Content needs to serve a purpose to both the publisher and its audience. Quite often, the audience is left behind as brands focus on the hard sell. Here’s how to plan and seed content properly.
This thought-provoking post on content marketing performance is a timely wake-up call for content marketers who focus on what I call ‘publishing over purpose’. That’s the mind-set that leans on an output-based approach (X blogs a month, X videos a month) rather than carefully planned, audience-centric (i.e. useful) content.
As a trained journalist one of the first things I was taught was how to never lose sight of the audience. I worked in the IT press. My audience was IT managers and every day I was talking to IT managers for the real life view, not solely the vendors or the analysts with their own spin on events.
That’s publishing life. If brands want to act as publishers – and I believe they should, as without useful content they can’t inform and persuade their audiences and have less chance of ranking highly on Google – then they need to take a journalistic approach.
Rules of effective content marketing
- Know your audience: Who are they? Where are they active online? What do they read? What keywords do they use when searching the Web? If that’s different to the language you’re using then change your language and talk like them and help signpost Google
- Remember the decision journey: Where does your subject matter fit into the target audience’s decision-making journey? Where should they go next for more information?
- Keep content useful and on-point: There is an art to writing for the web and in a mobile world you have seconds to impress
- Keep it brief: Keep written content easy to scan with short paragraphs, bullets, images and subheads. To check how reader-friendly your content is, try read-able.com. Video works, but again, keep it short and non-salesy
- Think carefully about seeding: PR can help gain attention, if the content you’re hosting (reports, studies, expert content etc.) is actually news-worthy. Again, keep the audience front-of-mind and any branding subtle
- Be ready to pay for eyeballs: Paid is part and parcel of the process nowadays if you want access to audiences. Research indicates that engagement rates are falling, so set realistic expectations. Think about publishing off-site – sponsored guest posts etc.
- Always include a call-to-action: If you want a visitor to take an action (purpose) then make it clear what that is and make it easy for them
- Make all content sharable: Your share rates will be low if you don’t make it blatantly obvious how to share that content (see floating icons on the left of this post…less than subtle)
- Measure and iterate: Use Google Analytics and social media channel-specific analytics tools to gauge performance. If people are turning off at a certain point, why? What works, what doesn’t? Do more of what does and less of what doesn’t. Always experiment
Confucius said: “If what one has to say is not better than silence, then one should keep silent”.
The same is true of the Internet: there’s enough crap on it already, don’t add to it.
If you would like to talk more about your organisation’s content marketing, please contact us.