If you’ve never heard about content marketing, then now is the time. Developing regular high quality content for your audience is fundamental if you want to keep them engaged in your brand, channel or even just establish your personality. It also helps you stand out within a niche which is essential when you’re trying to distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Building Trust

Content marketing is so important that, according to a study by Curata, over 74% of companies increased the number and quality of their leads via content marketing during 2016. Around 82% of consumers also find they feel more positive about a company after reading their custom content, so think about what kind of message you want to send out with your content.

In fact, according to a study of over 300 marketing campaigns, top-performing content was up to three times more likely to be emotionally focused than that which is not. Triggering an emotion with content is what drives us to share it, comment on it and take action, so think about the topics your content should focus on and explore the emotional angles of each subject.

At the end of the day, content marketing is really all about building trust with your customers, so if a person finds that they are getting value from your content, then you’re doing well building that essential bond.

Keep it relevant, content marketing establishes you and your brand

In a report I came across, 72% of marketers that were surveyed said creating relevant content was by far the most effective tactic in SEO out there. There are many SEO factors to optimize for, but it’s clear that creating original, useful and entertaining content on relevant subjects is the foundation for a strong SEO strategy. Making sure you’re providing your audience with what they’re interested in is also a great way to establish you as an authority within your niche.

Video killed the radio star

It goes without saying that video is the leader in engaging media types these days and, although there are other platforms worth investigating, YouTube is still very much leading the way as ‘king of the view capturer’. In 2016, YouTube reached over a billion users which generates billions upon billions of views.

That’s a lot of billions, so if you play your cards right and make effective high quality content that is targeted to your niche, then you’ll tap into a potential goldmine of customers, especially if your target demographic is for 18-34 year olds. Added to that, businesses that use video have been shown to grow their revenue 49% faster than organizations that do not.

In other words, it’s time to start creating videos or you’re literally leaving money on the table – not sure how? Read our tips on making your videos stand out and selecting the best background music for your video and if you want to release videos on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the fantastic Tim Schmoyer here as he has thousands of useful tips to help you get the best out of your videos.

Make it visual and interactive

How can you make your content engaging? Well, part of it is learning about your audience and what their needs are. The most successful video producers create videos for their viewers, not their egos or explaining some internal company structure. You’ll probably want to start by deciding whether you want to entertain or teach and then focus on what your audience really wants to watch / read / hear. Stuck? Look at the competition in your industry (that is successful of course) and study what they’re doing, you’ll pick up some fundamental tips like how to format your videos, the language to use, the type of music they’ve put in place etc.

But something that is important and often overlooked is how to make your content interactive. People engage with things that are interactive, it helps you stand out. An astounding 88% of people in a study this year said interactive content is ‘somewhat’ or ‘very effective’ at differentiating from competitors. That is compared to just 55% for static content, so make sure you’re drawing your audience in with interactive content.

But how do you make your content interactive? Well, you can drive more views to your videos and website by doing things like:

• Asking for comments under your videos
• Requesting that people share your content
• Promoting user-generated content (UGC) like ‘best selfie’ or video review of your product
• Creating video contests such as mashups of a video you’ve created in exchange for a prize
• Gamification of processes like collecting email addresses so your visitors are engaging with you or your brand.

But really, for interactive content to work, there has to be something in it for your viewers whether that’s a bit of fame time on your channel (think PewDiePie) or a reward of some sort like free stuff, discounts, points or even just that fluffy feeling of being part of a community (dude).

How regular are you?

Remember that successful content marketing is about publishing regularly. How regularly? Well, a little over 44% of marketers create between two and five pieces of content each week.

That sounds like a lot, but there are plenty of ways of coming up with ideas on what to write, film or record about. Just look around you – I like to keep a spreadsheet of interesting articles, tips and tricks that I come across that I think will be useful for people like you whether that’s via blogs, Twitter, in the papers, Facebook or word-of-mouth from friends. When I’m stuck for ideas, I dip into that spreadsheet and I’m ready to go. I’d also recommend putting together a content marketing calendar – I use Google Calendar and plan my releases that way.

Lastly, don’t forget that you can also repurpose your old content like many marketers do these days while adding your own twist on the story so it’s unique (making old news and techniques current is a popular technique from what I’ve seen). If you’re interested in more marketing tips like this, I highly recommend you check out Neil Patel’s blog Quicksprout as it’s basically fan-fucking-tastic and full of useful info.

Any questions or suggestions, just let me know in the comments below.

Cheers,

Cato

 

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