The stakes keep rising for content marketing as consumers expect more from companies, and marketers are under pressure to distribute engaging content across a growing number of online platforms. They also have to show that campaigns are meeting objectives, which can be a major challenge without the right tools and an eye for data analysis.
Varied content
Nowadays businesses are competing against huge volumes of content on the web as anyone can publish articles, comments, infographics and videos online. To make sure your business stands out you’ll need a strategy to share your values and to bring your products and services to life.
Trying to produce content in-house can be problematic because most companies don’t have dedicated resources. Executives are always fire fighting and don’t have time to write articles on a regular basis. We recommend using an agency to plan, write and measure the performance of your content.
An agency will research your industry’s hot topics and ensure your content is strong and varied. They’ll also publish to a schedule and have tools to maximize performance, according to where the content is placed – your website, newsletter, blog and social networks – all have different requirements with regards to style and how often you should publish content.
Search engines
One of the most important considerations when distributing content online is how it’ll be seen by search engines. The goal of search engines is to return the most relevant results to users. So it’s important to consider what information people are looking for when they search for products or services.
Google will index and score your content. It has sophisticated algorithms, so it’s pointless trying to fool it, for example, by churning out large amounts of low quality content and using keywords over and over again. Also, content copied from elsewhere can harm your website as the search engine will sift out duplicative results. To score highly, it’s much better to write relevant and useful content, and to make sure old content is regularly updated.
When online, people have a short attention span, so you need to communicate your message quickly. It’s often better to use graphics, images and video, rather than lots of text. White papers, news releases, case studies and testimonials can be dull if they’re text heavy. People like to have a choice of visual content.
Video proves effective
Video can be an extremely effective way to build the identity of your brand and is becoming a preferred medium for online audiences because it’s more entertaining than text. HighQ has described 2015 as the year of video marketing and highlights research that shows 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read an article and that 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with best ROI.
The great thing about video is you don’t need a big budget to create effective campaigns and online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram offer potential for huge audience exposure. You can easily create short videos, for example, on how to use your products or to provide a behind-the-scenes look at your business, using a smartphone or digital camcorder. These can be edited using programs like Final Cut Pro.
Native advertising
There is also a big trend towards native advertising. Online display ads, such as banner ads, have become ineffective because people tend to ignore them. Native advertising is made to look like the content on a website, so it blends in whether it’s an article, social media post, or a video.
Content marketing
softwar We’re seeing more content marketing solutions such as NewsCred and TechBroker. These provide workflow platforms to manage the production of content. If you produce large volumes of content, with lots of authors and reviewers, in a variety of formats and on a range of sites, then it’s worth taking a look at how content marketing software can help manage production and measure results.
Some software providers give access to syndicated and licensed third party content that can be used by companies on their websites. However, we believe that it’s better to create your own content, as most organizations want a distinctive style and Google places a lower value on redistributed content.
Measure performance
Measuring the impact of content on your business is increasingly complicated. How you measure the performance of your content will depend on your marketing objectives. An agency can put metrics in place to measure and analyze a wide range of content performance data, according to what matters to your business.
As a starting point, look at where your website visitors come from – did they enter a keyword in Google or click on a link somewhere? What pages are they visiting and how long are they staying? Are visitors responding to your website’s calls-to-action?
Look at how many people read your articles and how they engaged with the content. Provide the opportunity to comment, retweet or Like it. When people sign up for your newsletter, measure how long they receive it before requesting a product demonstration or becoming customers. Find out if your social media sites’ audiences are growing and whether online conversations are favorable towards your brand.
Outsource strategy
At Vie Carratt we work closely with our clients to produce exciting content. We recommend creating a web hub for content and drawing attention to this, via email newsletters and social networks. Our campaigns are carefully planned so content is released at the right time and on the most appropriate distribution channels. We also analyze a wide range of content performance data to make sure we get results whether our clients are looking to increase awareness, improve their reputation or win new business.
The stakes have gone up considerably for content marketing. If you want to be scored highly by Google, to satisfy your consumers and get the best return on your investment, you’ll need a strategy (and a great agency) that uses a mix of communication methods and evaluation tools.
By Tania Vie, Founder and Managing Director, Vie Carratt