Do’s and Don’ts of Content Marketing

Content Marketing is about spreading information concerning a business or any other type of a brand through distribution of Educational, Entertaining and Insightful info that helps readers or viewers towards refining their lives. This could mean a modification in personal behavior of the viewer positively impacting his or her life. It doesn’t force a sales pitch at people but helps to adopt a better path. It can also be elaborated as a premeditated promotion tactic concentrated on generating and distributing valued, appropriate and reliable content to entice and retain the required consumers coupled with a positive consumer action.

Content Marketing incorporates a range of attention-grabbing sorts of Content Marketing tools that can be proficiently explored and used by one and all to add diversity and quality to their content. These tools give you a chance to astonish your audience by strongly catching their weak attention spans. In today’s extremely competitive environment one simply cannot offer boring content to its viewers. Your spectators eagerly look forward to a spectacular treat for their senses in terms of Content Marketing. They are all eyeing for novel and pleasing experiences. In case your content fails to gratify them they will take less than a second to opt for some other content. Therefore, ensure that you don’t prove to be a laggard. Make exclusive content which is able to fascinate all types of engagements, followers, shares and quality links. Put your efforts in the right direction so that it helps you to add that dynamism to all your Content Marketing efforts.

1. Categories of Content Marketing – Content marketing covers a huge arena of possibilities and categories. Each of these categories can be used in its own way to reap maximum benefits.

• Video Content - The leading trend of Content Marketing is video content, which is engaging and provides more information in lesser time. Public is intrigued by videos and they absorb more details from it. In fact, 45% people watch videos on Facebook and YouTube for more than an hour daily.
• E-Books - An E-Book is one of the best ways to inform people about matters pertinent to industry. Free E-books can be given to target audience in lieu of their mail addresses further strengthening the relationship with them.
• Podcasts - Alternative format for generating superior content is podcast. You can call it an advanced version of radio. Here you can do both, listen to a podcast and create it.
• Case Studies - Case Study is a very lucrative Content Marketing tool. It is all about the stories of your existing customers. It states how you resolved the problems confronted by your customers, which in turn can be used to draw more such projects. And the same can be put on your web portal to initiate positive tête-à-têtes regarding your venture.
• Infographics - Human brain processes images 60,000 times faster as compared to words. This gave momentum to the popularity of using infographics in Content Marketing across the globe. In fact, 37% of marketers said that visual marketing was the key form of content for their business.
• Data from Surveys - Direct data received from survey serves a lot and is exceedingly shareable to produce plethora of backlinks. This process will offer you with improved data, which is advantageous to you and is totally unique.
• Webinars - GoToMeeting, Google Hangout and Skype can be used to conduct professional webinars for target audience. It informs and educates the audience on the required themes.
• Presentations - Power point presentation is a decent technique to demonstrate commercial proficiency. One can upload them on portals like Slideshare and connect them with blogs. This ensures graceful professional presence of the business online.
• Testimonials - Text and Video testimonials are evidences of the excellence offered by your company. It attracts and transforms your viewers into clients.
• Newsletters & Mailers - Newsletters cultivate and increase customer base by sharing valued content and updates related to the company. It is basically news about your company that augments brand re calling. 86% of business professionals prefer email over other mediums of communication for business purposes.
• Interviews & Guest Blogging - Guest blogging and expert interviews bourgeons audience and builds brand improving your search engine rankings.

The list can go on, but these are some of the major tools of efficient content marketing. Well just knowing about content marketing does not serve the purpose. The popularity of content marketing is spreading at lightening speed in the digital world. In this situation it is crucial to understand the methods to carry forward content marketing efficiently. Let us take a look at some of the Do’s and Don’ts of Content Marketing.

Do’s

• Know Your Audience – If you exactly know who your target audience are, it will be a lot easier for you to know what content you should publish. You need to understand the interests of your audience and give them only what they want to see. If you wish for your content to be greeted by you audience, you need to keep a check on niche specific content that they want.
• Make Emotionally Appealing Content – It is all about building a relationship with your viewers. It you can do that, half you battle will be won. Try and connect emotionally with your audience. Give a friendly and personalized touch to your content. After seeing your video or reading your blog, the audience should feel that it was specially made for them only. It is psychologically proven that emotions play a major role in decision-making.

1. Keep a Check on The Analytics – Basically four types of content marketing metrics should be measured - consumption, sharing, lead generation and sales. Missing out on any one of them may not be a very good option. It is very important to know the analytics of your marketing. If you do not know, where your marketing tactics are lacking results, how will you improve on them?
2. Make Unique Content – Whatever content you are offering, whether it is in form of articles, blogs, videos, presentations, webinars or anything else, make sure it is original. Your content should be your identity. Make the type of content, that only you can make and no one else. Experiment with your content and go beyond your imagination.
3. Encourage Engagement – The focus of your content should be on keeping the viewer attentive and not just attracting the audience. The entire base of content marketing is establishing a connection with your audience, encouraging them to participate in conversation about your brand. If you are just grabbing the attention but not retaining it, your content marketing strategies have loopholes and you need to fill that. Make sure you have a call to action on your content. This will increase engagement.

• Promote your Content – Publishing your content is not sufficient, publishing on the right platform is important. You have to know the platforms, where your target audience is most likely to see our content. Likes, shares and subscriptions are the best ways to promote your brand in the most cost effective way.

Don’ts

• Do Not Make It All About You – Your content marketing should not be all about you and your products/services. You are not targeting for a sales pitch, you are targeting for attention. No one will be interested in reading or seeing about you again and again. Do not make this mistake of boasting about you. Show your audience what they are interested to see.

1. Do Not Wait to Publish – Bestselling author Stephen King has said, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” You do not have to behave like armatures and wait for the inspiration. Do your groundwork properly. Find out the best time and best place to publish your content and just do it.
2. Do Not Expect Short Term Results – When you are dealing with content marketing or for that matter digital marketing, be prepared to be patient. You cannot expect overnight magic. It takes weeks and sometimes mots to even be a little visible in the crowd out there. You need to be consistent and patient if you wish to reap results.
3. Do Not Write For Everyone – Again understanding your target audience is important. You cannot just enter into the market blindfolded. Before making any type of content you will have to be sure about who will be seeing your content. Your target audience could be of specific age group, or interests or gender or anything. While creating the content you will have to keep your target audience in mind and not just publish content for everybody online.
4. Do Not Forget To Connect With Your Audience – Publishing content at the right time to the right people is important. But what is more important is you retain your viewers. If your audience is not getting back to you or connecting with you, all your efforts are in vain. Decide what is the purpose of your article and make a call to action button accordingly, so that your audience interact and connect with you.
5. Do Not Copy Content – If you are copying any time of content, be prepared to face the end, even before you start. Yes, copying content is one thing that you should definitely avoid at all cost. Copied content does not have any reputation in the market, if you are doing this, you may loose your brand reputation as well. So, copying content in any form is a big NO.

There are plentiful benefits of Content Marketing for all forms of businesses. However, the catch lies in utilising it accurately. So, that all-out success is observed. The art of Content Marketing is altering and influencing varieties of techniques transforming them into a necessity for businesses to get the wanted results from it. Viewers nowadays have smaller attention spans and they get fed up of clichéd material fast. This is where the concept of Content Marketing enters to build charming experiences for consumers to make strong and deep relationships with them. The above mentioned Do’s and Don’ts of content marketing can be put to productive use because content marketing in today’s world is not just about attracting and driving leads, it is about creating knowledgeable insights.