The most successful leaders in any marketing all come back to one point: ‘valuable content,’ and in digital marketing, it is essential.
The content you present can be a game changer. It can set your business up and it has the same potential to undermine your reputation and put it at the back of the line.
Any content you deliver must add value. Ask yourself these questions:
Content must be about your audience, not about you. It is a difficult barrier to overcome for many SME owners and managers. Getting caught up in promoting your products or services is easy; however, if you want people to read and share your content, it must provide value.
Never create content for the audience you think you should have. Write for the audience you already have. Sure, every business wants new customers and to attract new readers; however, the audience you already have matters more. Your current audience and current clients should be your most effective salespeople. Customers who come from recommendations are already a long way down the sales journey.
Know your audience. Write about things that interest them and avoid the boring industry jargon they see everywhere. Be as authentic, personal and as comprehensive as possible. Fluff and filler content are hard to get through, and people simply don’t have the time.
Tell a story. Facts tell, and stories sell. It is an old cliche, but it holds true. Using light language with personality makes your business relatable and establishes a feeling of trust and authority.
Support your content with evidence. Social proof is a highly valued commodity in digital marketing, and we always choose quality over quantity.
Have a regular schedule. Keep creating fresh, exciting and valuable content. Weekly, monthly or quarterly – whatever suits your business. Align it with your business goals and be flexible. Pay attention to your customer feedback. If they ask specific questions or request topics, flag this for future content ideas.
You can create the most authentic, engaging and motiving content on the internet; however, if it is not professionally optimised and amplified, nobody will see it.
SEO (search engine optimisation) should be in the hands of professionals. Google algorithms are highly sophisticated and loading content with keywords and black hat techniques will raise a big red flag.
Any content must be SEO researched and professionally assembled to target your audience’s triggers and activate Google.
Amplify your content. Once it is live, reach out to your customer base. Targeted and segmented batched newsletters, digital advertising, SMS and MMS messaging and social media are excellent amplification channels.
Make it easy for people to share your content and include a call to action with every content piece.
There are lots of ‘don’ts’ when it comes to creating content, and writing in the negative is one, so we will park that for now.
An essential part of your content creation process is the measurement.
There are analysis tools to measure the success of a content piece. For social media and product awareness campaigns, measuring reach, frequency and engagement provides a quality overview of how your content added value to the market.
In an educational-styled blog post or article in the B2B space, we would measure organic traffic, time on page, volume and quality of inquiries and sales generated.
When you have high reach and low engagement, it means a lot of people saw your content but found it irrelevant or uninteresting. (No value.)
When you have low reach and high engagement, it indicates a small but highly engaged audience. This can be a positive for B2B businesses operating in niche markets. (Added value.)
High reach and high engagement results are the ideal outcomes.
By creating a set of KPIs around each content piece, we can measure its value against business goals and the platforms used. This provides clear data sets that help refine and assess the content strategy’s value to the market.
When it comes to content for your business, always ensure it adds value to your audience and is relatable, digestible and worth sharing.
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