Marketing is a vast industry that encompasses so many aspects that it can be tough to keep track of everything. However, one particularly important subset of marketing is content marketing.
In short, content marketing means using content — anything from articles and blog posts to videos and infographics — to attract and engage customers. When done well, it can be incredibly effective in building trust and loyalty with your audience.
Want to learn more? Keep reading for the top 16 most effective content marketing tactics.
Content Marketing Benefits
Content marketing is a powerful tool that can boost your brand in many ways. While it can seem like a lot of work for not a lot of initial payoff, that's only because the benefits of content marketing are often more long-term. If you're looking to boost your brand sustainably, here are just a few ways content marketing can help:
Drive Traffic/ Increase Lead Generation & Conversion
Quality content generates leads, subscribers and conversions, which increases your revenue. By producing informative, intriguing or humorous content, you're more likely to reel in customers no matter their marketing funnel stage.
How do you increase traffic and leads?
- Keep tabs on your click-through rate and engagement on all platforms — social media, email campaigns and your website — to see what's resonating with your audience and driving conversions.
- Understand where your leads are coming from so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Stay on top of trends to maintain your competitive edge. By tracking growth and conversions on multiple platforms, you'll be able to identify trends early and make the necessary changes to stay ahead of the curve.
Boost Brand Awareness
As any business owner knows, building a successful brand is essential to long-term success. A strong brand can help you to attract new customers, retain existing ones and charge premium prices.
But what exactly is brand awareness, and how do you create it?
Here are a few tips:
- Make sure your branding is consistent across all channels. Your website, social media accounts and physical storefront should all reflect your brand identity consistently.
- Create recognizable and differentiated visuals. Customers should be able to easily identify your brand by its visual elements, so make sure your logo and other design elements are distinctive and memorable.
- Get involved in the community. Don't just talk about your brand — show people what it stands for by getting involved in causes that align with your values. This will help to create an emotional connection with potential customers.
- Be patient. Building a strong brand takes time, so don't expect overnight results. Stay focused on your long-term goals, and keep working to raise awareness of your brand.
Foster Trust and Build Relationships
Trust is the foundation of any good relationship. And that’s true whether we’re talking about personal or business relationships. To build strong, lasting relationships with your customers, you need to learn how to earn their trust — and keep it.
Here are a few tips to help you get started:
- Be transparent. Customers appreciate authenticity. Be open about your business practices, and make sure your marketing messages are clear and concise.
- Be consistent. Consistency is key when it comes to building trust. Make sure to keep any promises you make. If you change your mind about something, be upfront and explain why.
- Be responsive. Customers want to know that you’re listening to them. Make sure you respond to their questions and concerns promptly.
Enhanced Thought Leadership and Credibility
Enhanced thought leadership and credibility in your industry are crucial benefits of effective content marketing. In fact, 61% of decision-makers agree that thought leadership can either be moderately or much more effective in showcasing the value of an organization’s products compared to product-focused advertising.
By consistently creating valuable, informative content that addresses your target audience’s needs and pain points, you establish your brand as an authority in your industry. This builds trust and loyalty with your audience and helps your brand become a credible and reliable source of information. This can lead to more visibility and ultimately boost conversion rates. By following these content marketing tips, you can build the foundations for strong, trusting relationships with your customers. And that will pay off in the long-run.
The 16 Most Effective Content Marketing Tactics
It's no secret that content marketing is one of the most important tools in a marketer's toolkit. However, 51% of markers surveyed noted it had been more difficult over the last year to capture an audience’s attention. With the influx of media and content competing in an oversaturated market, it’s vital to leverage the right tactics to ensure your content stands out. But what are the best tactics for using content to achieve your goals?
Below are 16 tactics to help you create and distribute great content that engages your audience and generates results.
1. Create Valuable and Informative Content
Creating valuable and informative content is a key to a successful content marketing strategy. Content marketing aims to attract and engage a clearly defined audience by creating and sharing relevant and informative content that addresses their specific needs, pain points and goals. When executed properly, valuable and informative content can help improve brand awareness, lead generation, customer engagement and ultimately increase sales. Some examples of effective types of content include blog posts, infographics, videos, e-books, and webinars. When looking for thought leadership content, 44% of decision-makers are looking for information that will make them more effective at their job, while 48% are looking for trends and opportunities as a result of the poor economy.
To ensure that your content resonates with your target audience and achieves your marketing goals, research your audience and create content that addresses their specific pain points, goals and interests.
2. Find the Right Topics
Finding the right topics to write about can be challenging. You want to make sure you're writing about something that people are truly interested in, and you want to ensure that not all of your material is product-focused.
Here are a few tips to help you find that middle ground:
Check social media.
See what people are talking about and what things are getting shared the most. Chances are, if something is being talked about a lot, people are interested in it.
Ask your audience.
Sometimes the best way to find out what people want is to ask them simply. You can do this through surveys, social media polls or even by asking your clients in person.
Curate the news:
As the economy continues to remain unstable, executives will look to industry insights more than ever to make challenging business decisions. News curation will allow you to highlight what’s top of mind for decision-makers while keeping your content team informed.
3. Be Creative
If you want your content to stand out from the rest, you need to get creative. Think outside the box and create something original that will make people stop and notice. There are manyways to be different from everyone trying to get their message across, so find an angle that works for you. — Whatever you do, make sure your content is interesting and engaging.
Consider the following:
Client-driven webinars:
Instead of focusing on your product or having a company representative conduct a webinar, consider partnering with a client. Your audience wants to hear from their peers, which is a good way to build credibility for your product. Focus on a problem that potential customers face and feature your product as part of the solution. These webinars can then easily be converted into reports and e-books for additional lead-generation campaigns.
