Content is king. When done right, content marketing can be an extremely effective way to connect with your target audience and create a deeper connection with them. Great content can also help you build trust and credibility, both with your audience and search engines — and it’s a great way to drive traffic to your website or blog.
How do you achieve amazing content?
It all starts with:
- Understanding your audience's wants and needs.
- Creating content that meets those needs.
- Providing value at every stage of the buyer’s journey, whether they’re just becoming aware of their problem or ready to purchase.
Need a little extra help getting your content off the ground? Let’s unpack more ways to keep your readers sticking around.
What makes quality content?
Sales are the lifeblood of any business, while marketing is responsible for getting potential customers interested in what you have to offer. Quality content can introduce potential prospects to your brand and services.
But what makes quality content?
Quality content is innovative, provides useful information and, most importantly, is attractive to your target audience.
According to a LinkedIn and Edelman survey, most decision-makers think less than half of content delivers useful insights. However, B2B content marketing continues to be an important component of any business strategy. Nearly half of the decision-makers surveyed awarded business to companies who produced the thought leadership they read. Approximately 53% of decision-makers also noted the amount of work they did with a business increased after engaging with their thought leadership.
Creating good content is a process, but following simple B2B content marketing best practices, such as knowing your audience, keeping your content relevant and using solid keywords, can help get more eyes on your offerings. Nailing these key points will put you well on your way to reaching your target audience.
What is the best kind of content to create?
Developing a strategy for your content development is key to your organization's success. But what exactly is the best content for you? And how can you create it?
Here are some things to consider when choosing your content:
1. It should be useful to your audience. It should educate, inform or entertain them in some way. You'll want to consider what kinds of content best suit your audience, how you want to create your content and what you want to say.
2. It should be well-written and free of errors.
3. It should be original and fresh — your audience should be seeing it for the first time.
4. It should be timely and relevant to what's going on in the world.
Additionally, you can consider leveraging different kinds of assets in your content strategy. According to a report from CMI, the most-used assets by B2B marketers are virtual events, research reports, short articles and white papers/e-books. However, it’s important to test different types of content to see what resonates best with your audience.
One of the best ways to create quality content is to use licensing services. Content licensing services can help you curate news articles, create thought leadership pieces and more — all of which are useful to your audience. Plus, they can help ensure that your content is error-free and up to date.
11 Ways to Create Better Content
Creating better content can be a challenge. A lot goes into crafting a piece of content that educates and inspires. But by following just a few simple tips, you can create better content that will engage and resonate with your audience.
1. Know your target audience.
This is Rule No. 1 for a reason. It's impossible to create great content if you don't know who you're writing for. Before you even start, be sure to segment your audience and create buyer personas – or detailed descriptions of your ideal customers. This information should be based on actual data of already existing customers.
Doing this will ensure that all of your content is tailored to specific needs, interests and pain points.
Below are some tips to get started:
Determine how many personas are needed.
Your team should also determine job titles, roles and who is involved in the buying process. For example: Your target audience may be corporate finance managers, but CFOs or procurement teams may be involved in the final steps of selling your products.
Leverage customer interviews and data.
It’s important to understand why customers decided to go with your solution instead of another. Your team needs to determine what customers value most and what their pain points are.
Conduct market research.
Market research will help you gain more insight into industry trends and the potential value of your product. When breaking into a new industry, tools like ZoomInfo and D&B Hoovers can help your team gain a better understanding of which companies are market leaders in the space and how to prioritize your budget.
Read industry publications.
Industry publications will showcase what concerns your clients have, which will help you to further build these personas.
2. Make it scannable.
Use headlines, subheads and short paragraphs to make your content easy to skim through. With today’s information overload, readers appreciate content that is concise. Whenever possible, try to edit down your content and get rid of any unnecessary words or phrases. Another solution for creating scalable content is to incorporate numbered lists and bullet points. This can help your reader digest your information. Not only will this make your writing more readable, but it will also help you get your point across more effectively.
3. Establish goals and KPIs related to your content.
What good is creating content if you don't have a way to measure its success? Before you start churning out blog posts and videos, take some time to establish goals and KPIs relevant to your business. This could be anything from website traffic to lead generation or even sales. These goals should also have metrics associated with them that can be measured. For example: Brand awareness may be measured via surveys or organic traffic.
Tracking the right KPIs will help you understand what is doing well. Following your data will tell you where you are actually gaining customers. This information will help you to determine what type of content will perform better.
