The internet has revolutionized the way companies market themselves. However, the basics of marketing are still the same. Help your target audiences in meeting their objectives and they will come back to you. The central idea of content marketing is to address unique problems of your prospects. If you can meet this fundamental objective in your original style, the content marketing is bound to work.
Intense competition has made content distribution a difficult task. You might see small readership despite creating quality content. Thus, to make your content marketing successful, you need to design a two-pronged content marketing strategy – creating quality content and increasing its distribution continuously. Below seven techniques will ensure that both these elements are parts of your strategy. If you follow these techniques religiously and have patience, the results will improve over time.
Make Things Simple
No matter how complex the topic is, your job is to explain it simply to customers. Use easy-to-understand words to explain the concepts involved. People don’t read content to check your vocabulary or language knowledge. Rather, they want to know about something or they want to understand some complex issues related to the subject of the blog. Therefore, it is crucial that readers accomplish their goals by reading the blog.
Here is a quote from Einstein that should inspire you to create simple yet effective content:
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Creating simple content without making it dull is quite easy. You can do it by breaking down the topic in several sub-topics. Use simple language and avoid jargons. When required, make use of bullet points. Explain the complex concepts with the help of real life examples. Use numbers from trusted sources to support your claims or compare two things.
Authoritative Content
According to a Demand Gen research, 96% of the respondents want to read content from the industry thought leaders. That applies to all of us. If you want accurate information about your car safety, you would like to read articles or resources from popular car makers or dealers. Similarly, when people want to know about specific information, they would like to know it from an authority on the subject.
Your official blog must position your brand as an authority on the subject. Otherwise, it will hardly be noticed and appreciated by new users after some time. To become an authority, you need not be a big name. Startups and small businesses have successfully curated content that positions them as an authority. It takes time and consistent efforts. If you are selling to B2B customers, provide relevant facts and figures. Create emotional and inspiring contents for B2C business blogs. Avoid putting random or generic content.
One Idea per Piece of Content
The internet is full of content. However, there are very few blogs that make a difference or influence our decisions. You need to come up with the content that affects readers’ life positively. 47% of the B2B buyers prefer to read three to five pieces of content before making purchase-related decisions. Your content should have the ability to affect decisions of these 47% customers.
To curate a piece of content that influences purchase decisions of the readers, you need to stick to a central idea and write the entire blog based on that idea. Never mix two or three ideas into one blog. For example, if you are writing a blog on recent trends in your industry, stick to the “trends” and don’t get into explaining the topics and concepts. You can write a separate blog explaining the concepts and link it to appropriate blogs.
Writing on a single idea also helps you in search engine optimization.
Evergreen Content
The biggest source of traffic for your blog would be Google. When you post a new blog, you may promote it on social media to generate some instant traffic. However, to attract visitors, in the long run, your blog must appear in top pages of search engine for the specific search queries. It requires that the content must be relevant even two to three years down the line. Such type of content is called Evergreen content and highly recommended for corporate blogs. You should also update the content, especially data and statistics, to keep the blog relevant for an extended period.
Focus on Process
Content marketing has no boundaries. And, it could be a strength as well as a weakness, and both at the same time. You can have a standard process to deliver quality content continuously or rely on random thoughts or ideas to write content as and when it comes to your mind. The former is suggested for a long-term success and to make content marketing as your strength. It will help you move in the right direction. Otherwise, there will be inconsistency on how you curate or promote content. The inconsistency will become a major weakness and lead to insignificant results and therefore, forcing you to give up on the content marketing altogether.
A Minimum Promotion Plan
It may not always be possible to promote all blogs extensively. However, you must do some promotional activities after posting a blog. Plan some minimum activities that must be done after publishing a blog post.
Collaborate to succeed
Many marketers believe that if they create excellent content, readers will automatically show interest. Five years back this was the right strategy. However, this no longer works in today’s competitive scenario where every business is creating content to the best of their capability. To succeed, you need to make consistent efforts to reach to a larger audience. One of the best possible methods of attracting more audience is to collaborate with influencers in your industry. Send a realistic pitch to them about your blog. If influencers like and are ready to review your blog, or provide the relevant link to your blog, then it will boost your content’s visibility.
Conclusion
Content marketing may be overwhelming for starters. However, with time, you will be in a position to automate a lot of processes. You can hire contractors or freelancers for some of the work. Content promotion is one such area that can be outsourced without much risk. Also, it is not necessary to do everything simultaneously. You can prioritize your activities and spend most of the time on things that matter. If you can afford only an hour a day for content marketing, plan the calendar accordingly. Once you develop a plan, you must stick to it and at the same time keep improvising based on recent experiences and learnings.
Image: Content marketing strategy business concept
