3 POWERFUL TACTICS TO UP YOUR CONTENT MARKETING GAME

If you are an online business or brand who wants to build a digital empire, your focus should be on creating kick-ass content that makes you stand out from the crowd. One way to do that is by staying ahead of the curve. With the start of the new year comes the need to reflect on your content goals and create new ones, you can achieve this by doing a complete content audit of your current marketing strategy in order to stay relevant in the industry. You can do this by slightly tweaking it or creating a new one from scratch if the old strategies are not delivering the desired results that you want.

Download my FREE Content Strategy Cheat sheet to help build yours.

But…before you start tweaking or creating another strategy, find an answer to this important question:

What are the trending tactics that YOU need to know so you can incorporate them into your content strategy before everyone else?

Let’s find out the top 3 most powerful tactics that can help you stay ahead of the game in 2018 and beyond:

1.    Video Content:

People love video. Why? Because it “humanises” the brand and puts a face to it which they can recognise and get familiar with. Use it to evoke an emotional response from your target audience and receive higher engagement on your content. Result – a big boost in “brand affinity”.

Video also gives your brand a personality. It helps your brand build trust in a very short period of time with your target audience as well as nurtures the relationship with your existing customers. Trust – now that reason alone is solid enough to convince you to jump on the bandwagon and start creating video content. This trend is here to stay and will continue to rise in 2018 and beyond. 

Here are some of this year’s statistics that show how video content receives much higher levels of engagement as compared to other forms of content such as text or still images.

• ·       51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
• ·       Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
• ·       59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.

Now, the big question is: how can you create video content that’s not boring? In other words, content that nobody wants to watch.

The answer is: Get creative with video!

There are so many ways that you can use video content at each stage of the buyer’s journey. It does not have to be just social media video, it can be used in your email marketing, on your website’s landing pages, in your blog posts, even in Facebook ads to accompany text.

Here are some really cool statistics from WordStream’s report to prove this:

• Having a video on a landing page makes it 53% more likely to show up on page 1 of the SERP.
•  An initial email with a video receives an increase click-through rate by 96%.
• Blog posts incorporating video attract 3x as many inbound links as blog posts without video.
• Combining video with full-page ads boosts engagement by 22 percent.

These stats are mind-blowing and present a perfect opportunity for us digital marketers to use more video content. It is definitely the no.1 tactic to apply to 10x your brand’s visibility and reach and double the ROI of your content marketing.

Now, time for my pro-tip! You love those, right? ??

PRO-TIP: When you create content, keep in mind that over half of video content is viewed on mobile.

2.    Mobile Content:

What the heck does it mean? It means the content created and optimised for mobile users. With the increasing use of voice search apps such as Siri, Bixby, Google Assistant, Cortana and Alexa, voice search is predicted to be one of the hottest trends of 2018.

How can you be a part of this trend?

Here is how: your content should be informed by Voice Search (mobile). The key here is not to think in terms of typed search on mobile which is usually KEYWORD based. Instead, think how a searcher will use conversational way to ask the query in Voice Search and this means - using question-answer format.

Let me explain:

When we type, we write: healthy cottage pie recipe

But when we use voice search, we will most probably say: “Siri, what is the healthier option to consider when making cottage pie?”

Or I might type: Bitcoin in UK

But I may ask Google Assistant: “How can I find complete information about bitcoin in UK?”

Do you notice the difference in how both queries have the same user intent but formatted differently?

As a content marketer, I think it is extremely important to adjust content creation methods according to the changing behaviours of the searchers. We, as marketers need to keep in mind that it’s the people who are searching, not Google. Therefore, when you optimise your next blog post or landing page for SEO, remember all those mobile users who might be using an app to listen to the answers, rather than reading them from a screen.

PRO-TIP: Use conversational tone when writing content for the web.

Industry expert, comScore predicted that voice search is going to make up more than half of the total search queries by 2020 and that’s not far from now! So, watch and observe searcher’s behaviour – how they are consuming content and adapt your content strategy to suit their needs.

PRO-TIP: Most of the voice search queries are location-based so include localised keywords when creating content to get discovered by search engines.

3.    Content Clusters:

Content Clusters is the concept introduced by HubSpot this year. This definitely has the potential to become a trend and revolutionise the future of SEO. If this concept (when applied) positively impacted the SERPs rankings of online businesses, this tool will surely be a huge hit among digital content marketers and strategists to generate a lot of high-quality organic traffic.

By “high-quality” traffic, I don’t mean acquiring general traffic but getting attention from a specific audience based on your target market that you want to attract and convert.

So, what is this tool? HubSpot’s content strategy topic cluster tool lets you determine a core topic based on what’s already published on your website. Then, it lets you choose sub-topics that are shorter in length than the core topic or pillar content but similar to it. You can then attach supporting content to the sub-topics which answer very specific questions regarding the broad core topic and dominate the SERPs.

One very important thing to note here is that this strategy focuses on TOPIC rather than the old method of SEO, which focuses on KEYWORDS.

PRO-TIP: Choose a topic which is broad and validate it by measuring the impact of pillar content. For example, if it is your most popular blog post on the keyword you want to rank for, it is probably worth using it as a pillar content and mapping out 10-20 sub-topics based on that core topic. So, those sub-topics will form one cluster around your core topic.

You might be wondering: What are benefits of using this new method of creating content clusters?

It improves your search engine visibility, helps Google find related content from your website and by creating more internal links, it optimises your website’s overall architecture for search engines. In a nutshell, it is good for SEO!

If the idea of creating content clusters interests you (and it should!), then watch this video from HubSpot to learn more about this tool and how you can use it to uplift your content strategy in the coming year. 

Are you all pumped to build your content strategy? Download my FREE content strategy cheat sheet and start building your rock-solid strategy.

These are my top 3 suggestions when it comes to the most powerful and effective content marketing tactics to use in 2018.

Over to you: What are some of the tactics you are going to use to uplift your content marketing this year? I would love to know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Category: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Digital Marketing

Keywords: Content Strategy 2018, Content Marketing Trends 2018, Importance of video in marketing, Why video marketing, video content marketing strategy, video marketing trends 2018, voice search trends, voice search and SEO, HubSpot content strategy tool, topic clusters SEO, topics over keywords

Hashtags: #contentstrategy #contentwithkomal #contentmarketing #videomarketing #SEO #Growthhacking #InboundMarketing #DigitalMarketing #OnlineMarketing

About the Author:

Komal Mansoor is a digital content writer, self-proclaimed blog doctor, and inbound marketer at www.komalmansoor.com. She crafts content for marketing purposes using the principles of “think like a journalist” and “write like a storyteller” to produce compelling content that converts into customers. Follow hashtag #contentwithkomal to find her conversations around the web.

Get Social with Komal: Website Facebook LinkedIn Twitter  

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