Today we’re facing the marketing clutter phenomenon. Internet users are more and more irritated and tired of receiving a vast number of ads every day and almost everywhere. Typical, traditional ads not tailored for recipients’ needs are invisible for them. Content marketing has become an answer to this challenge. In the last few years marketers around the world improved these skills, and now some of them are sharing their knowledge. In the following article, you can find 13 tips which can help you boost your content marketing effectiveness.
- Respond to the consumer’s needs
Pollyanna Ward | Digital Strategist & Digital Brand Manager @Vifit Sport
Good content answers the questions that people are asking, and even better content gets people to read another article by you. Do some gap analysis between your website and your competitors and identify topics you can discuss to get you ahead.
Want to know what your audience is looking for? Search through Facebook, LinkedIn Groups and Quora, Reddit or other platforms for topics related to your field, but for more specific questions related directly to your brand use „Answer the public” – free visual keyword research.
- Raise actual topics
Bohumil Pokstefl | CEO @Kontentino | www.kontentino.com
We create content which is up to date, valuable but not too cliche. Meaning, being written by many others.
Don’t try to solve the problems which are already solved. Focus on today’s issues articulated by your customers. Watch out for content published by your competitors. Try to stand out from them, even when you write about the same topic – there’s always a better and more creative way to do it.
- Tell stories and engage your community
Eden Spodek | Founder & CEO @Spodek & Co. | http://spodekandco.com
Every company has a story to share. Keep it relevant – share client/customer stories to help make a point, ask questions, and remember it’s about the audience—not you.
Storytelling is a popular term, but not explored enough. Make every content you release a part of a story of your brand and products. Keep it clear and consistent.
- Find your customers’ language
David Trott | Lead Digital Marketer @Impact Business Advisors
There’s no getting away from it – the content world is crowded and noisy. If you’re serious about getting noticed and cutting through the noise, then you need to start with an intimate understanding of your customers and their problems. You need to learn their language – how they talk about their problems – and get good at explaining how you solve them.
Probably you’re a specialist in your field, but remember that your audience is probably not. Some of the customers know more about it, some know less. You should either divide content into two or more especially for every group or communicate in the way that everyone can understand.
- Join and observe Groups in social media
Ruchi Hupta | CEO @Shane Communications
Participating in niche related Facebook Groups can really give very good ideas for content generation. It tells you what kind of questions people have and what are the trending topics in a particular area. You can even conduct a poll to check the interests and inclinations of the group members and create content around that.
It’s a great idea to reach people specifically interested in your area or products. With a minimum effort, you can get insights from an active group. Use forums and groups also to distribute your content and to raise brand awareness among the valuable target group.
- Pay attention to the structure
Cordny Nederkoorn | Owner @TestingSaaS | http://TestingSaaS.nl
Content marketing is a crowded space. You need authentic content to stand out. But this is not enough, you may have good content, but without a good headline your content won’t get noticed and won’t get visited, resulting in bad marketing results. Next to the headline you have to research what content type your prospect wants to see: a text, a video or maybe an infographic? Videos are hot these days, but a prospect wants details, which can be explained in a text. If they are interested, they will read it.
The best structure of your content depends on the audience. At the beginning try a few different ideas and evaluate them. Think also about elements which are sharing-friendly, like videos, frames, infographics etc.
- Delegate one person to content marketing tasks
Brooke Herron | Wine Industry Marketing and Communications Consultant
Make one person responsible for your content marketing. Don’t treat it as an unimportant ‘side job’ that your salesperson or tasting room person can do in their ‘down time’. If you continue to treat it as unimportant you will never get the benefits you could be getting.
Content marketing should be considerably planned and consequently executed. It is important not to share responsibility with many people, especially those who are not qualified enough to do it. If you can’t find in your team anyone suitable for the job – hire a new specialist. Well done content marketing will pay off with interest. Don’t hesitate to use tools which can help with designing and planning the content, like Kontentino – a social media calendar, which enables also getting the client’s approval.
- Help your customers
Martin Hennig | Senior Marketing Transformation Consultant | http://www.peregrine.se/
You need content for all phases of the customer journey, sales funnel/sales cycle. Helpful, meaningful content around your core business topics and with CTAs that make sense and don’t feel pushy. Once you created some killer content, put it on your website or blog and use social media to get it in front of people. Boost your best performing organic posts with some targeted ads and don’t forget about the power of employee advocacy.
