Content marketing is an excellent strategy due to its ability to increase brand awareness, improve customer retention, generate sales, and more. But the downside is that planning, creating, and promoting content isn’t exactly easy and typically requires a great deal of planning, time, and work.
Fortunately, this week’s experts had plenty of advice to help guide your content marketing strategy. This includes tips on how to generate more leads, strategies for organic search content marketing, digital content marketing tools, and much more.
“How to Grow Your Enterprise with Content Marketing” by Kristopher Jones
One of the great things about content marketing is its versatility. However, whether you’re using content marketing to create newsletters, social media posts, or emails, you’re going to want to have a plan in place. Covering the steps on how to do this, and in the process grow your business, was entrepreneur and founder of LSEO, Kristopher Jones.
Jones begins by offering some advice on how to build a content plan, such as defining KPIs and knowing your audience’s wants and needs. He then lists a few tips on how to have success with your content plan once it’s in place, such as ensuring you’re posting regularly and conducting a content audit every so often.
Could your content marketing strategy be a bit more effective? If so, Jones’ article is packed full of advice, tips, and content marketing examples guaranteed to give your strategy a boost.
See also: Customer Pain Points and Reasons for Buying
“Organic Search Traffic: One of the Best Reasons for Content Marketing” by Michael Brenner
In today’s digital environment, there are ways to guarantee success for your content marketing, such as posting on social media or creating video content. Another method that’s becoming increasingly effective is organic search. CEO of Marketing Insider Group, Michael Brenner, covered the subject further this week for The Content Marketing Institute.
According to Brenner, “Organic search traffic is the super KPI of content marketing.” As such, it’s important to ensure that your content is getting the results that it should be. Organic search is the biggest source of website traffic, so make sure you’re creating content that solves your audience’s problems in order to draw them in.
Success with your organic search traffic requires careful attention to Google’s ever-changing SERP features, amongst other things. When done right, it can generate fantastic results for your content marketing, while improving your reach and even sales. Be sure to check out Brenner’s article this week to find out more.
“Content Marketing Basics: How To Start (or Jumpstart) Your Content Practice” by Jodi Harris
Whether you’re a complete beginner or already engaging in content marketing, it never hurts to go back to basics. Offering a fantastic overview of content marketing and how to start implementing it into your marketing plan was communication expert and director of content strategy at Informa Connect, Jodi Harris, for The Content Marketing Institute this week.
Harris starts off by discussing what content marketing is and why you should be implementing marketing tactics, especially in today’s digital environment. She then offers some advice and some content marketing examples to help you adapt your strategies, such as social media content, help with SEO, and public relations efforts.
Sometimes going back to basics is a great way to refresh your strategies and skills, or create a new foundation, altogether. Be sure to check out Harris’ article for more information.
“Not Seeing Content Marketing Results? Perform a Content Audit” by Kelsey Raymond
Analyzing your results is always an important step for any marketer, especially when it comes to producing winning content marketing strategies. Without a careful analysis of metrics and data, your content marketing is going to waste. To help you with your audits, CEO of Influence & Co and content marketing expert, Kelsey Raymond, wrote a fantastic guide on how to do just that.
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When done right, “a content audit can help your business generate better leads, close more sales, and boost your content marketing ROI,” writes Raymond. She then dives into four steps on how to get going with your own content audit, including assembling your content audit squad, taking stock of your content, mining the data, and finally taking action on the results.
Are your content marketing efforts in need of a review? If the answer is yes, be sure to check out Raymond’s guide to help you get started.
“The “Give Away Your Clever” approach to content marketing” by Tiffany Markman
Content marketing today is far different than it was five years – or even five months – ago, due to the rapidly changing speed of the current digital world. One expert who wants to stress this point is speaker, writer, and owner of Tiffany Markman Copywriting & Training, Tiffany Markman, who gave an updated guide on how to produce unique content in the current, as she puts it, “noisy” environment.
According to Markman, any marketer’s best bet when writing content today is to use what she calls the “give away your clever” approach. To achieve this, she advises considering specific elements in all your content such as sharing advice and tips, answering questions, and being generous with what you know.
With marketing tactics changing all the time, it’s often a great idea to look at what other industry experts are saying. Markman’s article this week is a great example of this. Be sure to check it out!
“7 Questions Every Writer Should Ask To Craft an Effective Lead” by Ann Gynn
One of the most popular forms of content is blogging. However, writing good articles takes skill or financial investment, especially when trying to craft an effective lead. Content marketer and principal consultant for G Force Communication, Ann Gynn, was here to help out this week with tips on creating articles with effective leads.
