Content is the foundation upon which your digital marketing strategy is built. It is the means by which you interact with your audience and the distinctive voice which people come to associate with your business. For this reason, creating solid, consistent content is a key element of your digital marketing strategy. Read on for our tips on how to ensure your content hits the right note every time!
- Know Your Audience
If you have been reading the other posts in this series, you will know that this is not the first time this has been mentioned. If we are harping on about this, it is with good reason! Without having identified who your ideal audience is you could spend from here to eternity creating great content, but which is utterly irrelevant to your audience – and does nothing to help your digital marketing efforts. So, again, know who you want to speak to and then tailor the content you create to match the profile of those individuals. In terms of content creation, the audience will determine what type of material they prefer and how they choose to consume it, which social channels, etc.
- Give Value
Ensure that every post engages your audience in some way. It need not always be of value in the same way, but it must always give value. For example, it may be entertaining, educational or supportive, whatever you post, identify what you want it to do for your audience first and then set about creating that value in your offerings.
- Build Staples
Evergreen content is a term that describes content which is always popular, no matter when you post it. These are the type of dependable posts which offer real value to a large section of your audience and is so useful that they are compelled to share it with others in their network. You can wheel out this type of ‘evergreen’ content at times when you are very busy elsewhere in your business and don’t necessarily have time to create something fresh, or when traffic is particularly low for external reasons, such as during holiday periods.
- Mix It Up
Once you have established your voice and know what type of content works with your audience, you can then begin to experiment with other types of content. For example, businesses who may be operating in a professional industry might find it hard to introduce light hearted posts. However, if you feel that there may be an appetite for such content, you can try this out with some experimental posts, perhaps using A / B testing to decide whether it works for your audience. Intersperse these with your established posts so that your audience can see that you are remaining true to your brand and values.
- Inject Fun into Your Content
There are lots of ways to inject some fun into your content. You know your business and your audience best and therefore can best decide what kind of fun will work for you. Fun doesn’t have to mean blatant jokes, you can inject fun with quizzes, photos for your audience to caption, nostalgia posts or trivia, all of which can be made to be unique to your readership.
- Strive To Build an Engaged Community
If you can create posts which help your audience feel part of a community, then you are on to a winner. When we feel part of a community we act on behalf of that community for its greater good. You can do this by creating content that provides a behind the scenes look at your organisation, giving sneak previews of upcoming developments, developing a campaign which prompts your audience to take action, or holding online events where the community come together to learn or share in an experience.
- Decide How to Convert
At the end of the day, your content is part of your digital marketing strategy, and as such must seek to lead to a conversion of some description. A conversion can be any number of things, depending on what your digital marketing goals are. A conversion might be that a reader makes a purchase in your online shop or sends an email to discuss a purchase. Keep this in mind when you are creating all content as that is the ultimate goal and working this subtly into your content will help to make a bigger impact for you as a digital marketer.
There are endless types of posts you can create to add value to your audience. However, creating high-quality content can be time-consuming. Ensure you plan out your content schedule in advance and allocate sufficient time to create the post. Before you post anything online, always remember to check for typos and to run a spell checker.