Take a moment to think every step your customer takes in the context of your brand. What problems could he/she face? What he/she might not know or fully understand? How can you help him/her in making decisions or other parts of the process? Once you get answers to these question, you know what to write about.
- Don’t be intrusive
Enes Karakash | Account Manager @PikselLTD / http://piksel.mk/
Every day aim to create something unique, something that will really capture the attention of the reader. The main point with content marketing for our agency is, in a really discrete way, to inform the reader on the subjects that are directly or indirectly connected to the brand/service/product/initiative that we want to promote via this marketing channel.
Of course, content marketing is a part of a whole marketing strategy, and its goal is to sale. But it’s more complicated than an advertisement. Share the knowledge about your products or services to people who want and need them. Only valuable content will get through „banner blindness” and become noticed.
- Distribution is a queen
Oksana Chyketa | Marketer @Albacross | https://albacross.com/
Effective content management requires more than writing high-quality posts. This is because you can have top quality content but, it only reaches a few people. Thus, you need to have the skills to promote the content. From a personal perspective, I believe that the best way to promote content is through social media. The reason why some companies don’t succeed in promoting their content through social media is because they tend to post their content on almost every other social media channel. And although it’s still advisable to be diverse, it is crucial to focus on the platforms where your customers or potential customers could hang out.
You can also reach your audience via publishers. Nowadays there are many websites and platforms which can help you with that. Manually it would take ages to find the best ones. Check out Linkhouse, which offers a base of publishers with prices, topics, regions and more so you can catch the best options in a few minutes.
- Think about Guest Blogging
Nick Stephens | Freelance Digital Marketing Expert | www.njstephens.com
Great content is great but it also helps to have a good network to share it with. Work on building your social media platforms in conjunction with your content strategy. Guest posting can be a great way to gain exposure if you have the time.
Write a guest post for others and indirectly tell the story of your brand. Additionally, you should try it the other way around. Look up for specialists in your field and get some insights from them. Not only that you can create an original content this way, but also it’ll help with distribution.
- Don’t forget about the SEO
Hemant Jani | Co Founder & CMO of Abhisi | www.abhisi.com
Formatting your blog and making blog reader friendly. From Neils Patel, latest updates backlinks do not play a too vital role anymore, but they are still worth and offer visibility to your blog. And the far most important is to create quality content, a well-researched blog is always appreciated.
Excellent content is useless when it’s nowhere to be found. Using specific keywords (but not too often) is crucial. You can use tools at ubersuggest.io to entirely free generate keyword critical for your purpose. Take into consideration also keyword proximity – keyword phrases shouldn’t be written directly one after another but separated with a few other words.
- Use videos
Rahul Narayan | Owner @Golden Touch Digital | www.goldentouchdigital.com
We use videos to establish “authority” and stand out from the crowd. Shorter videos are more engaging.
Video is watched massively every day. Video content is easy to absorb and make a more emotional impact than the written content. Consider using video from time to time, but in some cases, other types of content will do better work. Test different formats and choose the most effective for key topics. With others juggle with forms to provide variety.
14. Focus on being the last click.
Nikola Roza | Founder & CEO of Nikolaroza.com
We all love to be the first click in Google. It means the user saw our result in the SERPS and it stood out and we earned that precious click.
But then what?
I mean, it’s good to be the first, but as content marketers we also need to ensure we’re the last click too.
Why?
Because, if people click on your result and stay on your page for 2m (which is decent dwell time btw) and then click back and pick another result from the same SERPS, that’s a really bad sign your content failed to solve their problem.
If that happens many times over Google will eventually drop you from the first page.
The solution to this is to have content that matches search intent 100% and that the user feels like it has given them what they were looking for.
Now that you know the best practices regarding content marketing, there’s not much to do but… to try it! Use your potential as you know the best what your customers needs. Create helpful, actual content which is engaging. Pay attention to distribution so as many as possible consumers can engage with your brand. Think outside the box and don’t hesitate to try new solutions. Evaluate your efforts and implement conclusions. Good luck!
You could read this article thanks by the courtesy of Linkhouse. Check out more at their blog!
