Okay, so you’ve heard the term content marketing, but you’re not sure what it is or why it’s different from other types of marketing.

Do you really need to switch your marketing strategies to focus on content marketing?

Short answer: yes.

Content marketing is the present and future. If you’re not doing it yet, you need to start asap.

Here’s why…

What is Content Marketing?

When you look up content marketing you get a lot of definitions that say the same thing, basically marketing through content. Alright, but isn’t that just regular marketing?

What makes content marketing so different is that your content is more consumer-based. You’re not making a commercial or an advertisement. You are creating specific content to better relate to your consumer.

If you’re not familiar with or confident in your team’s content marketing abilities, you can always outsource content marketing and SEO. There are companies and people whose sole practice is concentrating on content marketing.

Content marketing is also focused on one brand identity through all channels. By using the same colors, fonts, wording, phrases, and general vibes, you are creating your brand voice and making your company more notable.

Why is Content Marketing Important?

Humanize is a word content marketers use very often. Humanizing businesses, that’s what a big chunk of content marketing is about. Relating to your customers on a personal level. You’re not telling them your product is the best, you’re showing them why through different media in a relatable voice.

You still want to maintain your focus on SEO so consumers are able to find you on search engines. By bringing SEO to content marketing, you are not only able to be found on search engines, but also within social media platforms.

There are important steps to content marketing, and you want to make sure you touch on each step. The more content you have out there, the more engaging your company will be, and the more traffic will be driven to your website.

Content marketing is extremely important these days because consumers don’t want to feel like they’re being sold to, they don’t want to be told what to do. They need the idea put into their head, and then want to make that decision themselves that they need the product or service.

Take TikTok for example. TikTok is a huge market right now. Dueting videos, taking part in trends, sharing life-hacks. Scrub Daddy made this TikTok and it will forever be stuck in my head. Using this sound is a big hit on TikTok currently and I can almost guarantee that any TikTok user who has watched this will buy a Scrub Daddy next time they see it at a store.

Video Content Marketing

Video content is perhaps one of the best forms of content marketing. Creating magnetic intros that grab the attention of the viewers. The first ten to fifteen seconds is the most important part of the video.

Focus on YouTube for your video creation. TikTok is fun, but you don’t really want to have crafted videos for TikTok unless you are following a trend. You can take your YouTube video and link it to your Facebook and put it in your Instagram IGTV if you choose.

YouTube videos are easy to share over multiple platforms. Videos that are on YouTube are able to be searched for via keywords which is preferable to content marketers. They also receive views years after they are posted, on Instagram and Facebook that is not the case.

Optimize your video descriptions and tags. A lot of your views can be generated by the suggested video sections. The more tags that relate to other popular videos, the more your video will be selected.

Create a solid script with no fluff. Don’t over-explain anything, keep it direct, funny, and also informative. Also making your cover photo look as interesting as possible.

Take a look at this Dropps YouTube video, it has almost 500,000 views! Genius content marketing like this can drive your engagement up so fast!

Promote Your Content via Email

Across all your platforms, have an email sign-up call to action for exclusive content and offers. Send your readers and customers valuable information through email to create more loyalty to your brand.

Replace your blog feed with a blog homepage. Have an introduction to your blogs, a call to action such as subscribing to the blogs, and a good mixture of elements.

Try a newsletter template instead of a blog template. This can offer your readers more information about multiple topics. It can be an easier read and have more engaging content. Headings, bolded lines, and infographics are much easier and more engaging than an e-mail that’s all one format. Embrace the newsletter template. If your blog posts are long, you can have a “see more” option in a hyperlink.

Upgrades to your topics can include exclusive reviews by social media influencers or actual customers. Exclusive content created by your content marketing writers that can’t be found anywhere else.

Scale Your Content Marketing

Don’t just create content, document what works for you and your consumers.

Make a designated content team or outsource to professionals. Your content marketing team should be solely focused on creating interesting content for your brand.

Organize your content marketing into platforms, dates, times, and media. Every media avenue has times when posting is most effective. For Instagram, it is 10 am-3 pm, YouTube around 5 pm, and FaceBook 1 pm-3 pm. Sending emails can be most effective in the afternoons. You likely wake up with 15+ e-mails in your inbox, avoid being in the auto-delete pile by sending your newsletter or blog out after lunch.

Content calendars can be extremely helpful in making sure you hit all your bases. You can also create your calendars ahead of time and some calendar apps will auto-post for you. This is very helpful for posting on multiple channels or for multiple products.

Publish “The Source” Content

Creating content with a purpose in which your company or brand is the sole creator. Focus on validity, new data, and organic results to your theories or findings of your product.

Use visualization as one of the main components of your media. Grafts showing comparisons or results can help engage your reader on a more relatable level.

Have your team create press releases to get your name in front of journalists and other people who can share and promote your content. This can also increase the authenticity of your content.

Work Emerging Topics

Check out current Google trends and “Related Queries.” This can help you stay up to date with the latest topics of interest and current events.

Take a look at Exploding Topics, this website can help you view the new and most current trends before they even take off!

Keeping your content current is vital to your social media health and keeping your engagement high.

Create Epic Content

Take those emerging topics and create epic content that has a superb content design. Looks are (almost) everything when it comes to content marketing. It’s like food, you eat with your eyes first.

With your content, quality is always more important than quantity. A blog, video, or social media post can be shared. But, if you post content too often that’s not monumental, your blog or feed might be considered useless to some consumers.

Hire people to create your content who are not only good marketing strategists but who are experts in their field. This will create more organic content than someone who is just regurgitating what they have read about the topic.

Firsthand experience is worth a lot more than you would think when it comes to content marketing.

Content Creation Strategies

Repurposing content is fine, but you do have to make sure to match your content to each specific platform. An optimal Twitter image is a different size than an Instagram size. Your YouTube video and Instagram video can’t be the same length.

Reuse specific steps and tips that your content marketing strategist thinks are most appropriate for that account. Take clips from your YouTube and share that on Instagram with a “link in bio” reference for more information.

Twitter can be extremely useful for content marketing in the humanizing form. Engaging your followers through comments and threads, creating hilarious content that can be screenshot and shared.

Share and Promote Your Content

Share your content on all social media platforms. Add links in your content to your videos or to other relatable sources that aren’t considered competitors. Search engines love backlinks and external links. Links ensure that your content is viewed as valuable and honest.

How Can We Help?

Content marketing is the new normal for direct marketing. Social media, video content, engaging emails, and relating to your customers on a personal level. Keeping a uniform and creative brand identity, all while creating unique content that holds your consumers’ attention.

Contact us, let’s see how we can help enhance your content marketing and maximize your rankings!