The document discusses content marketing and content writing. It provides examples of successful brands that have excelled in content marketing like Amul, Flipkart, Zomato, Fevicol, Bumble, Paytm etc. It outlines different types of content like blogs, videos, emails, case studies etc. It discusses best practices for content writing like having a clear strategy, understanding the audience, creating engaging content. It also mentions tools that can help with content creation like Google Analytics. The key takeaways are that content marketing is important for brands, content writing is both an art and science, different content types should be used based on the medium, and best practices like optimizing for SEO are important.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User Journeys
WEEK -3 SEO ANALYSIS.docx
1. Organizations use data to analyse their customer behaviour. They study
what their customers are searching for and what kind of content they are
likely to consume. This insightful data is then used to plan and create
content that is relevant and meaningful to their customers
Great content comes with great effort. Any organization on its way to
creating a marketing strategy cannot ignore content today. This blog will
focus on collating some winning content marketing examples, best
practices used in the industry, and content writing tools that will make your
job as a content marketer easy.
A fantastic visionary that he is, Bill Gates could see deep into the future. In
an essay written in 1996, he wrote with conviction about how content is
king. In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant “new normal” have
drastically changed the way people buy, sell, and work across the globe.
Businesses have no option but to adapt and change. This entire situation
has propelled the online space to the stature of a marketing hub. We are at
a point where leading organizations across the globe are adopting content-
led marketing strategies.
In a digitally connected world, content is the new gold mine. Organizations
and brands across the globe are using content to leverage their products
and services. With more and more consumers moving online, the more
agile brands have quickly made the shift. They are using content to tell their
story and create brand value among their consumers.
Content writing is the art and science of creating content for the digital
medium. Yes, you read that right. It is a finely crafted art as much as it is
science. Why do we say that? Well, you will agree that writing is an art form.
It requires someone to logically and meticulously put together thoughts
into a coherent, readable format. But why is it a science? Because every
piece of writing needs to have a structure. It must present a point of view in
a well-framed, grammatically correct manner. The best content comes from
a great mix of these two traits.
Organizations use data to analyse customer behaviour. They study what
their customers are searching for and what kind of content they are likely to
consume. Then, this insightful data is used to plan and create relevant and
meaningful content for their customers. While science defines what needs
2. to be written, it is the art and craft of writing that helps create highly
readable and engaging content.
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Different Types of Content Writing
Content is created primarily for digital marketing. Just like water takes the
shape of its container, writing must mold itself to the medium. The tone,
tenor, style, and length of the written piece must change based on where it
will appear. Here are some classic content writing types:
Blogs
Scriptwriting for videos
Emailers
Writing for e-zines
Newsletters
Social media posts
Case studies
White papers
Website content
Landing page content
YouTube video description
E-commerce product description
3. Reviews (books, movies, product, or service)
How-to guides
Podcasts
While this list does not cover the vast ocean of content writing possibilities,
it will give you an idea of what comes within its purview. From technology
to recipes, from education to entertainment, from food to science, content
can be created for any topic under the sun and beyond.
We have already established that content is the key marketing tool for any
organization in today’s world. What, when, and who to write for is defined
by an organization’s marketing strategy. Organizations or individuals
setting out to make their mark must ensure that their content is customer-
centric. This calls for a deep understanding of customer behavior, both
online and offline. Brands have moved away from talking about what they
can do for their customers. Instead, they speak about what the customer
would like to hear within the context of their brand. In the highly
competitive online space, content must be interesting and unusual to retain
customer interest. The challenge is to create such content consistently.
Content Writing:
So, in short, organizations need to tune themselves to their customers’
frequency. They must clearly define their audience and create suitable
content for this target segment. If customers find their content interesting,
they will stay tuned, interact with the brand, and maybe even share it with
their friends. Therefore, it is important to write honest and targeted
content.
Here is a closer look at a few content writing examples via brands that seem
to have got their content marketing formula right. They have a massive
social media presence. They have a signature content style and have
consistently maintained it through the years. This has resulted in their large
social media following. Safe to say, they seem to have honed the art of
creating content that connects with their customers.
4. 1. Amul
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The iconic Amul girl graduated seamlessly from the traditional print
advertising medium to the online space. This helped the brand stay
connected with their customers while adding a new base of a younger
audience. By maintaining the style and tone of its content in the online
space, the company has earned the love and respect of its audience. Their
communication is always topical, offering a brilliant mix of humor and
current affairs. The brand also has frequent contests in its online space to
keep its customers engaged and entertained. It is one of the best content
writing examples.
2. Flipkart
A product of the e-commerce boom in India, Flipkart is a relatively new
entrant to the market. However, they are in a highly competitive space, and
they understood early on that they must follow the customer journey from
research to actual purchase.