4. Fact check!
With so much misinformation out there, it's more important than ever to make sure your content is accurate and trustworthy. Be sure to source your information from credible sources. If you are unsure about something, fact check it! Choose where you get your content from carefully. Spreading misinformation could have detrimental effects on your business. Make sure to draw from research to back up your claims. This will help to add credibility to your content. Referencing research and data is the best way to get your audience to trust you.
5. Focus on storytelling.
People love a good story, so make sure your content has one. A strong narrative will not only capture attention, but also keep readers engaged. After all, who doesn't love a good tale? A well-told story can captivate an audience and create an emotional connection. Consider including visual storytelling elements to your content. This can add value to your content marketing by leaving an everlasting impression on your audience; many people are visual learners.
6. Diversify your content.
There's more to great content than just articles or blog posts. Videos, infographics and even podcasts can be highly effective in engaging an audience and help you increase customer satisfaction and interest. NYTLicensing offers an array of licensed content to choose from. Our multiplatform solutions offer a content package as a bundle that is integrated with intuitive features and tools to make implementation easy.
Don't forget to use different outlets to connect with different audiences. For example, some might prefer reading, while others prefer watching a video. Publishing content with varying themes and topics will also draw your audience back to you. By catering to multiple audiences, you'll be able to reach more people with your message.
7. Showcase Thought Leadership
Thought leadership content provides its audience with free information from experts who have exemplified measurable experience in a given industry or topic. Demonstrate thought leadership by partnering with industry experts and leaders who can provide value to your customers and prospects on challenges they are facing.
8. License content.
It’s difficult to create quality content at regular intervals. Approximately 38% of decision markets feel that the thought leadership market is oversaturated. In order to stand out from your competition, you need to showcase interesting and insightful information on a regular basis. But nearly 7 out of 10 content teams (67%) are forced to do more with less resources, making it challenging to produce the amount of high-quality content needed.
Outsourcing content can come with its own challenges, too. About 65% of teams note that finding the right partners with the right expertise is an obstacle. However, when content teams work together with a copyright licensing company that specializes in journalistic content, marketers can get thought leadership content to their audience at a faster rate.
When you license content from a reputable source, you can be sure that it meets the highest quality standards. In addition, this will give your audience confidence in the information you're sharing.
9. Offer a fresh perspective.
Dull, derivative content won't cut it anymore. To stand out, your content needs to be fresh and unique. Offer a new perspective on a familiar topic or tackle an issue from a different angle. In addition to being original, your content also needs to be timely and relevant. Regularly updated content shows that you're keeping up with the latest industry trends and developments.
10. Make it visually appealing.
People are visual creatures, so make sure your content is easy on the eyes. Use images, infographics and videos to break up text and add visual interest. And when you use images, make sure they're high quality and relevant to your topic. With graphics from The New York Times, you will help audiences understand complex narratives with a data-driven perspective. No need to create graphics from scratch, we’ve got you covered!
11. Document your strategy.
Documenting your strategy is key in creating a successful content marketing program. Consider the following steps:
Conduct a content audit.
Conduct a content audit to determine what has been successful and what pieces are needed.
Gather content ideas.
Follow content ideation best practices. Your team should work together with product, business development and sales to determine what pain points need to be addressed in content and what stages of the funnel do not have content supporting it. By working across teams, you’ll be able to understand more about your target personas as well.
Design an editorial calendar.
Once you have the ideas, it’s time to put them into an editorial calendar. Assign dates to each piece and determine which pieces should be outsourced. Additionally, consider the kinds of assets your team would like to promote. These can include curated newsletters, social media posts, blog posts and bylined articles.
Measure success.
In order to improve your content ROI, you will need to determine which types of content were most successful and which were not. Incorporate these findings into an updated content strategy.
Bonus tip! Optimize for search engines.
To make sure as many people see your content as possible, you need to optimize it for search engines. Align posts with keyword targets and make sure to include links to other relevant content on your website.
Final Thoughts
You know you need great content, but getting started is often easier said than done.
At NYTLicensing, we don't just provide content — we specialize in top-tier content. Whether it's through our cutting-edge research or our innovative approach to licensing, we're constantly pushing the envelope to bring our clients the best possible content. And that's why we're the go-to choice for businesses who want to create better content.
Here's what sets us apart from other content providers:
- We have a team of experienced researchers who constantly uncover new and exciting facts and data points. This allows us to create truly original content that is informative and engaging.
- We offer a wide range of licensing options so that you can choose the perfect fit for your needs. We have a solution that will work for you no matter what your content calls for.
- We are constantly updating and expanding our content database, so you can be sure that you're getting the most up-to-date information available. And if there's something specific you're looking for, our team is always happy to help you find it.
