Do you know that 86% of all experts working in B2C marketing site content as their primary focus? Two main reasons have driven marketers to the creation of content strategies – it’s cheap and self-sustaining.
Focusing merely on selling particular products takes a lot more planning and funds. Content, on the other hand, can influence every campaign and project development plan of yours.
Standing out thanks to a good content strategy is exceptionally easy. How easy exactly? 63% of all brands don’t have a content plan even for longer-term goals.
If you want to take your business from good to great, try out these 9 content strategies. Transform your brand, build a following and enjoy the fruits of your success.
9 Content Strategies to Take Your Business from Good to Great
1. Make your point with CTAs
Picking the right platform for content posting isn’t easy. In most cases, this will be a combination of different “fronts” where you will have to expand your influence. With all the outbound marketing knowledge, you won’t be able to “take off” without a well-devised content strategy.
Posting content regularly not only informs people about your existence, but also showcases the benefits of your business. There is no better way to gauge interest in these benefits than with CTAs.
A common mistake many marketers make is avoiding to use CTAs to target their audience. It’s a false assumption that calls to action are only meant for PPC campaigns on Google and Facebook. If included properly, CTAs can bring you the following benefits:
- Less chances for readers fatigue. The reader won’t have to find the meaning, as every section will be highlighted by clever use of the imperative voice.
- A dynamic tone. Nobody likes to read blog posts that are merely informative. Alternating between a period of monotonous, informative copy and short CTAs makes the content interesting to read.
- Clarity. Even though written content is supposed to be interesting to read, some people just skim through a blog post to find out more about you. Have bolded sporadic CTAs to send the message to these “less enthusiastic” readers.
And the best thing about CTAs? They can be inserted everywhere. People do have awareness about the marketing purpose of calls to action, but they can’t deny their effectiveness. It’s paramount that you insert them into your content on social media.
Adding even sporadic CTAs to your Facebook page posts increases click-through rate by as much as 285%. It’s an increase in traffic that your content strategy desperately needs.
2. Establish brand consistency and increase awareness
The role of content is primarily informative. It gives people a short, but comprehensive overview of your business and what can it do for them.
Some marketers even call the establishment of services and solutions the “purpose” of an inbound marketing strategy. Why is adding purpose to your content strategy so important then? It’s because it establishes brand consistency.
With brand consistency comes a reputation that increases your popularity and loyalty with customers. When spending money on products or services from their favorite brands, 43% of customers are willing to spend more. How can you create consistency through your content then?
- Establish a tradition. For example, posting an infographic about marketing every Tuesday and Friday is a good idea. People don’t just connect visual aspects to a brand. Consistency is created with actions and decisions that are solely yours and set you apart.
- Use a unique logo-colorway-font scheme. There is a limited number of fonts and colors, and you can only get so creative with a logo. The key is making a combination and inserting small additions to “trademark your content.” Think of things like adding your logo into brand video, having the same color scheme on all your infographics. Even the same image filters on Instagram photos will do.
- Maintain the same tone in blog posts. Your words are the best and clearest way to communicate with customers. Once they get to know your brand, they will develop expectations related to the way you communicate. To not let them down, never change your “writer’s personality.” Instruct your writing team on the basics. If you haven’t got a team, you can use the aid of an assignment help service like Ggrade Miners and many others. Establishing a business relationship with a professional college paper writer is also a good idea.
- Have a consistent schedule. Even if you’ve branded all your content, consistency is only achievable if you produce new content on a regular basis. Don’t oversaturate nor take too long. Experiment and find the right posting frequency.
Brand consistency is an integral content strategy as it adds strength to your words. It expands the visual aspects of your products and services, adding credibility to your content. But what happens when you face a shortage of content to post?
3. User Generated Content should be your major focus
Do you know that 50% of customers enjoy when brands guide them on what kind of content they create?
As improbable as it sounds, consumers were never more willing to provide brands with User Generated Content (UGC). It is your job to use this willingness and grow your business with a constant influx of relevant content.
Why is something created by other users to enticing to people? For two reasons in particular:
- It doesn’t have a “marketing feel.” Since real people have created it, others will find it easier to establish contact with you. Brands that seem more human and communicative towards their customers are more popular.
- UGC gives you the options to plan in advance. If your brand is global, for instance, you can have customers from all over the world send you pictures on social media. With thousands of photos to choose from, you will have material to post for months.
4. 80% visual – 20% written
No, this doesn’t mean you should disregard written content. It should be the main staple of your content strategy.
Blog posts give important insight and educate readers, but it’s just that too much reading is tiring. That’s why you should make the majority of your post content purely visual. According to scientists, our brains process visual content more than 60.000 times faster than words.
- If you’re writing an important blog post, you can use images with quotes and small previews to create the hype. Doing this several times before posting will make each written post more popular.
- Visual content is also useful when you’re short on inspiration. Take, for instance, statistical data from all blog posts and convert it into an engaging visual infographic.