User-generated content like customer reviews and recommendations forms
an integral part of their content strategy. They maintain an active social
media presence across all channels and ensure constant interaction with
their customers through contests. Their Big Billion Day sale is a brand by
itself, and customers withhold their purchases as they wait for this sale,
much like the iconic Black Friday sale.
5. 3. Zomato
Like Flipkart, Zomato is a “millennial” brand that engages with customers
largely between the age group of 18 to 40. It is a food delivery app that
offers a listing of restaurants. The company uses a versatile range of
content to engage with its customers; this includes blogs, videos, and
infographics. Their target base is clear: foodies. They also send out constant
emails to their database of customers on topics ranging from food to
safety. This is an excellent strategy, as it helps keep them on top of the
customers’ minds. Their quirky,
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topical, and witty catch on food consumption behavior hold their large
base of customers joyfully engaged. Again, an exceptional content writing
example.
6. 4. Fevicol
“Fevicol ka mazboot jodd hai, tootega nahin” is an iconic sentence, without
which the history of the Indian advertising industry will remain incomplete.
Be it Kareena Kapoor’s dazzling dance number “Fevicol se” or PM Modi’s
speech in which he says India-Japan relations are stronger than Fevicol, the
brand has glued itself to the Indian collection of words and phrases.
This extraordinary journey began with a textbook marketing tactic: directly
approaching the target audience ( carpenters). After gripping the entire
market and implementing brilliant strategies, this digital content writing
example has come a long way from conventional newspaper ads to rocking
meme games on social media.
5. Bumble
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Bumble is more than a dating app, connecting like-minded people for
friendships as well. The marketing strategy of this product is noteworthy,
from maintaining an all-yellow (also the color of happiness!) theme
throughout their profile to reeling in trending influencers. Bumble is
famous for launching quirky campaigns that tick all the boxes. The most
famous one is the one regarding women “making the first move.” Bumble is
a women-first dating app, and they are not afraid to leverage this fact. This
is one of the best digital marketing content writing examples.
7. 6.Paytm
Nobody can start a sentence with the word “Paytm” and not finish it with
the famous “Paytm Karo.” Paytm India’s topical marketing strategy and
overall branding communication have helped the brand become an
intangible neighborhood of their users’ lives. They’re able to find branding
opportunities in mundane online trends, instantly becoming a platform for
a much bigger, topical conversation. Paytm sneaks marketing and branding
in its entire online presence.
7. Simplify360
Simplify360 explains interactions with customers and audiences across
different social media platforms for leading businesses. It also allows you to
keep tabs on your customer reviews and answer them. Their social media
feeds comprise detailed guides on customer management, sales conversion
methods, and statistics-supported social media analytics. Simplify360’s
marketers seem to highlight their skills and features through their posts
and hashtags extensively. This brand acts as the perfect content marketing
example.
8. Shaadi.com
It is right there in its name—shaadi! But, can you imagine a brand
discouraging its value proposition? Shaadi.com recently launched a
campaign where they conducted a survey among women and found out
that around 82% of women do not want to rush into marriage. This survey
and the advertisement around it garnered a lot of attention and applause.
While raising a serious issue, they also drew attention to their easy-to-use,
user-friendly interface, suitable for all types of people and mindsets. Isn’t
this content writing example mind-blowing? Other than that, they are
known for their emotional campaigns as well.
Content Writing Practices:
COVID-19 has irrevocably disrupted the traditional marketing funnel. It has
driven more people and organizations online than ever before. Although
the e-commerce growth figures in India were not as high as they were in
other big markets like the United States, optimistic about the financial year
8. 2022. This also means that organizations must have their content
strategy in place and employ proven best content practices to leverage the
online presence of their customers.
1. Have a clear content strategy
Your content needs to be customer-centric. It must engage with your
audience, and it must convince them that you can help meet their needs or
solve their problem somehow. It must imply that you understand their
situation and empathize with them. Any content created must be about
what the customer wants to hear rather than what the organization wishes
to say.
2. Have a deep understanding of your target audience
Who is your customer? What are their likes and dislikes? What are the
challenges they face (in the context of your brand), and how can you solve
those challenges for them? Any content created must strive to answer these
questions. Build a customer persona and ensure that your content is always
about your customers. It should reassure them that you are earnest about
solving their problem.
3. Create content that connects with your customer
Once you have clearly defined who your target audience is, it is important
to create content that resonates with them. Content that they can relate to
so that they, in turn, share it and talk about it with their friends. Make your
content so compelling that customers begin to interact and, over time,
build a relationship with your brand.
4. Create the right mix of content
Ensure you hold your customers’ interest by offering them a fantastic mix of
content. Incorporate blogs, videos, social media posts, infographics, and
thought leadership material into your content marketing plan. Give your
customers a reason to keep coming back to you.
