Is content still king?
Why does content marketing matter for the meetings industry today?
Any kind of business can benefit from content marketing—as long as you have the right goals and strategy in place. From the point of view of a destination addressing the meetings industry, content marketing becomes more than essential and valuable. It becomes the core tool to communicate the advantages you decide to focus on, targeting different audiences, in order to create awareness and visibility. Even more, as destinations have many stories to narrate, based on their history, culture, people, landscape and atmosphere, it is absolutely necessary to invest in their story telling, it is the most effective way to communicate them.
Does content marketing carry any real substance or is it just a buzz word?
It can be a buzz word for any other product but destinations! People are attracted by the content but upon arriving, either as meeting planners or as event attendees, they have to match the narrative with real substance—they have to find on site what has been actually promised.
What makes for a remarkable piece of content?
A true story, relevant and to the point for your audience, a modern and fascinating way to present it, updated info and of course, a great content manager who understands and complies with the strategy.
How do you decide what topics to focus on and what format to use?
Destinations have to decide: what has always been there and never loses its charm, what has recently been added, creating a new point of interest and what can become more or less important to feature according to the latest trends of the industry. It is important to be able to create at any point the right mixture of these three that encapsulates the core existence of the city, highlights its modernity and presents its ability to adapt to the latest needs of the market. The right format is more or less defined by the topic, as long as it is instantly appealing, has a responsive design and is easily sharable.
The content manager is the voice of your destination
What makes content successful?
Successful content is the product of a proficient content manager. One that distinguishes the eye-catching information from the mundane, has perfect writing skills, a deep knowledge of the different audiences they are aiming at, is creative and uses digital media to their advantage. The content manager is the voice of your destination, someone who can increase the visibility of your actions through digital campaigns and turn thousands of people in favour of your destination, using a simple—but at the same time complex—“click”.
How do you know whether your content has performed well?
The digital media world has offered an amazing number of tools to measure the effectiveness of content marketing approaches. The quality of a digital marketing strategy directly impacts visits. Social media affects the decision-making process of its users very effectively. A news feed turns into a canvas of ideas that are shared between digital “friends” who have a very strong influence on each other. If the visibility and visits to your digital actions are increasing, then you know that your content has reached a lot of people and its performance is a winner!
What is your ultimate definition of content marketing?
Well, here’s my definition: Content marketing is the strategy of creating and sharing valuable content to attract visitors and create prospects for your destination. Of course, the style and the type of content you share is inextricably linked to what you “sell”; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business and plan events with you.
