The web is undergoing an overload of information. Everyone is trying to figure out what exactly is great content and how to market it effectively in 2015. This year 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago. But, is creating good content enough? No, you need to market it with a great strategy. A research by Content Marketing Institute show that- 90% businesses are engaged in content marketing, but only 45% found it to be effective.
B2B customers are often making decision that directly affects the sustainability of their business. So, they are looking for content that educates them, answers their questions and should build their trust in your brand.
A great content is informative, concise, well researched, syndicated, contains graphics that can grab viewers interest & has a personality to drive social engagement.
If you want your contents to achieve the desired results, you just need to follow the below mentioned 5 content marketing best practices for 2015.
Content Objective
As they say “A work well planned is half done!” have a strategic approach in deciding they type of contents to produce. This can be best done by asking yourself, Why? Don’t just jump-in otherwise your content may not be able to achieve the desired objective, because there was no objective decided.
A B2B content marketing objective can be bifurcated into 3 categories:
- Revenue – Content that generates sales. eg. Benefits of your products/services
- Savings – Content that helps save money. eg. Freebies, deals etc
- Emotions – Content that directly connects to emotions. eg Make the reader happy or excited
You should also follow the same process while you decide the marketing channels for your content. If you cannot answer the “Why?” for a particular marketing channel the best idea is to drop it. Because if you cannot find a solid good reason, no one else can!
Mission Statement
Yes, this is something new but, defining a mission statement can save you a lot of management efforts and the hassle to elaborate your goals each time. A well-documented mission statement can help you bring your team on a single platform. This will educate your team on “what they should NOT do” in a more professional manner as well as control the flow of content ideas to a specific niche.
A good content marketing mission statement should at least contain:
- Target Audience- Who is your target? eg. Age group, Gender, Location etc.
- Targeted Niche- What does your content deliver?
- Goal- How will your audience benefit?
Always focus on a specific niche while you create your mission statement. With loads of information flowing over the web has made users to look for specific and relevant information. By narrowing your focus as much as possible, can help your brand build authority over your audience and gradually win their trust.
Use Platforms You Own & Control
Avoid using third party platforms for your brand content, so that the content control remains with you. Imagine you build a great hub of your brand content on some platform and then one fine day they change their terms and policy. You feel helpless and lose all your hard work as well as all the investment done to develop your brand on that particular platform.
Marketing channels like social platforms, guest blogging, industry websites etc. can be a great way to promote your content. But it will be wise to invest on your own virtual property (your website or blog) which you own and control. You can harness the power of these platforms for promoting your brand content. But, make sure you ultimately lead the reader to a platform you own so that you can provide consistent value to your readers. You can also urge them to subscribe your blog/channel to stay updated.
Connect your content with Industry Influencers
Connecting your content to the influencers in your niche can help you extend the reach of your content. Leveraging influencers can help you target a larger audience which is out of your reach otherwise. Also, when your content is associated with a big name in your industry it instantly builds authority as well as boosts your brand credibility and trust from readers.
You can Build or You can Buy!
If you are new entrant in the particular market segment, building a new audience can take a while. In that case you can buy audience from others in your niche who already has a large subscriber base.
There are various ways to buy audience for instance you can buy a blog belonging to your niche who already has its active subscriber base. This can help you get more viewers for your brand content instantly.
Conclusion:
- Content Marketing is not an overnight process, it is a marathon, go slow and steady.
- Define benchmarks and measurements in advance.
- Keep moving forward.
- Align you content marketing with other marketing strategies.
- Involve your entire organization- let great ideas flow in.
- Great content writer borrow from others, you cannot create something unique everyday so borrow concepts and ideas.
- Mix and Match- deliver a mixture of short blogs, videos, infographics with long all time high value content to your readers.
- Be consistent
Content Marketing done right, has created miracles for lots of businesses. So, it’s time that you take a good look into your content marketing strategy and make sure your follow these best practices. After all it helps you achieve various business goals and is still loads of fun! We would love to know the content marketing best practices your follow in comments below.
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