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5. Ensure your content is SEO-compliant
Optimize your content. This is an important best practice for SEO content
writing. This means you must add all the relevant keywords, descriptions, alt
tags, and meta tags. How can you do this? You need to obtain data on
what your customers are looking for and create content based on their
requirements. Ensure that there is a mix of the right keywords in your
content to attract and retain your customer’s attention.
6. Make your content engaging
Once the content is out there in cyberspace, your customers should
consume it and stay engaged with your brand. How can you do this? Keep
your content simple and relevant, engage in storytelling, use humor, use
images and statistics, and keep it topical and honest. Aboveall, once you
arrive at a tone and style, stay consistent, so that you do not confuse your
customer. This is equally important in social media content writing.
7. Have a compelling call to action
Now you’ve got awesome content out there. Your customer reads it or
views it, and then what? It’s important to have a relevant and logical call to
action (CTA). What is the answer, reaction, or activity you want from your
10. customers? Do you want them to fill a form, register on your site, sign up
for your event, or bookmark your upcoming sale? Whatever it is, ensure
your customer perfectly understands what action is expected. A clear CTA is
essential to meet your desired communication objective.
Content Writing Tools :
Does generating the right content seem a little overwhelming? It need not
be. There are plenty of content writing tools out there to help you at every
stage of content creation – from ideation and design to conclusion.
Google Analytics
This is a free service by Google that helps get insights into different
parameters regarding content. These include website traffic, advertising
ROI, and more.
To conclude, it is clear that content marketing is the way forward. Whether
you are an individual looking to make your mark as a content writer or an
organization seeking to build your online presence, content is key.
Therefore, you must devise a strategy for the whole year and plan your
content dissemination accordingly. Remember to use an interesting mix of
content that includes social media posts, blogs, and videos. Podcasts are
emerging as the next big thing in the content space, so you might want to
consider adding that to your mix.
11. The best part about digital media is that you can evaluate what is working
and what is not.
The trick is to orient your content according to what customers seem to
consume more of. At the same time, ensure your content is topical and
relevant to the consumers. Once you have a winning content formula in
place, run with it, stay consistent with the style, and be honest about the
promises you make. Because, as Maya Angelou says, “At the end of the day,
people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you
made them feel.”
Key Takeaways
Content marketing supported by great content writing is an
important arsenal in any brand’s marketing strategy today.
Content writing is the fine-crafted art and structural science of
making content for digital media.
The different types of content writing examples on the digital front
include blogs, scriptwriting for videos, emailers, social media posts,
whitepapers, etc. All of these are important for the digital growth of a
brand.
Some of the best practices in content writing include optimizing for
SEO, understanding your target audience, and creating the right
content mix for your brand.
Author: The writer of a book, the face behind a writing piece, maker of the
manuscript, wordsmith of a document, owner of an article, dramatist of an
incident in terms of write-ups, correspondent of a topic, screenwriter of a
movie, scriptwriter of a web series, biographer of a personality, novelist of a
novel, reporter of a worldly issue, journalist of the events witnessed, poet of
the stanzas, songwriter of a song, pen-pusher of letters, and columnist of a
newspaper.
Persona: A person’s personality, facade worn by a man or a woman, identity
of an individual, mask put on by a person, the front portion of a human
being, exterior guise adorned by a character, role played by someone, the
personality of an actor, the image of a mortal soul, the public face of a
fellow.
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As we can see, an author can be so many things in so many ways.
Therefore, an author’s persona is an ideal way to define who the author is.
A good author persona can help communicate the background and
personality of the author to the reader. The author’s persona is the
projection of the author, their personality, and the person behind the words
the readers have come to like.
In the age of social media, it is easy to find out information about a
particular author or person with just a few simple searches. However, the
author’s persona is not just the author’s bio; it also gives insights that help
resonate with the audience and create a brand!
What is an Author Persona?
Be it Earnest Hemingway, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Charles
Dickens, Mark Twain, or modern-day authors like Dan Brown, John Grisham,
Paulo Coelho, George Orwell, or Neil Gaiman, all these authors do not just
have a fantastic storyline and narration, but a knack of creating stellar
author personas.
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And it is not just authors who have a unique persona of their own; you can
see it in public figures like Michael Jackson, Vincent Van Gough, and Pablo
Picasso, who have created larger-than-life images. But have you ever
wondered how much of their public version is actually true? Is Hemingway
the man he showcases himself to be: regal, shotgun-wielding, drunk,
adventurer-genius? Is Stephen King always wise and spooky, identifying the
world’s fears and taking us on a rollercoaster ride? Or is he funny, wise, and
a regular person?
