Content marketing has been growing exponentially and there are now more than 500 million blogs available online. As with any great marketing channel, content marketing has become steeped and is less effective now compared to how it was 10 years ago. So, should we simply give up now?
Well, if you do not leverage content marketing you will not only miss out on leads but you will be affected by the competitors who know how to use it effectively. Even though those days of content mills no longer exist, there are other, much more important content marketing tips that will leverage results. Here, we are going to discuss some important content marketing tips that will prove that content marketing not only works but continues to be one of the best strategies to drive conversions.
11 Content Marketing Tips
1. Know your target audience- This is one of the most important content marketing tips. Before you can create any sort of marketing strategy, you must know your target audience. But unlike most traditional methods, content marketing needs you to know more than who your target demographic is.
Content marketing needs you to write blogs, articles, and graphics that engage your customers. For doing that, you must understand what do your potential customers want. What are the interests? What help do they want? And what phrases and words do they use while looking for answers?
If you have a good understanding of your target audience, your content marketing strategy will be successful. And if you have ever done this type of research, creating personas can be a great start.
2. Write content for your audience- This content marketing strategy may seem to be obvious, but once you know who your targeted audience is, you must write content for them. From the selection of the topic to final edits, your audience should play an important role in the way you offer information.
Right from the beginning, you must choose topics that potential clients would want to know about. Though this is a challenging process but is worth it.
3. Make sure your content reflects your company’s voice- Another important tip among the top 11 content marketing tips is to ensure your content reflects the voice of your brand. Content marketing is one of the best ways to create and refine the “voice” of your company.
However, even large, well-funded companies with dedicated content teams can struggle hard to find and define what their brand voice sounds like, mainly while working with big teams.
Ensuring continuity of brand voice, mainly across large teams, can be a huge challenge. It needs a constant review of editorial standards to ensure that both tone and quality are consistent, and a higher-level overview of your content and blog in general. However, while developing a brand voice through content can be a challenging task but is worth considering.
4. Be bold and speak- One of the biggest challenges that content marketers face is competing and conquering the huge volume of content being created. With so many blog posts being published every day, making your voice heard over them can be an unbeatable task- unless you take a stand that no one else is interested in taking. It is one of those content marketing tips that many ignore.
5. Research about your competitors- Considering that 48% of B2B marketers and nearly 77% of B2C marketers use content marketing, you are probably not the only business that is trying to attract clients with content. And though this means that you have competition, it also signifies that you can see what other people are producing.
Have a look at what other businesses in your industry are doing with their content marketing strategies. What formats do they use? What content marketing tips do they follow? What topics are they discussing? And how are their readers responding?
6. Make audiences your priority- Yes, the audience plays a vital role when it comes to content marketing tips. It can be quite challenging to create informative content. After several years of writing copy with the objective of closing sales, it is too easy to fall back on “sales-y” language. Be aware of this distinction, and make sure you make the readers understand that they are your priority. It is one of those content marketing tips that are important for your audience.
Today’s customers are prone to tuning out promotional content. This can damage your chances of developing trust with site visitors. Instead, when you are marketing your products and services, inform readers about what you do, why it is important, what are the benefits to your company, and how can you assist potential clients.
7. Write content on specific keywords- In an idyllic world, we would not have to think about SEO. We would publish thought-provoking, insightful blogs about our selected topics and find massive online customers eager to learn from our experience and purchase whatever we are selling. But we don’t live in that world, and it is important to think about SEO.
Some content professionals support a “keyword-less” style to content; publishing content that serves the reader’s interests first and foremost and does not concern itself with anything like “distasteful” as keyword targeting. If you do not think about keyword targeting, then you will be left behind as your competitors are.
That is why it pays to target certain keywords with your content before you generate it. You must think of the keywords you want to rank for before you start writing a blog post or any other type of content marketing.
8. Use content to attract leads into your sales funnel- Another one in the list of top 11 content marketing tips is to drive leads. Starting from attracting customers from the initial stage with specific content to make them click the “buy” button on the sales page, content plays a significant role.
Begin by creating great content that drives awareness, whether that is a blog, video, or infographic. Within this content, ensure that you are attracting the readers to move to the next stage of the funnel. This could be by asking for an email address before offering access to gated content.
9. Fix your measurable goal- As with a content marketing strategy, you must have concrete goals for your website content. So, before you start, determine what do you want to attain. It is one of the important content marketing tips that should not be missed. Do you want to boost site traffic?
Attract your first-time visitors? Create sign-ups for an email list? Get more shares on social media? Several metrics can be measured with content marketing, so it is important to find out ahead of time which ones are the most significant for your business.
10. Track your progress- As you use these top 11 content marketing tips and create content for your site, be sure to track your progress daily. Though it is simple to look at the volume of pages you have published and feel like you have attained something, it is important to look at whether those pages are creating results.
Check your Google Analytics report regularly and track the metrics that show overall performance. If things are going on the right track, continue what you are doing and if not, then use this data to change your strategy to get effective results.
11. Keep updating your old content- Updating the old content is one of the most significant content marketing tips one must follow. In this rapidly changing industry, a year or two is enough for content to become old. Or it might be ranking for keywords that you were not targeting initially.
Instead of going through the difficulties of writing a whole new post, a better idea is to simply update it. That way you do not lose any SEO effort on the actual URL. Updating old content generally includes:
- Doing some research to see what has changed on the topic.
- Rewriting few parts of the articles
- Ensuring that all the links are working.
- Replacing any outdated images.
- Refreshing the introduction and conclusion.
By using these content marketing tips, you can see an improvement in the search and also how your target audiences reacting to your content.