How content marketing rethinks the customer experience

By Microsoft in Business Team

October 24, 2017

Between evolving online habits, a saturated market, and growing access to information, the way customers engage with brands is drastically changing. New tools, communication channels, and platforms have created an atmosphere where consumers can pick and choose their own experiences, and that means the filtering of unwanted solicitations whether that be calls, ads, or commercials. The data backs it up:

226,001,288 registered numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry¹
Ad blockers are estimated to cost digital publishers $27 billion by 2020²
86% of TV viewers skip commercials³
90.5% of marketing emails are never opened⁴

The broad-strokes marketing style of cold calls and blanket campaigns has fallen, due mostly to a more selective audience. Instead, customers are liking their favorite brands on Facebook, following them on Twitter, and subscribing to their newsletters. In today’s marketing landscape, content is the platform where companies establish their brand, engage their audience, and advertise their services.

Inside content marketing

Content marketing works by using various platforms to reach that niche audience. By creating relevant content for an already interested audience, brands can better serve their customers by providing added value, independent of a sale. This style of engagement establishes the brand’s validity and trust with their audience, and works to increase mindshare and create relevant leads. In fact, 61% of customers consider themselves more likely to buy from a company that provides custom content.⁵

That spike in consideration is driven by long-term engagement. The basic concept here is simple—to give away as much as possible. Successful content marketers demonstrate proficiency, highlight services, and share as much knowledge as viably possible with their customers, and in turn, see increased customer engagement, increased brand loyalty, and greater online traffic. By speaking directly to the customer’s needs and interests, brands can help resolve smaller issues while establishing themselves as the go-to resource when the greater (more profitable) need arrives. Together, those elements achieve a greater goal: increased consumer loyalty.

Content in action

Content marketing uses blogs, images, videos, and other resources to create a platform where brands can promote their expertise. These experiences spread the brand’s voice and vision across a variety of spaces where their customers are already searching for solutions. This approach isn’t just engaging, it’s affordable. Content is generally free for your audience, and affordable for the marketer. In fact, content marketing costs 62% less, and generates 3x as many leads as traditional marketing.⁶ Social media platforms, forums, and video streams provide great opportunities for even the smallest brand to display their services, engage their audience, and direct the customer experience towards a desired outcome, without extending their marketing budget.

Content doesn’t just have to be viewed or read, it extends to free trials and services. For example, Office 365 is available for students and teachers for free. That’s Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams—nearly everything a student could need to help them thrive in the classroom, available for less than the cost of a pencil. We support this service with our Microsoft EDU blog, where students and educators can find innovative ideas and practical solutions for making these resources work for them. Together, this package provides that audience with valuable everyday tools, and builds a long-term preference for Office 365 that users will carry on post-graduation. It also provides incentives for universities to seriously consider Microsoft solutions when they review their own technology needs—cloud solutions (Azure), data management resources (SQL Server), mobility packages (the Enterprise Mobility Suite), and so on.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll dive deeper into the strategy and execution behind content marketing, how you can use content marketing to create a smarter customer experience, and explore how Microsoft technology shapes the future of customer engagement. We look forward to sharing our experience, and learning more about how content has worked for you.

For more content marketing insight, visit our kick off blog, What is content marketing? Keys for enterprise content creators or go to the Microsoft in Marketing hub.