The author’s persona is what you would call “’your brand,” the story, the
emotion, or the real-life version of who you are. An author persona will help
your readers better connect with you and create a unique brand that
14. people will be drawn to. It can be based on the characters in your stories or
be a version of you that considers all the emotions, instances, and
experiences that make you “YOU.”
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The author persona doesn’t have to be a mask you wear to create a whole
new brand or something you hide behind. Instead, it can be an eccentric
version of who you are, as real as you can be. Everyone’s persona is unique,
so it is your personal story or brand that you want to communicate to your
readers in the form of your persona.
How to Create Your Author Persona in simple
Steps:
Now that you have understood the author’s persona let us dive into
understanding seven easy steps to craft an author’s persona.
1. Determine what you’d want to communicate with your audience
Remember when you fell in love with a book or a story and decided to look
for the author? What is the information that you looked for? What was it
about their story that instantly connected with you?
The author’s persona is a way for the writer to give the reader a glimpse of
their personality and life. To craft the perfect persona, start by
understanding what you want your readers to know about you. Depending
15. on how you want to position yourself, you will need to look at several facets
of your personality and craft a short bio that you want to share with your
audience.
2. Understand your target readership or audience
Next, try to find out who your target audience is. What is it that they expect
from the author or the writer? Your author’s persona should be such that
your target audience can instantly connect with it and make you part of
their tribe.
While you may not always share the same age, gender, or have similar
beliefs as your target audience, understanding their perspective and
ensuring that your persona addresses them are vital to creating a good
impression.
For example, if you write children’s novels, you do not have to be their age
to understand them. Just talk about the child within you, what compelled
you to write, and the stories you have grown up with.
3. Find out your unique strengths.
To write a stellar author or writer’s persona, it is a good starting point to
answer some questions such as:
What qualities about yourself do you like the most? Do you wish to
communicate these qualities to your readers?
What do your family and friends tell you about you? What is it about
you that they like the most?
How were you introduced to writing? What made you take the
plunge in writing the book or article or pursuing a career in writing?
What makes you, YOU?
Who do you want to be in the near future?
What’s the best thing about you?
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Knowing your strengths is essential, as you can focus on and amplify them
in your persona, allowing your audience to know just what makes you tick!
4. Be open to talking about your weaknesses.
The most honest persona openly talks about a person’s flaws or
weaknesses and accepts them. No one in this world is perfect, and your
audience doesn’t expect you to be either. Instead, if you are open to
sharing the ups and downs of your life, do that!
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It is always inspiring when someone you are in awe of tells you about the
situations they have experienced, failures, or challenges of their own, and
your audience will value you for being vocal about it!
5. Carve a niche
Every person is unique, and your persona should reflect that. It is important
to identify your niche and focus on amplifying the person you are and the
expertise you bring to the table for your persona to stand out. You can
write about much, but focusing on your core proposition helps keep the
persona short but impactful.
6. Have fun
Do you find the process of creating your persona tiring, tedious, or
daunting? Writing about oneself is a tough job and will make you restless,
but do not worry. Remember that you know yourself best.
Instead of worrying about how it sounds or how your audience will perceive
you, just make sure to relax and have fun!
7. Do some soul searching
Finally, creating an author’s persona is an opportunity to do some soul
searching and understand the multiple facets of your personality. Look
deep within and uncover what you want to communicate with your readers.
Ask questions like:
Who am I?
What is my purpose?
Why did I choose writing as my salvation?
What is it that defines your writing?
Where do you see yourself in a few years?
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These questions will help you create a genuine author persona, which is
essential for your readers.
In Summary
As famous American Novelist David Guterson has said, “I have relaxed into
my persona as an author, although I used to fight that.” That is truly the key
to creating a stellar and real persona, just ease into it, and allow the magic
that you can weave with your words to also reflect in the person you are!
This blog should help you discover your unique writer’s persona and enable
you to polish it until it feels natural and real. Enjoy the writing process, and
remember, it is all about having fun and allowing your passion to take over!
Key Takeaways
The author’s persona is what you would call “your brand,” the story,
emotion, or real-life version of who you are. An author persona will
help your readers connect with you better and creates a unique
brand that people will be drawn to.
19. To craft the perfect persona, start by understanding what you want
your readers to know about you.
Next, try to find out who your target audience is. What is it that they
expect from the author or the writer? Your author’s persona should
be such that your target audience can instantly connect with it and
make you part of their tribe.
Know your strengths and play on them when writing your author
persona.
Also, do not just focus on the positives. If there are weaknesses or
flaws you think will add value, go ahead and share them.
Finally, creating an author’s persona is an opportunity to do some
soul searching and understand the multiple facets of your personality.
Look deep within and uncover what you want to communicate with
your readers