- It’s easier to create a consistent content strategy with visual content. You can post it much more often! The frequency of posting interesting images, videos and other types of content strengthen the online presence of your business.
5. Don’t hesitate to recycle and insert backlinks
In addition to being consistent, a good content strategy has to be sustainable. As you post more content and cover more niche topics, it will become much harder to be 100% original. In such cases, you can draw inspiration from your older posts. There are several ways in which you can enhance your current content strategy.
- Re-read old blog posts. There is guaranteed to be a detail, fact or thought that can be expanded. Do this with just a few blogs every day and add all the ideas and excerpts to a separate file.
- Change the content type. Is there an infographic that people have shared several thousand times? Get back to it, explore the sources and write a blog about it. Or make it into an engaging podcast.
- Even if you strive to write about “all-new” subject, insert backlinks to your old posts. This will “revive” them and make them relevant once again.
6. Collaborate with influencers, but don’t overdo it
Influencers are best friends to any content marketer. There is nothing better than having your business advertised to a new big audience.
Social media is excellent as a set of collaborative platforms where you can use content provided by other influential individuals. You can approach an influencer with a direct pitch or you can provide them with gifts, packages, and other benefits.
Even though influencer marketing is useful, you should never overdo it. This is what experts in the industry call a “sporadic content strategy.”
Marketing your products via influencer-created content is not sustainable enough for constant use. People see it’s for promotional purposes. Do it every once in a while, to promote a new product or attract new customers, and avoid oversaturation.
- Always consider long-term business relationships with influencers that you had success with
- If they post a lot of personal photos and selfies, they can use your product if they truly like it and market it more organically. This subtle form of influencer marketing is known as “organic outsourcing.”
- Don’t forget to do research and inquire about the demographics of the influencer’s audience. If they have mainly teenagers as followers and your product is mainly for people in their 30s, it’s a failed campaign.
- Be cordial with influencers. If they have a good experience with your business, their word of mouth recommendations will benefit you.
7. Optimize posts for SEO
If your content is popular amongst followers and it’s still not as popular as it could be, what’s the problem? It’s probably that you haven’t created a content strategy based on organic ranking and SEO. Before you develop an idea and finalize it, think about how can it help your organic ranking.
Research keywords that your competitors use, and find out how difficult it is to rank each one. Use them in everything – links, titles, images, descriptions, etc. Keyword consistency will greatly improve your organic ranking.
While forming solid content strategies, developing quality content is another disregarded SEO tactic. Yes, quality is a major factor – it determines shareability. As you post helpful and enticing content, more people will interact with it. Each post that gets shared is a messenger that carries the values and benefits of your business.
The key to every content strategy with SEO optimized posts is a skilled analytics team. Use software and tools to gather data about the performance of every post and the strategies of brands in your niche.
When you notice the general characteristics of all successful posts, you will know what to implement in the future. It’s a self-sustaining, research-based content strategy that improves flaws gradually and consistently.
8. Use different social media channels for different purposes
Social media activity is paramount for every content strategy, but it’s not as simple as posting everything and everywhere. Different social media websites have different audiences, different rules, and different trends. It is your job to research every trend and to determine which posts will be appropriate for each network.
Here is a quick list of how to leverage various social media websites:
- Facebook. It’s easy to create very narrowly targeted content. Groups especially create a light form of isolation by bringing together groups of people with very specific interests.
- Instagram. Colors, symmetry, perspective, placing – all these factors rule Instagram and are the common denominators of every good image. Keeping it simple and clear goes a long way.
- Twitter. Tweets can include links, which means you can share visual and written content at the same time. Tweet interesting images and link a related new or old blog post, for example.
- LinkedIn. On this particular network, you can use content specifically targeted towards fellow professionals, or even for recruitment purposes.
- Snapchat. If your audience consists mainly of millennials, there is nothing better than Snapchat’s fast-paced and minimalistic interface.
By picking the right network for the right type of content, you will increase the efficiency of your targeting and achieve even more success.
9. Testing is a staple of successful content
As one often-forget content-related strategy, testing has an important place in creating new plans, strategies, and campaigns. Even after doing all the necessary research, you can never be too sure about the potential success and results of a content campaign. Therefore, you must determine the reception of every form of content through testing.
A/B testing is perhaps the most efficient and most popular form of testing. Once your content creation team has come with a few candidates for a post, you can compare the performance of the content in real time. Having problems with choosing the right style of infographics? See how each performs and pick the one with the better reception.
Polls are another, albeit a simpler, form of testing the performance of content. Ask your audience about a campaign. For example, you can make an Instagram poll with the question “Do you want us to post more blogs or images?”. Customers will realize that you care about their opinion and you will obtain valuable information at the same time.
Concluding thoughts
The 9 content strategies here are equally important to the success of any business, both big and small. Plan carefully, pay attention to the details and know your audience. If you this as a basis for a content strategy, you will see success, and your business just might become more than great.
See also: 11 Types of Social Media Advertising You Must Know in 2019
