Why Content Marketing is still a major influence on online success in 2018
Trends in web design change rapidly. Websites are always evolving, as are the programming languages and tech who form them. Across multiple decades, one of the few commonalities maintained in websites of every category is content. To advance a site’s brand development and achieve their marketing goals, content marketing has a role to play. ‘Content is king’ is not just some pretty catchphrase. It still rings true today and with that, we set our sights on sharing why.
Content is used across every marketing channel to motivate customer acquisition and sales. Websites, blogs, emails, and social media all use content to build brands. Podcasts, info-graphics, webinars, and email marketing campaigns also use content in unique ways to build an audience. An integrated content marketing strategy will mean leveraging each of these platforms to properly showcase content and get eyes on your site. Thereby, this may include modifications in how content is presented in order to maximize the investment.
Also, keep in mind that content marketing does not necessarily mean text. It may encompass images and videos as well. The development of content is all about building information for your target audience to consume. Effective content is both relevant and engaging to the audience. Thereby, a website is faced with a two-pronged challenge here – to know their audience enough to create content that appeals to them and then, to have the content be engaging enough to ideally produce a sales conversion of some kind.
The reason why content marketing is still a major influence on online success in 2018 is because it works at achieving sales targets, acquiring an audience, and improving online conversions. There are good and bad content marketing strategies however. A bad strategy is just as ineffective as not having one and sometimes, even more damaging. Therefore, building a content marketing strategy with an online marketing expert becomes key. Remember, an effective piece of content should be described by five words – ‘valuable’, ‘useful’, ‘helpful’, ‘timely’, and ‘share-worthy’. Content marketing that is able to hit high marks on these five elements are those that will succeed against the massive amount of noise that websites, users, and brands of all varieties make online.
As we have moved towards an increased emphasis on video marketing in 2018, content marketing continues to make more use of video. Videos being used on Facebook Video, YouTube, Periscope, Twitch, and other platforms are building huge audiences for creators. Just remember to create videos of an appropriate length, limited in topic, and high quality.
Never compromise on quality. In the end, producing high quality content will ensure it gets promoted accurately through platforms like Google. When in doubt, always invest in quality over quantity. Be sure to work with someone who knows how to stagger content releases when and where appropriate, thereby maximizing the impact of content marketing strategies.
By partnering with a content marketing expert, they should be able to provide content guidelines which would identify target audiences, communication tone, platforms to be used, and the type of content to be created. Engaging in a long-term content marketing strategy while simultaneously combining with other trends in online marketing has proven to be very useful for some of the world’s biggest corporations through to local small businesses. That’s why we recommend partnering with an online content marketing expert who knows their stuff to develop and implement the best strategy.