The first point that Gynn makes is to ask yourself what the article is really about, which will help give you a clearer understanding of what you’re trying to communicate and for what reason. Her other tips include asking yourself questions such as would I read this? Will readers get the point? And, for those looking to improve their SEO, should meta descriptions differ from the lead?
There are many components that go into writing quality and results-driven blog posts. To find out more about some of these elements, Gynn’s article is a great place to start.
“The Content Marketer’s Guide to Thought Leadership” by Rebecca Riserbato
One reason why blogging is so popular right now is that it’s one of the best content marketing tactics for building thought leadership. However, becoming a thought leader can also be achieved with other content marketing techniques too. Covering some of the different methods this week was writer and content strategist at Scorpion, Rebecca Riserbato.
In the article, Riserbato covers several different content marketing practices to help build thought leadership, including knowing your audience and continuing to learn about them, being active on social media, publishing a variety of content such as videos, podcasts, and written articles, and analyzing your competitors.
Content marketing is a great tool to drive thought leadership and build credibility for yourself or leaders in your business. If becoming a thought leader is a goal of yours, be sure to check out Riserbato’s article about how you can achieve it through effective content marketing.
“The Impact of Content in Digital Marketing” by Thomas Helfrich
With digital tools and software changing all the time, naturally, new trends emerge and old ones exit. However, for the past few years, content marketing is a technique that hasn’t faded away; in fact, it has only grown. Covering the current state of content marketing with a very insightful article this week for Forbes was social media expert and CEO of Instarel.ai, a company that creates thought-leadership content, Thomas Helfrich.
In the article, Helfrich covers the benefits of content marketing in today’s modern environment, such as its ability to drive traffic to websites, build customer relationships, and establish you or your business as an expert. He then acknowledges the difficulties of creating new content all the time, offering several solutions on how to overcome the hurdle.
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Content marketing just might be “the new black” of business, as Helfrich puts it. This gives even more reason as to why you should be implementing its techniques and building your own content marketing strategy. To find out more about the current state of content marketing, be sure to check out this article.
“Generate More Content Ideas With These 4 Tools” by Susan Gilbert
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While content marketing certainly has its benefits, it also comes with some pains. Perhaps one of the most common difficulties marketers face is coming up with new content. Fortunately, digital marketing consultant Susan Gilbert wrote a fantastic article this week on four different tools to use to help create niche-specific and unique content.
According to social media and marketing strategist Gilbert, “by utilizing the right tools you can [find] the right audience for all types of content including blog posts, social media posts, and videos.” She then lists four different tools to help get the job done, including Follow.it to gather the latest news on your target audience, and Content Idea Generator which gives content marketing suggestion ideas based on what your customers are interested in.
Digital tools are a very handy resource to any marketer today, especially if you’re wanting to make your business more productive and efficient. To find out more about these content marketing specific tools, be sure to give Gilbert’s article a read.
“Building a Case for Centralized Content Management” by Greg Kihlström
Digital tools aren’t the only way to come up with new content ideas. Another technique is to simply be smarter and more efficient in the way you operate. One method that digital transformation consultant chief strategist, Greg Kihlström, uses to streamline all of his content marketing is centralizing all content, which he covered further this week for CMSWire.
“A centralized content management system allows you and your team to store the text and assets that can be used and repurposed across many customer-facing channels and platforms,” writes Kihlström, who is the consultant chief Strategist at GK5A, advisors and consultants for teams engaging in customer experience and marketing technology initiatives.
For some organizations, this could involve using CMS software, however Kihlström notes that there are other methods such as focusing on streamlining content creation workflow, and better anticipating future needs.
According to Kihlström, centralizing the management of content provides many benefits to a business, allowing you to become more customer-centric and better personalize content to suit them. If you could do with some help streamlining your content marketing, Kihlström’sarticle has plenty of advice to give.
The Next Step: Content Marketing Refresher
Content marketing is changing all the time as the internet continuously changes and new digital trends emerge. Using the advice and tips from this week’s experts, right now is the perfect time to take a look at your current content marketing strategy and give it a refresher.
Here’s how to get started:
Step One: Dive into your analytics and work out what content has been working well, and what content maybe could use a revamp – or an overhaul.
Step Two: Take a look at the types of content your competitors are making and reshape their strategies to suit your own business.
Step Three: Have a go at creating some new content in line with the trends mentioned in this week’s round-up, as well as recycling old content that’s been successful in the past.
Pro Tip: When updating your content marketing strategy, one good step is reviewing your old content to figure out what’s working and what’s not. One way to help with this step and effectively analyze your analytics is to use social media tools. Some great tools to consider are Sprout Social, BuzzSumo, and HubSpot.
If you could use some help implementing a content marketing plan that gets results, reach out today for your free 20-minute consultation!
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