Everyone knows that content marketing is king these days. It has the power to bring about a valuable, relevant, and consistent message to a target audience. It’s more purposeful than traditional marketing for both small and large businesses.
The main challenge for today’s content marketers? The average person is being exposed to almost 10,000 brand messages per day. With so much content flooding the gates, how do you set yourself apart from the pack?
Here are some ways to step up your content marketing game.
Set Clear Goals at the Start
Like any form of marketing, it’s best to set goals to build your strategy for great content. While this may seem like a practical thing to do for any brand, many businesses fail to come up with a strategy. In fact, only 32% of businesses have documented their content marketing strategy.
John Rampton (founder of Due) says, “When I ask business owners what they hope to accomplish from their content, nine times out of 10 they say, ‘Increased sales,’ but the reality is that there are few times when a single piece of content can be directly tied to revenue.” At the end of the day, your goals should help track metrics for future growth.
Know Your Audience
From the jump, you should use your content to identify with a particular audience. Without knowing your target market, it’s hard to write content. A lack of audience knowledge is like trying to sell Italian ice to people living in Saskatoon during the winter—it just doesn’t make sense. You need to know what the people like so you have content that resonates with their needs.
Keep Your Customer in Mind
What do they need? Is this something valuable? Sure, it’s good to have content that ranks well on Google, but what purpose does it serve if it caters to search engine more so than the human you want to read it? Even social media has content overload to the point that the algorithm needed to be changed so that people only see what’s most relevant to them. Instead of chasing the customer, it’s better to give them something worthwhile from the start so that they come to you.
A study from the University of Pennsylvania showed that people are more willing to share content that they can learn from. Measured in length, longform content (usually 2000-2500 words) is the type of content that the people usually learn from, and will be more inclined to share. Google also holds this type of content in high regard, so it’s a win-win situation when content marketers embrace it.
Don’t stop at just writing valuable content. Make the customer a part of it. Engage with them, ask questions, and get their point of view. Make it human by telling a story or even spotlighting someone else’s perspective.
Diversify Your Content Strategy
Never put all of your eggs in one basket. It’s like building a relationship with someone: you never want to do the same exact same thing for each date. Some people like more visual elements (YouTube, live video, etc.) and some enjoy longform content with a good infographic. Your audience may be composed of busy people that appreciate a good podcast while on the way to work.
Diversifying helps to get you in a creative mindset. Remember, that great post you created a year ago? Why not update it and create an infographic that you can share on Pinterest? Also, you can turn that blog post into a podcast to download or stream. This helps tremendously when you don’t have any ideas for new content.
Everyone learns differently, and you should segment your market to see what type of content they enjoy.
Share and Promote Your Content
You should invest in great content writers, but they won’t do you any good if no one reads the content that they create. According to a study by Altimeter, 53% of businesses are aware they need a content distribution strategy, but only 26% have one. Use an email newsletter, promote via social media, or even make a YouTube video outlining a few things about some content you created. Most of all, make content easy to share.
Don’t rush things and be overwhelmed with so much content out there. Just take your time to strategize about your content marketing game to separate yourself from the pack. Need a branding agency to help you move forward with your goals? Get in contact with digital marketing agency Mabbly for details.
