A good content marketing strategy goes beyond what you post, where you post and when you post. Many companies are doing everything by the book, and yet the results are below expectation. There is one good reason for this: the book is old and the rules of the game have become more complex.
What Defines a Successful Content Marketing Strategy?
To get the results you want, you need to give your prospects what they want. And people demand more than ever from the brands they trust. We live in an era flooded with content. What makes one piece stand out from another? What drew the attention of X readers who then converted to subscribers and, later on, clients?
These are the issues that marketers must consider. How do you get your content delivered in front of your intended audience in a manner that draws attention? And once you’ve got that attention for a fleeting moment, how do you keep it?
Quality Trumps Quantity in the New Content Marketing Era
There is no question about your intent to create quality content for your prospects. But how do you define quality may not be similar to how they define it. To create a bridge between the two intents, you build buyer personas and try to write for them but buyer personas also change.
Quite a conundrum, isn’t it? This is why we went through some of the best recommendations by top brands and professional marketers to give you a few extra rules in the book of successful content marketing strategies. Here they are:
1. Tell A Story In Various Ways for Different Mediums
Copy/paste is bad and will take you nowhere. We don’t mean plagiarism, but getting lazy and posting the same content with the same captions throughout all your social media accounts. Consider that you have leads and customers who follow you both on Facebook™ and on Instagram. And on Twitter. And on LinkedIn.
Each platform has its own specific language and style of posting. For instance, you can get away with 5-6 hashtags on Twitter or Instagram, because that’s what everyone does there. But on Facebook™, you should stick to two hashtags per post.
2. Niche Content Wins the Game
There is a new form of content emerging and growing successful and that is niche content. It means that you are writing for a very specific sub-group of clients. And you repeat this for each sub-group, so that everyone gets content tailored to their interests.
For instance, new mums are everywhere around the globe. But some of them are stay-at-home mums, others are working mums, others are entrepreneur mums. And each of them faces different challenges in dealing with a new baby. What they want is beyond generic life/work balance advice. They want something that covers their specific situation.
3. Transparency Is the New Rule of the Game
Be transparent about everything. When you work with influencers, disclose this relationship as a disclaimer to relevant posts. When you collect prospects’ data, tell them exactly how you will use their personal information and what you do to protect it from leaking.
People want to do business with companies that are honest and accountable about their content marketing strategies and the way they use client data for analytics and marketing purposes.
4. Be a Guest Once in a While
Guest posting or being a guest in a live video or podcast is not just ways to spread your brand image to a new audience. This builds a relationship with other businesses, with influencers and thought leaders in your industry.
Social influence and brand image go beyond monetary and link exchanges between parties. Get involved personally and show a human face once in a while to complement your brand image.
5. Sharing Is Caring As Long as It’s Engaging
So you share content on your social media pages. That’s great, but what happens beyond sharing? Do you invite your followers to comment on your post, to share their ideas about it, or even to answer a mere question?
Content sharing is irrelevant if it does not generate engagement. But to generate engagement, you have to open the conversation. So, don’t just share – encourage people to start a discussion around every topic you post on your social media accounts.