Our latest global challenges have changed social interaction and how people work, live, and consume goods and services.
Back in 2008, online business guru and entrepreneur Seth Godin said, “content marketing is the only marketing left.” Ever since, this quote has been repeated by online marketers ad nauseum, and it has been over a decade. It was a cool thing to say as marketing models were changing when “online” became the new “mainstream,” and technology took over our lives, but our present-day landscape seems to be bringing more truth to the quote than ever.
Social-distancing and remote work are going to become more of a norm rather than an exception for the near future. Businesses everywhere have to try to quickly adapt if they haven’t already, and those who’ve already undergone a process of marketing transformation will have to focus more time, resources, and effort marketing online.
Younger generations rarely consume TV programming, and social-distancing is keeping people from being lured by large billboards or ads on bus shelters. But nearly everyone with internet access is consuming online content. This content can be anything: videos, ads, articles, or even memes. Attention spans may be shorter than ever, but well crafted-content is key to grasp your audiences’ interest and keep them engaged with your brand. Content marketing isn’t only the best marketing you can do; it very well may be the only one you can do right now.
Check your strategy
It’s unlikely that your organization anticipated the events of 2020, so it’s entirely possible that you might have to make some adjustments to your overall content strategy. You may have to ramp up how often you post new content as well as make sure you understand what content will be most effective on which platform. You may also need some outside help to bring your content marketing maturity level up to where it should be. You can start by asking yourself a few questions about your content marketing strategy:
- When was the last time we reviewed our strategy?
- How often do we blog?
- How often do we check trending topics for content ideas?
- Do we have other forms of content creation besides publishing articles?
- What kind of content are our audiences consuming most? Do we offer that kind of content?
Putting out anywhere from 4-10 blogs a month can yield great results and improve engagement with your brand. Having more than just blogs (i.e., videos, animations, webinars, downloadable sheets) also improves your content’s chances of being consumed. Remember, not everyone has the time or the attention span to read a 600-word article, but a lot of people can easily watch a one-minute video. Revisit and adjust your content strategy to make sure it’s aligned with your present needs and goals.
Creating, Curating, and Reusing
New content is the best content you can put out, but if your strategy has you pumping out ten articles a month, chances are you might run out of topics or inspiration at some point, and videos aren’t easy to produce frequently. It’s important to make sure you take maximum advantage of a given topic and create as much new content from it as possible, but it’s equally important to have an archive of old topics and content that you can update and reuse. Curate your content by mapping out topic ideas and revisiting your archives to know what old blogs or videos are relevant to the topic your covering during any given period. This also gives you the flexibility to reuse content if you need to make changes to your strategy because a different topic than the one planned for that week suddenly became relevant.
- Use topic generators or keyword research to find relevant topics
- Compare them with market trends to see what your audience most wants to read about or watch.
- Have an archive of old topics and content to revisit as needed
Targeting, Marketing, and Remarketing
So you have a sound strategy in place and enough trending topics to go with. How do we make sure this content is seen by those most likely to consume and enjoy it? Topics are great hooks, but SEO and social media are how you’ll get your audience to find your content. Written content should not only meet SEO minimum requirements, it should be built around keywords that improve your possibilities to reel-in organic traffic and are backed by data that show this. Using keywords lets you target specific audiences as well as show you where you should be investing your ad-campaign funds if you’re running a PPC campaign; this will also help you re-market to audiences who have shown interest in your content before.
With a solid keyword strategy to support your content, you’ll have better insight on how to market your content and who to target. Keyword research might also reveal what your competitors are targeting both organically and with paid traffic, providing insight into how to better approach content that competes with yours. What are they missing that you might be able to provide? What topics are overlapping, and how can you find a different angle to approach the same topic? This can range from simple tips & tricks articles on how to use software to a highly-specific technical paper on the specifications of a specific integration. Research will reveal what your audience is interested in reading through their searches on Google and other search engines.
- Perform keyword research
- Build SEO-ready content
- Discover what competitors are targeting
- Cater to audience interests and trends
Are you interested in revamping your content marketing approach? At CXGS, our content experts can help with that. Learn more.
