One of the easiest ways to engage an online audience is with value-adding content. We know the importance of content in creating digital connections for SEO, but it is always important to create content that people want. There are a number of ways to deliver content – blogs, videos, eBooks, and other formats – but what increasingly matters more than the format is the substance.
Finding new and innovative ways to connect with audiences is a big industry, and one that predates the internet. Advertising agents have always been experimenting with ways to get attention, and many great campaigns have influenced entire movements in advertising – like jingles, catchphrases, personalized marketing, and influencer marketing.
So how do you adopt that momentum and make it your own in digital marketing? The following eight tips will help you with content marketing and overcoming the challenges it can pose when teams hit roadblocks to creativity.
Document Your Strategy
Developing a content marketing strategy helps to keep your content and channels focused with a strong message. While a strong content marketing strategy provides a framework for your marketing, it also creates space for your strategy to adapt to unexpected marketplace shifts, new behavior patterns, or emerging audiences.
A documented strategy means that all people working on content creation understand the long-term vision and goals for a year of content marketing. It also makes it easy to adjust when there is a major shift in your industry, marketplace, or even the world. Wars, politics, trade deals, weather events, and many other factors can change the direction of your brand message, and having a documented content strategy allows you to make fast assessments and keep your brand voice at the focus of your content marketing without having to spend time in long meetings and strategy discussions.
Support Your Customers
One of the most powerful content tools you can create is guides that support your customers. Whether the guides are focused on answering common questions, showing people how to use products, or giving an in-depth understanding of common industry questions, people who are seeking answers will be directed to your content.
One of the reasons this type of content is so successful and popular is the way people choose to use Google and other search engines. People enter keywords or conduct voice searches using a voice assistant. We have been trained to use search engines this way, and the content that poses questions and answers them with high-quality content will rate higher in results. It will also endear you to customers.
Brands that are genius with their knowledge and experience quickly become industry leaders, respected by their customers and competitors. When you make it easy for people to connect with your brand, your products and services, and the industry information that benefits your customers, you engage people, build loyalty, and develop trust.
Your People
Sharing behind-the-scenes videos or interviews with your audience is a great way to give your brand a relatable personality. This strategy is great for businesses that are service-based. Showing how your business creates products or delivers services is a great way to show customers your values in action.
Your team doesn’t need to script responses or behave in a certain manner. Candid and honest responses tend to get the most attention from your audience. Doing a short series that is released first to email, and then posted to your website or social media is a great way to get attention. You give your loyal customers the first taste of your campaign, then invite others to learn more about your company and values.
A behind-the-scenes peek is also a great way to create legitimacy for your business. When online shoppers can see real people and read responses from your team members, they create an image of your company, and if it resonates with their values, it can solidify their impression of your brand.
Include Thought Leaders
Thought leaders are industry experts who are respected by professionals and customers alike. They are not influencers who act as brand ambassadors for a fee. Thought leaders are people who have committed their time, skills, and resources to understand their industry. They are people who have real insights and are willing to share their knowledge to benefit businesses and customers.
Industry leaders are often willing to join interviews, podcasts, videos, and other highly engaging content formats. This allows them to easily cross-promote themselves. It’s a win-win. Another fun and interactive way brands have created content with influential leaders is through quizzes or game shows. The fun and entertaining format uses infotainment as an educational tool for audiences.
Increase Personalized Relevance
Audiences want to feel a connection with your brand. Whether it is because they like the image of your brand, they believe in the quality or your brand represents a status symbol, customers want to select your brand because of a belief they have about your brand because of the message you send.
One of the best ways to personalize content for your audience is by writing about the subjects they care about and creating a deep connection by providing insight. By researching and presenting a new voice or idea about a subject that matters to your audience, you create an authentic connection. For example, online marketing agencies that post content that focuses on content marketing tips and strategies will connect with other industry professionals. Marketers need to work together to maintain industry professionalism and set the standards businesses expect.
To do this, creating trust is essential. Personalization tools make it easy to segment audiences in your database and send the relevant content to the right audiences. This means you can send people content that is going to be most interesting and important to them. For example, your long-term clients might be interested in a white paper while new clients would be sent a newsletter that covers more broad, introductory topics.
Social Engagement
Using the right hashtags is still vital to your digital marketing strategy. However, you need to be more considered in the hashtags you use. Adding 15 hashtags is overkill. Choose the ones that make the most sense, that link your brand and content together and place your brand into circles that are aligned with your brand values as much as possible.
Instagram is still a popular social media channel for many market segments, and brands that understand how to use hashtags and create positive community associations grab the attention of their target audience.
Sharing posts and selecting the right influencers and other brands to support can increase your reach dramatically. This strategy can take time – usually about six months. Much like an SEO campaign, it takes time for your visibility to improve, but once it reaches a critical point, it can snowball into viral proportions.
Back A Cause
Cause marketing is a popular way to connect with your target audience. Consumers, especially from Gen Z and younger, prefer to support the brands that also support the causes they are interested in supporting. For example, brands that support environmental sustainability are attractive to young people who are aware of ways they can make small changes to benefit the environment.
A survey in 2021 found that 78% of consumers said they had made a purchase based on values in the past year, and 55% said they were much more likely to purchase from a company that shares their values. To engage with consumers about the causes your brand chooses to support you need to involve your PR team.
Advertorials are a good way to communicate a message. Have your PR and marketing strategies aligned to decide what cause you will support. Your message must be clear and consistent. If you want to stay away from subjects that could cause division among your audience, play it safe by researching and discussing the possible consequences of any cause. If you are confident that your brand can take a hardline and withstand criticism, select a cause that solidifies your brand as synonymous with that cause. For example, if you want your brand to be strongly associated with environmental issues, this is generally a safe subject because it is commonly accepted as a ‘good’ cause. If you want to support something more divisive, subjects around sexuality and identity are trending but can cause strong division among consumers.
Conclusion
Finding topics to write about can be challenging, but with a well-written editorial calendar and some agility, your content can always connect with your audience.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
We would just like to remind you that all posts are the opinion of the writer only. We don’t take payment to write articles or reviews and we do not offer advertising or advertorial space on our blog. Everything expressed in our blogs is simply an opinion.