Direct mail campaigns:
Today’s email inboxes are flooded with information and newsletters. While email is still an effective tool, direct mail can help you stand out. Since workers are starting to return to the office, this can be an effective strategy to help your prospects remember you.
Interactive content:
Consider leveraging quizzes and other forms of interactive content to engage customers and prospects.
Continue to Test:
Testing is important for improving your creativity. Use an A/B testing tool such as Google Optimize to test web and landing page copy. Alternatively, ensure you are testing different types of content and platforms to help you reach the right audience.
4. Create Content for Different Segments of Your Audience
There's no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to content marketing. Instead, the key is to create a variety of content that appeals to different segments of your audience. For example, if you're trying to reach buyers in the middle of the funnel, you'll want to create content that helps them move closer to a purchase decision. And since buyers at this stage are already familiar with your brand, you'll want to ensure your content is conversational and engaging.
Each piece of content should be tied to a different persona and a different stage of the funnel. You can use a marketing automation platform to build out these segments, so emails always go to the right people, based on their preferences, job titles and challenges.
5. Diversify Your Content
You must diversify your content strategy to engage your audience and keep people coming back for more. That means creating a mix of different types of content, from blog posts and videos to social media updates and industry news. Within each type of content, you must ensure you're providing value.
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a great way to engage with your audience and promote your business. Many marketers agree on its importance. In fact, 1 out of every 2 media planners is leveraging email marketing. Also, 37% of surveyed marketers plan on increasing the amount of money put toward email marketing, with only 1.3% making any cuts. Email allows you to create campaigns for new leads, engage with customers and promote new offerings from your business.
By using email marketing effectively, you can build strong relationships with your customers and prospects and promote your business effectively and efficiently.
7. Outsource Content
When it comes to content development, there are a plethora of benefits to outsourcing. It can help to provide a fresh perspective on your topic. In addition, outsourcing can also help to save time and money. It can also help to build relationships with other businesses. Outsourcing is a solid way to ensure that you’re providing value and credibility without breaking your budget.
8. Repurpose Old Content
As a content marketer, you're looking for ways to save time and money. You can repurpose old content. For example, if you have an old blog post that is no longer relevant, you can adapt it to a new content topic to help you attract new readers. Using previous content in new ways can save time and money while delivering fresh and exciting content to your audience.
9. Create Evergreen Content
If you want your content to have a long shelf life, you need to create evergreen content. This content will remain relevant over a long period, making it a valuable asset for your business.
You can do a few things to ensure your content is evergreen:
- Focus on timeless topics that will always interest your audience.
- Write in a clear and concise style that is easy to understand.
- Avoid using industry jargon or buzzwords that can quickly become outdated.
10. Produce Engaging Visual Content
Everyone knows a picture is worth a thousand words. But in the age of digital media, pictures are worth even more. In fact, the number of viewers watching digital videos in America reached 244.4 million — hitting year-over-year growth levels that exceeded what experts had predicted. A well-produced video can tell a story in a way that is both engaging and emotional. So if you want your message to be heard, ensure it is also seen.
11. Create a Content Calendar
Anyone who has tried maintaining a blog or social media account knows that consistency is key. Regular posts will help keep your audience engaged, but it takes a plan to stay on top of things. That's where a content calendar comes in. A content calendar is a road map for your content projects, complete with due dates to help you on track. Whether you're managing a blog, a YouTube channel or even a social media account, creating a calendar can make a difference.
12. Cross-Platform Content Strategy
As a business owner, you know content is essential for reaching your target audience. But what's the best way to ensure that as many people see your content as possible?
The answer is a cross-platform content strategy.
By creating content that you can easily share across multiple channels, you'll be able to reach more people and have more contact points with your audience. And because your content comes from various sources, it will help boost your company's credibility.
13. Showcase Industry News
As decision-makers prepare for budget cuts amid a potential recession, providing value via content is more important than ever. Fifty percent of decision-makers note that high-quality thought leadership plays a more important role in their purchasing process in bad economic times. To be seen as an industry leader, staying up-to-date on the latest news is important. However, communicating that news with clients and prospects can be challenging. Producing fact-checked and timely articles can become an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. However, these kinds of insights from industry news are also powerful when trying to attract clients to your business.
That's where outsourcing can help.
By reading and sharing articles from reputable journals, you can quickly and easily become the go-to source for industry news. Not only will your audience appreciate your efforts, but they'll also be more likely to trust you as a thought leader.
14. License Content From Reputable Publications
Leveraging content from reputable publications is a great way to add credibility to your site. While licensing content from a well-respected source can boost your site's credibility, it's vital to ensure that the content you license is genuinely relevant to your audience. Take the time to find a publication that aligns with your brand and values, and you'll be on your way to adding some serious firepower to your site.
15. Combine the Power of Journalism With Content Marketing
If you want your content to be educational, informative and credible, you need to combine the power of journalism with content marketing. Journalism is about being objective and providing accurate information, while content marketing is about creating engaging and compelling content promoting a company or product. By combining these two approaches, you can create informative and trustworthy content.
16. Promote Your Content
An excellent way to promote your content is by sharing it on your social media accounts. Also, make sure to share it on relevant groups, forums and places where your target audience spends time online. It’s even better if you can get your article in front of influential people in your industry. The more people that see your content, the better chance you have of driving traffic to your website — and generating leads. So get out there and start promoting.
Final Thoughts
There's no denying it: content marketing works. But coming up with fresh, engaging content can take time and effort, especially for small businesses. That's where NYTLicensing comes in. We're the best source for outsourced content, from blog posts and articles to infographics and e-books. We'll help you keep your content fresh and your readers engaged.
