The way of advertising changed. Traditional media like television, radio, or billboards faced tough competition with the constant growth in internet coverage and cell phone usage.

According to the consulting firm Kantar, a Colombian spends 4 hours and 16 minutes a day in front of the television, while the 2022 annual digital report by Hootsuite assures that, in Colombia, each person remains connected to the internet for 9 hours and 38 minutes daily. Therefore, a complementary alternative to paid advertising is content marketing.

This consists of offering valuable and engaging content to users, through articles, videos, infographics, images, or any other format, on blogs, social networks, and other digital channels. Currently, according to Semrush, 84% of the companies they surveyed had a strategy of this type. Entrepreneurs who make content marketing one of the pillars of their strategy find various advantages supported by figures:

• According to the consultancy Impact, companies that have a blog obtain 126% more lead growth than those that do not
• According to the same consultancy, companies that allocate at least 40% of their marketing budget to content are more successful.

If these data convinced you to start selling online using content marketing as a tool to approach and sell to your customers in a different way, here are the five steps you should include to build a solid strategy that gets results:

1. Objective: It is important that your first step is to identify what you want to achieve with your content strategy.
2. Audience: Define your target audience very well. Describe it as detailed as possible. Having clear aspects such as their average age, consumption habits, socioeconomic status, tastes, and interests will be key to approaching them with the right content.
3. Channels: The channels you use to publish your content must be aligned with the habits of your target audience. Deciding whether to use email, Instagram, Facebook, or any other medium to move the content will depend on the network or channel your ideal customer frequently uses.
4. Content: Does your ideal customer consume videos? Or perhaps are they the type who prefers to read academic articles online? The themes and formats used in your content must respond to the interests of the target audience.
5. Results measurement: Defining which indicators you will use to measure your results periodically will allow you to refine your content strategy over time and thus achieve the stated objectives.

With current dynamics, it is necessary to approach users and potential customers in a different way. For this reason, content marketing is one of the most effective strategies for your audience to get to know you, buy from you, and fall in love with your brand.

Fintech industry entrepreneurs have been able to interpret the new needs and demands of financial consumers. They have been the ones who have charted the path for the transformation of banking. Their success, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, is demonstrated by the figures that portray this rapid growth.

The development of this industry represents an interesting business opportunity, as growth has not only been in the number of companies, but also in the amount of revenue they generate.

Colombia and Latin America, a promising scenario for fintech

According to the report “Fintech in Latin America and the Caribbean: a consolidated ecosystem for recovery” developed by the IDB, IDB Invest and Finnovista, between 2018 and 2021 this industry doubled its size in the region. The growth was 112%.

Additionally, 22.6% of the fintech companies in the world were born in Latin America and the Caribbean. Undoubtedly, this part of the world has emerged as an interesting scenario for digital ventures in the financial sector.

Colombia, one of the region’s leaders driving the fintech industry

Colombia Fintech assures that our country is the third in Latin America with the most companies of this type. In Colombia, between 2001 and 2021, the annual growth was 16%. Additionally, from 2019 to 2020, the increase in the number of companies was 26%. As of April 2022, 360 fintech companies were reported in the country.

Of this total, the majority of the market is represented by those dedicated to credit granting, followed by digital payments, and completing the podium are those dedicated to business finance. According to a study carried out by the guild, thanks to the new regulations, digital crowdfunding, insurtech, and neobank ventures have been expanding thanks to the new regulations.

The interesting profits of fintech in Colombia

As Colombia Fintech states, from 2017 to 2021 the real income of this ecosystem grew, on average, 27% annually. In the last year alone, profits were $3.7 trillion, so the fintech industry is increasingly contributing to the country’s GDP.

This development has translated into job creation, which is why we can say without fear of being wrong that fintech has become a key player in the country’s economic reactivation and an interesting business opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors.

In today’s digital world, innovation is vital to stay ahead in the market, so tools that automate processes are key to business growth. How to recognize, identify, and build customer loyalty online? How to prioritize the different needs and preferences of users? How to improve customer service and save costs at the same time?

According to the Marketing Automation report, more than 75% of marketers currently use at least one tool to automate the different stages of the digital sales funnel, thanks to the various benefits they have found by using them; they increase business productivity, reduce time and costs, and provide instant returns on investment.

¿What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the use of software to solve, improve, and simplify time-consuming, but monotonous and operational processes in tasks related to digital marketing.

These software allow implementing marketing strategies by saving time, by avoiding performing certain tasks manually. In addition, they help extract relevant information to build assertive plans and improve the quality of interaction with the customer, anticipating their needs and knowing their interests. To top it off, with these software, you can also close deals or complete sales 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without the need for a person to be present.

Eliminating tasks saves time and money.

Sending emails, launching advertising campaigns, giving answers to users, and posting on social media are tasks that can consume useful time from company workers, who could be using it for tasks that cannot be executed with artificial intelligence.

Implementing automation software completely safeguards the responses and the handling given to processes, eliminating human error. As a result, it increases the quality of the response or the customer experience, thereby increasing the efficiency of your work team, reducing time and costs.

Understanding the target audience generates more business opportunities.

With automation software, you improve the understanding of the target audience and personalize the user experience. By identifying which pages they visit and what content they are interested in, companies ensure that the target audience finds valuable information and wants not only to become a customer, but also to build loyalty.

Automation software works by recognizing signals through user interaction. When a customer interacts with the content sent to them, the software triggers a cascade of signals that automatically allow recognizing the audience’s preferences and future business opportunities. With this process, you can classify users and obtain more qualified leads, identifying who are ready to take the next step. That is, which users represent a business or sales opportunity.

This tool works by recognizing signals in the user’s interaction with our content, website, emails, etc. When a customer interacts, we begin to define criteria to automatically identify the leads with the highest purchase potential and send qualified opportunities to the sales team.

Within this methodology, we have the opportunity to send the right message at the right time, and based on this, configure strategies that generate up to 5 times more conversions and personalized journeys that guide and help your leads advance through the purchase process.

This is how marketing automation software has become an important competitive advantage for all companies that want to grow in an increasingly information-filled virtual world with increasingly demanding users.