If businesses, non-profits, and media outlets don’t start using content marketing, they will eventually start to fail. I recently had an experience working for a small non-profit client that proved this.
For 15 years, their success has come from the wealth of information on their website that educated and informed constituents about the pressing issues of the day and how those issues impact society.
What not to do…
Recently, a new Operations Manager was brought in who didn’t know much about content marketing and production. They slashed the research and writing staff as a result.
In addition, he cut the budget to the point that subscribers began leaving after bombarding the organization with questions about what happened to all the substance that used to be there.
The website of the organization offers almost no new content today and the organization continues to lose members. Moreover, the organization has lost most of its writers, a key graphic artist, and its managing editor due to its ignorance or apathy about the importance of content marketing.
If a non-profit organization doesn’t have helpful, trusted, and credible online content and information, potential donors will go elsewhere. This is also true for businesses; if potential customers can’t find helpful, trusted, and credible information about a product or service online, they’ll go to a competitor.
Killer content rules
Dan Steiner, CEO of Elite Legal Marketing, states that content is the most important aspect of digital marketing.
Content marketing has been around for a while, but it’s still a really important strategy that can pay off if done well.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, a better option for companies would be to tailor their products and services to the needs of savvy consumers who are always connected to the Internet.
instead of investing in low-quality content, businesses should focus on creating content that is useful, interesting, and unique. This content could be in the form of text, videos, images, surveys, webinars, or podcasts, but it is most important that it captures the viewer’s attention and leads them to take action
7 keys to help your business succeed in content marketing
As you think about and plan your online marketing strategy, Steiner suggests making content the central core of that strategy, because it reaches customers in at least seven key ways:
If you want your website to appear at the top of search results, make sure it contains content that answers consumers’ questions. In addition to answering questions, your website should also provide information about your business and the products or services you offer.
Authoritative companies are usually those with the most visible and vocal experts. If you want to establish your company as an authoritative and trusted leader in your industry, you’ll need to make sure you have experts on staff who can speak confidently and knowledgeably about your products, services, and industry in general. These experts can then be leveraged to write articles, create videos, give talks, and otherwise get your company’s name and message out there. You need experts on your staff who can speak confidently about your products and services to establish your company as an authoritative and trusted leader in your industry. You can leverage these experts by having them write articles, create videos, and give talks to get your company’s name and message out there.
-Although there are other search engines that people can use, we often say “I’ll Google it” when we are asked a question. -Google has become a verb in our culture because they are considered a leader in their industry.
Your content can have a big impact on your website’s SEO and search engine ranking for a couple of reasons. For example, if you regularly publish unique content that contains internal links to other relevant content and strategically placed keywords, it can help your website rank higher in organic search results for relevant terms and keywords. In turn, this can expose your content to more consumers who are searching for information on that topic.
When you create content that is helpful to your customers, you are establishing a connection with them. This makes them feel as though they can have a dialog with you. For example, blog posts, videos, webinars or personalized responses that directly answer their questions demonstrate that you care about them.
Make sure your content encourages loyalty by focusing on why your product is the best option and providing customer testimonials whenever possible. Encourage loyalty by focusing on why your product is the best option and providing customer testimonials whenever possible.
Your blog posts or podcasts provide you with an opportunity to connect with customers, build loyalty, and engage them about business challenges, community involvement, and social issues.
Your content should give you the opportunity to begin a conversation with your customers or potential clients. You can answer their questions and even complaints. As they see you taking their comments and feedback seriously, that builds loyalty and keeps the dialogue – and the business – flowing your way.
Nearly three out of four customers prefer getting information from articles or blogs rather than ads. You can share more information with customers through articles or blogs than ads. If you have great content and a sound content marketing strategy, customers are more likely to buy from you than one of your competitors.
If you want to sell something, especially online, one of the best things you can do is create content that includes photos or videos. This will help you reach more people and convince them to buy what you’re selling.
The goal of businesses should be to show potential customers the value of what they do so that the customers will want to come back to them. This can be done by, for example, showing pictures of staff helping others or writing a blog detailing a financial plan.
Now that you know some tips that will help your content be successful, lets look at some of the different types of content you could choose for your business.
