What one thing will Make your Content Marketing excel in the Face of Competition – read here!
Content marketing’s most successful companies put their audience’s needs ahead of their sales-friendly marketing message. There’s a lot of ways to take news like this but if you’re serious about long-term content marketing, you’re going to want to concentrate on maximizing your efforts focusing on communication and emotional connection over sales.
Think about it. Everyone knows when they’re being sold to. A sales presentation in content marketing will win some sales, sure, but you’ll lose more than you need to if you take this approach. Content marketing campaigns are built on sharing information and making connections, rather than focusing on writing a series of sales articles. Audit your current content marketing strategy. Chances are the most engaging articles that receive the most views are those that share in emotional connection and relying useful information to the reader. That’s where you want your focus to be.
As you write content marketing articles, put the audience first. Think about what is emotionally engaging to them, how they relate to information, and the kinds of questions they want answered. Think about the kinds of TV programs, movies, and music they listen to. Subsequently, define the kinds of stories your target audience surrounds themselves with and what may be the most effective storytelling method to use. Setting aside one’s natural inclination to sell the customer on a product or service, if you can use content marketing to tell stories and make the reader feel something, you’re more likely to eventually lead them towards a sale there or at a later date.
Storytelling is not the only way to put your audience above your company’s message in its marketing. Sharing important information unique to your brand is also an important component of building loyalty among visitors. Consider the questions that customers might ask themselves about your products or services. Use those questions to build a content marketing plan wherein each article answers one or two questions, possibly ending with one or two lines of advertising across a specific product or service. There’s no need to push the sales hard but having a link there to the right product or service might be all you need to derive revenues from an article.
The last thing we want to mention about content marketing is that it takes time, effort, and intelligence to build. This is not something that can be built in a few days. Develop a content marketing plan with scheduled release dates for the next six months. Set up the appropriate analytics software on your website to monitor pages and see what’s working best with your target audience. Don't hesitate to change your plan if you see a certain type of articles performing better. Adapt, stay consistent in the release schedule, and put your audience first.
In time, you should see your numbers begin to climb. There’s a reason spending is increasing in content marketing. There’s a reason specific component of content marketing, like video, are seeing renewed interest and significant increases in popularity. Content marketing works – but it works best when you put your audience first and your company second. That’s what every content marketer needs to remember.
If you’re seeking to start a high-performance content marketing plan, speak to Unlimited Exposure today!
