Effective content marketing through storytelling - fashion industry & communication2.0

1. A story must be conveyed through logical arguments linked together, so as to remain consistent with marketing objectives and corporate values. Delving into speeches that belong to the corporate core can lead in bad directions such as budget waste and loss of index. Remaining consistent means receiving credibility and attention.

2. Creating a content marketing strategy means identifying target segments and channels of attraction. These actions necessarily imply the creation of a real process, in which each individual step is appropriately evaluated, monitored and assigned to specific company departments or functions. Only then can you draw clear results through the selected targets.

3. One has to deal daily withdownstream, to supervise and harmonise all activities that have to do with the creation of branded content or that are otherwise part of the corporate editorial plan. Maintaining constancy in workyou will see from the first set of information the first satisfactory results at audience level.

4. Contents must be suitable for achieving the objectives, such as increasing organic traffic or collecting data from your users, not to mention the obvious goal of turn your visitors into customers.

Finally, a content marketing plan must aim at exclusivity. Planning exclusive content means offering your audience a vast amount of reliable information of interest to them. Creating a greater sense of involvement between company and customers means experimenting with new ways and new perspectives of communication, so as to draw the best method.

Any topic explained in videos, in the blog, represented by images, social posts, emails, case studies, downloadable courses, etc. is reputed to be a content marketing tool.

Content Marketing Pyramid in Fashion Design

The Pyramid is organised and divided according to three specific macro-areas:

• the core-contenti.e., those original contents such as guides, eBooks, courses, etc., which contain those training contents that require considerable effort in terms of productivity, research and originality, and are therefore subject to limited scheduling, being able to consult the material only upon the release of leads or a specific target.

• The derivation asset are closely connected to the core-content and define its success or otherwise. They are those contents that talk about the core-content in a superficial way, enticing the user to go deeper: infographics, blog posts, preview contents, landing pages etc.

• I micro-contents Promotional, frequent, stringent, conversation-oriented, help to expand the content plan on a large scale across all assets: short blog posts, social updates and statuses, newsletters, etc.
  
  
  
  
  

A model structured as follows not only proves effective to increase the brand awareness of a brand or company, but is able to strengthen positioning of a company in their own target market, provide coherent and target-focused messages across all channels and especially guiding the lead acquisition process . In this way, content is not produced randomly, but according to a clear process aimed at achieving value and increase ROI.

Implementing a pyramid system so developed requires a substantial effort in terms of planning, and above all requires a specific workflow based on four fundamental points:

• a strategic approach and a thorough clarity of content to be produced according to the different buyer personas. Every single step of the buying decision process must be taken care of;

• the management of production processes for the realisation of content, based on a clear timetable and following an indexation criterion;

• distribution: content must be published and distributed through the most appropriate social or web channels in general, associated with sponsorship on relevant advertising platforms;

• analysis: the effectiveness of each asset must be measured, combining the data from the various Analytics and the induced contributions between coverage and success rate.

Channels and socials for content distribution in the fashion industry.

The weak point for many marketers is not the production of content, but the distribution of these;

which is why the next step is to identify the more effective means to disseminate their content and engage their target market.

In this perspective, the power of content marketing, combined with a transmedia and multi-channel logic, can give rise to a promotional strategy with surprising results in terms of reputation, visibility and brand recognition, as well as monetisation factors.

What are the strategic elements indispensable to give visibility to one's content? The possible answers are summarised in three key concepts: accessibility, maximisation of expenditure and distribution.

The accessibility of content is not only related to the concept of readability and creativity: content must be available and easily found by the users for whom it was created.

Maximising expenditure results in the production of relevant content. Every author should ask him/herself the right questions before spending budget in the planning phase, in order to ensure that the content produced is well received by the target audience. 

Distribution consists of choosing the right channels, which tend to be social, to disseminate the content. The tools are the usual ones: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Webinars, newsletters, groups, etc.. but also public media such as fashion magazines, photo book, video collection, etc.

By selecting channels based on the surfing habits and interests of your audience, you can create anchor points, each strictly traceable to monitor the interaction and effectiveness of the content itself.