By Nafisa Nawal Khan
Content marketing, as we all know, is a strategic approach to create and distribute relevant contents to the targeted audiences online. Its ultimate goal is to attain profitable consumer behavior and to give the audience the necessary information they need.
Brands are immensely influenced by content marketing. This approach has been so popular in use that it has become an indispensable part of marketing. Neglecting it will probably bring grave consequences in the future. Content marketing is mainly used to get through to the consumers by building trust and creating a positive brand image. When the content is engaging, educational and valuable, consumers will think the same about the brand. Consumer opinion on brands shape their brand value and outlook. Great content helps influence conversations and builds strong relationships with consumers with minimum cost. Again, informative content improves SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts for reaching out to new consumers and grasping their minds. All successful businesses are seen to use content marketing for producing great contents in recent years. There is no valid reason as to why a brand should not jump on the bandwagon of content marketing.
With the arrival of the new year, comes the advent of resolutions and content marketers are no exceptions to this age-old tradition. Following are some of the resolutions that should be taken into account to bring better changes in the organization.
SETTING A ‘QUALITY-FIRST’ MODEL
It does not matter how much content is generated if the content does not get through to the consumers. According to a recent study, it was found that for most businesses, 5% of their content initiate 90% of overall customer engagement. Brands should keep in mind that quality always weigh more than quantity. So, it is better to implement a ‘Quality-First’ model in the business by setting clear parameters for creating contents that bring good results.
FORMING A CLEAR CONTENT DISTRIBUTION PLAN
Effective content always has clear focus and purpose. Sometimes these focus and purpose are affected by lack of proper organization. Publishing a content will not get a brand as far as content distribution plans will. Forming a content distribution plan will enable businesses to keep track of how, when and why a certain content will be distributed for preventing any mistake and make sure that content is seen by the world.
REVISITING OR DEVELOPING CONTENT MEASUREMENT EFFORTS
Improvement is always the way to go but no one can improve without measuring effort. Measurement on performance helps maximize sales leads, conversions and return on investment. Understanding performances of individual assets, finding out better content placement in buyer’s journey, understanding all possible paths to ROI or having conversion for future marketing are all the major points where content measurement can bring difference. So, at the start of the year, it is better to develop or revisit content measurement efforts to keep everything up to date and up to a certain standard.
SHARPENING SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more like ensuring a good online presence. It has the power to improve user experience and usability of websites. According to this Boston SEO company, “Google receives over 63,000 searches per second on any given day.” That shows how important SEO is, because if you are not showing up in these searches you will be missing out on all that potential clientele. It is seen that many businesses struggle in SEO because of lack in understanding of the practice or lack of efforts to increase quality. A good change would be to fill in the gaps that exist in this sector. Moreover, getting into the topic of SEO writing, it should be taken care of that content marketers do not keep using excessive keywords everywhere they write. A balance should be there in the usage of keywords so that readability is not diminished. If you would like further digital marketing and SEO support, Link Scholars Search Engine Traffic solutions could help your business to get ahead of the competition.
EMBRACING CLEARER DOCUMENTATION PROCESSES
It has now become a common scene for the organizations not having written documentation processes for content marketing. Some document verbally while others lack documentation entirely in the content marketing sector. Had these businesses documented properly, they would have achieved higher success rates. So, for organizations proceeding forward, a clearer documentation process is a must.
INVESTING IN BETTER TECHNOLOGY
Nothing can go wrong with better technology. To stay ahead of the competition while they can, brands should invest more in technology aligned with their organizational goals. Content Marketing and IT can make a killer combination for achieving success. These two sectors should actively collaborate to achieve greater milestones. Content marketers should also embrace AI (Artificial Intelligence). This powerful form of technology can be used in discovering keywords, planning blog topics, reviewing analyses and gathering information and valuable insights relevant to the organization and their target audience.
ENGAGING THROUGH STORYTELLING
Brand storytelling creates a whole new perspective for content marketing as it opens up the doors to authentic connection with audiences by humanizing the brand. It creates a unique experience for the audience to enjoy and remember. It should be taken into consideration that audience want to ‘experience’ content more than to just ‘consume’ it. People enjoy connecting with brands and there is no reason not to utilize this characteristic for the betterment of the brand.
CONSIDERING NEW CONTENT CHANNELS
Although Google reigns in the war of most used channels and marketers do their very best to rank as number one in it using SEO, there are other content channels that should be looked into. Thankfully, specialists in London Search Engine Optimisation Services will take every detail into account when helping to build a digital marketing campaign. Podcast is comparatively new but worth trying out. Guest appearances and podcast sponsoring can be used to further reach to the audience. On the other hand, for Facebook, marketers can use the new Facebook Ad controls that include Facebook watch, Facebook live, Facebook advertising or Messenger chatbots so that the target audience can be reached better. Increasing demand for video content puts YouTube in the important channels list as well.
GETTING OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE
Staying comfortable in one place will never ensure improvement. Content marketers have to step out and look for new possibilities and learn new ways of reaching and connecting with the audience. Content marketing is not limited to written words. Even though this method is more common, the audience wants more. Video format is becoming increasingly popular among the audiences and is estimated to be one of the biggest things causing online traffic in the future. Even though most marketers do not follow this format, they should start taking steps into learning how to.
It is quite easy to state what should be done than doing the whole task. It might be a little difficult to create new habits but it doesn’t mean it is impossible. With a bit of willpower and lots of effort, changes can be welcomed into the organization for a better future.
