Terabytes are written about how to create great content every day.
It all flows from a few simple attributes.
Cut to the chase, tell a story and edit your content. Everything flows from these simple guidelines.
Content Pain Points Every Business has to Come to Grips with
A budget is a moving target; start small, test the content ROI (is is getting read?), talk to your customers, monitor your conversion metrics, etc. – start with 20-30% of your overall budget.
How do you make content that the visitor wants to share? Key attributes: useful, emotion laden, factual, practical, newsjacks (events, moments in time, perspective).
Is your content distributed and published? A blog is not enough: you gotta do more.
In-house or outsourcing; or some combination of the two. Your probably better off with the latter.
Where do you find visuals to insert with your content? They are on your web site, embedded in your social channels and/or part of the visual story every employee tells with their profiles across the web.
What is SEO and how do we optimize our content. Use a keyword in your title and repeat it maybe once or twice on page of 300-700 words. Google understands more than you will ever know BTW.
Our time tested ten terrific rules to stun your competition, win friends and shift consumer behavior on your favor.
Rule #1 -blog with the best content you can produce, don’t waste time or resources on social media until your business has 30-50 blog posts completed.
Rule #2 – Brake Boredom’s hold on your brand. Great content comes down to structure, story and presentation.
Rule #3 – Jettison jargon when/where you find it. You know the stuff that makes your viewers’ turn away and embrace the dark force, otherwise known as the click of death in marketing jargon speak. God knows we marketers struggle with this problem. You are not alone!
Rule #4 – leave your local brand accent at home: write for a global audience. It’s the web right?
Rule #5 – write with your ears.
Rule #6 – be a mythic brand: serve customers, tell a good story and be passionate.
Rule #7 – be credible with your words when/if you can! Your writing has to stand on its own without endless facts and figures.
Rule #8 – give em the good with the bad. We all get sick of content with no grounding in reality whatsoever: “How I Made a Billion Working Ten Minutes a Day” Credible content, especially when targeting other businesses converts well when the on page content makes it clear you may not have all the answers.
Rule #9 – we are moving into a 2+2 world for smart content marketing. Readers want to know how your products and services work and add value to their business. Decisions are fraught with anxiety for many other biz execs who are weighing whether or not to use your services. So, tell them how you can help in measurable ways.
Rule #10 – embed calls to action in every piece of content that you write and share.
Rule #11 – see rule #1 and blog your ass off and publish aggressively with a take no prisoners rinse and repeat cycle.
Lists are no longer like “kissing your sister” they are the coin of the realm if you want to success with content marketing.
We hope our few words of wisdom in between these page lists resonate with you and you’ll sign up for our Newsletter for more succint marketing strategy.
- Your readers have an attention span of a gnat. So lists help to pull them into the content.
- Lists can be as day as toast so infiltrate them with images.
- Lists are easy to write. You can fact load them and newsjack the topics to your heart’s content.
- Your readers, visitors are preconditioned to engaging with content that uses lists: the proliferation of lists embedded in content is everywhere.
- Lists drive immediate engagement and move visitors into a sales funnel.
- People want evidence, perspective and answers in your content and lists help to convey both, especially via blog with baked in frequency updates each month.
- Lists facilitate updates – there is no shame in cutting and pasting updated content via a list. Is this “content laziness?” No: it’s smart, content should be updated
- You can brand jack your biz into a list. Is this self-serving. Yes, but done frequently.
- Lists facilitate content re-purposing via other content forms (email, other blog posts, social content) which is a fundamental “tool” in any content marketer’s toolbox.
- Every good blog post starts with a list for many content marketers: those scatter-shot ideas can then be fleshed or “listed” out, no pun intended.
- Millennials thrive on real time updates and lists are part of the picture and “secret sauce” to reach them. They are sleeping with their phones and long boring text is a non starter.
- Brands can be creative with lists: use them as a shorthand way to poll your staff, customers, partners, BOD members and any other stakeholders for company, product, customer wins and content marketing topics.
- See texting as a way of life for many today. These people “live” on lists (stretching the metaphor a bit)- so, map your content accordingly.
These are evergreen high value tactics your peers are using to be successful with content marketing.
Tactical success will be determined by your picking 2-3 of these content marketing initiatives.
- Blog: 76% use blogs to drive content marketing and see 2x increase in traffic and a 5x in leads.
- Articles on web site
- Newsletter
- Case Studies and White Papers
- Webinars (with archived recordings)
- Mobile Apps
- Podcasts
- Branded Long Form “evergreen” content
- Infographics
- Microsites are back in style as more and more brands realize your “renting” space via social media.
Great Content is Embedded in the DNA of Your Company
Great content is more often than not a mythic beast that you have to work hard to breath life into.
It “lives” within each of you and the DNA of your company.
Creating great content is an iterative process and may not happen overnight. Be patient.
Great content requires creativity and lots of trial and error, coupled with “listening” to your conversion metrics (newsletter sign ups, lead inquiries and/or revenue metrics).
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