“Never create content just for the sake of making content material.”
Chances are you’ve seen this comfortable advice echoed across countless articles, webinars, and meetings through lots of well-meaning content advertising experts. But to a skilled marketer, this tip is natural common sense. Who of their proper mind—with an overstretched budget and a boardroom full of keen senior executives with uncertain outcomes—might make content material only for amusement?
You understand better. You’d never submit a chunk of content material without a clear intention and approach. Additionally, you already know your content material advertising and marketing mix need to no longer only reflect cutting-edge trends; furthermore, you need to cope with your business’s demanding situations and assist in reaping your goals. But with content material marketing, this mysterious and wild beast is always morphing and changing—when you assume you’ve got it mastered, something new demands your interest and begs for your sources—how do you get your blend simply properly? Here are a few do’s and don’ts that will help you conquer enterprise pain points even as making excellent use of your resources.
Don’t Abandon Tried-And-True Informational Content.
Epic storytelling and charming suppose portions assist you in putting your emblem other than the noise and litter of our content-saturated net international. These efforts help create an emotional connection between your logo and your audience. If you’re fortunate, this content material will go viral and convey the latest paying clients in heaps. But you may not pressure that kind of magic and not need to spend all of your time and effort trying to create the subsequent unicorn. Sometimes, the excellent and most useful content is likewise the most realistic. And realistic mustn’t imply uninterestingly.
It would help if you continually strived to make your content material attractive and feasible. Just calibrate: There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when your audience craves top, old-school data. After all, whether they’re doing it through voicthroughthroughstructions or getting into a question through text through the thought of the nonetheless, they turn to search engines like Google to toGoogleeekiseekeryday problems and troubles. And when brands consistently deliver beneficial content material, serps reward them with more favorable ratings.
Take Travelers as an example. The emblem’s content material hub is chock-complete of well-optimized, informational content that’s noticeably relevant to its target audience. Within the center, you’ll discover a mix of weblog posts, motion pictures, and interactive tools addressing questions like, “How much does it cost to shut on the house?” Travelers additionally give step-by-step guides on topics like a way to p.C. For a move, which methods will best guard your property against stormwater damage? While those materials might not seem like grandiose brand storytelling, the coverage corporation’s dedication to solving actual customer issues through its content material marketing enables them to construct a basis of an agreement with and reliability with their target market.
Don’t Become Sidetracked with the aid of Every Flashy New Trend.
Take the now-infamous “pivot to video” fashion as an example. In 2016, advertising soothsayers were positive that video could greatly replace the whole thing. With organic social attainment within the toilet and every corporation within the world blogging, motion pictures seem no longer only a possible approach for grabbing your audience’s attention but one that might force wild success to your logo. At that point, Facebook’s video metrics supported this concept—and while the social media giant says “leap,” advertisers begin training their parkour.
In a single day, huge media organizations commenced laying off writers and hiring video production teams. Some almost ceased growing written content altogether and alternatively pumped their sources into steeply-priced, time-eating video efforts. The consequences? Publishers that pivoted to video throughout the summer season of 2016 saw a 60 percent drop in their internet site visitors that August compared to the equal duration 12 months before, in step with information shared by way of Digiday. Eventually, Facebook came smoothly, admitting it inflated its video metrics by 60 to eighty percent, and finally faced a massive lawsuit.
Does this cautionary tale imply you need to by no means explore new or one-of-a-kind styles of content? Of course not. Innovation is critical to logo sustainability. But you should not put all your advertising and marketing eggs in one basket, and don’t waste all your sources chasing a new fad. The video is an effective and vital addition to your content mix, but it shouldn’t robotically take precedence over other media assets.