6 Types of Content To Experiment With on Your Blog
1. Infographics
As infographics are visually appealing and easy to remember, they are an excellent way to convey information on your blog or for your brand. This is especially true for data-heavy research or numbers and statistics that would be otherwise difficult to digest.
Infographics are three times more likely to be shared on social media than any other kind of content, according to a study.
When creating infographics, remember to:
- Focus on quality and visual appeal: While there are several free tools for creating infographics, if you’re not skilled at the art of visual design or don’t fancy learning now, investing in a professional to create one really great infographic will always trump creating many mediocre ones.
- Have fresh content: Though it can be tempting to create an infographic from regurgitated research, we suggest you always go for new and fresh ideas that haven’t previously been shared (or shared widely). New research or studies in your industry that haven’t yet been released can be a fantastic way to share new content.
- Be generous. It can be a little counterproductive to spend time, resources, perhaps even money in creating an infographic only then to keep it exclusive to your own website. By their very nature, infographics are meant to be shared widely, and you’d truly benefit from yours if you make them shareable.
2. Lists
Brands and bloggers are finding out what women’s magazines have known for a long time: Lists are effective. Top 10 lists are even more effective.
About two years ago, marketing scholars Mathew S. Isaac of Seattle University and Robert M. Schindler of Rutgers University searched the term “top [number]” in Google using all numbers 1 through 100. They found that the numbers ending in zero were the most common, followed closely by those ending in five.
The authors of the Journal of Consumer Research argued that people have a tendency to group things into round-number groups and see anything outside them as inferior. So they say that the difference between items ranked No. 10 and No. 11 feels enormous and significant, even if it’s actually quite minimal or unknown.
What does this mean for you?
- Create lists.
- Create more lists.
- Keep creating lists.
Given that 30 percent of all blog posts are lists, you have a good chance of success.
When creating lists, however, remember to:
- Meet a need: Try not to create a list for the sake of creating a list, but because it will help your users and readers solve a problem or fill a need.
- Experiment with numbers: While top 10 lists are, and always have been, popular, lists of dozens, sometimes hundreds of resources, tips, and strategies, often tend to do very well also, especially online, where users can save them for later and refer to them as they move through the list.
- Make them skimmable: Lists are frequently skimmed through and not read, so make sure to number them and headline them nicely so that someone who’s looking through quickly can still get a bulk of the information they need.
3. Case studies and success stories
Stories are an important part of our lives and have many benefits.
The best kinds of stories almost always follow a three-act structure, a model used in screenwriting that divides a fictional narrative into three parts:
- The setup: This is where the world is created and the level set for what people are expected to do, be like, and behave like. This act shows what normal life looks like in this world and by the end of act one, something happens to disrupt this normal life and cause our protagonist to jump into action or make a decision.
- The confrontation: The second act is where our protagonist must find solutions to his or her problems, only to keep finding bigger problems and bigger bottlenecks. The protagonist does not yet have the skills or experience, perhaps even the confidence, to deal with the problems that are thrown in his or her way. In order for the protagonist to succeed, they must learn a new skill, have a new experience, or have a eureka moment that elevates them to the level they need to be in order to make their world right again.
4. How-to guides
It is beneficial to write long posts on your website. The perfect post is 1,500 words, but the more in-depth you are, the more likely it is to be read and shared.
Medium’s research on this shows that an ideal blog post comes in to be a 7-minute read, which is approximately 1,600 words:
How-to guides or blog posts can be thought of as list blog posts with only a few bullet points. Each point is explored in depth.
5. Personal stories
It is well known that social media is dominated by emotion. Therefore, if you want to connect with your audience through your content, it is advantageous to evoke emotions in them.
Personal stories come in many shapes and forms:
- Personal essays: Stories told through the lens of an experience you’ve had in your life that taught you something or changed you as a person.
- Opinions/rants: Handle this one with care, but sometimes, going against the grain and taking a stand against a position everyone else is taking can be a good way to get some attention and share your ideas and theories with the rest of the world. A very good example of this is James Altucher, who is known for his controversial ideas on why not to buy a house or invest in your 401k.
6. Resources and Tools
You can deliver value to your audience by providing a list of resources and tools. This type of content is not as time-consuming as other types of content.
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