who wanted to start their blog from scratch.

The ideal advice to them would be to leverage an already existing platforms that have massive distribution instead of investing in creating content themselves. The idea is – You should invest in content the right way through the right channels. The event company would get far more traffic by a) sticking to their domain of expertise c) creating awareness through an established content platform with good outreach

Goals of the near future

One of the immediate goals is to build a personalization engine based on user logins so that readers spend time reading stories of their interest. There are some major updates in the works but I am not at liberty to discuss them currently in public

Coming to an end

We had a great time interviewing Abhash, and we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to him for taking out the time for answering our questions,and telling us about the importance of content marketing. Content was, is and will always be the king. Employing content the right way will take you a long way. If you want content that is meaningful, and can create value for your brand, then download the e-book right below!