Top Tips For Content Marketing in 2020

Yes, you read that right. Content is king, and this is something we’ve known all our lives, but what you may not have known is that content marketing is queen of everything it surveys. Well, two decades ago, content marketing was called custom publishing or bespoke publishing. Before you do a double take, it was content again, but the coinage changed over time due to new media. What custom/bespoke publishing was to print medium earlier is content marketing for the internet. What were printed inhouse company journals are today online newsletters, and emailers. Only the form has changed, but the content is still king. So how can one make full use of content and content marketing? Read on…

Top Tips For Content Marketing in 2020

Impactful words

Every brand has a language. It could range from simple and emotional to aspirational, unusual, open, and so on. The list is endless. Once you understand where your brand fits in, all your communication should be in sync with this working language. And these words should work in tandem with your brand personality whose many facets could range from competence and sincerity to sophistication and toughness. A brand can have one or more dimensions like these. For example, Apple’s brand language is an interesting medley of many attributes. One one end, it aims to be the simplest gadget that even a five-year-old can use. On the other end, it’s the most expensive in its category, making it aspirational and sophisticated. Therefore, once you have your brand language in place, writing impactful content with a strategy that sticks becomes easier.

Arresting imagery

If a picture can say a thousand words, who needs words? Well, that’s the effect of graphics and visuals. Therefore, make sure your brand honours this attention-grabbing component to catapult your brand to the higher reaches of the consumer. Make your brand, Instagram-worthy to stand out, and also scale up your reach.

Variety & Clarity

If you know your audience, you are halfway into your business plan. The rest is just formulating the right strategy to fulfil your goal. Here is where variety of formats (blog posts, case studies, white papers, ebooks, contests, freebies) can engage your target group. When your variety has such clarity, the right traffic will move to you over time. Keep refining this game, and you will reach there sooner than you expected.

Conversions

Everybody wants to know how content can convert. If content is king, conversion is queen, according to some. Well, it could well be, just as content marketing can be queen while content is king. If we go beyond these fancy phrases, we will arrive at the nub of this philosophy: how can content pay for itself and more. The answer is simple. Once you know your product or service, your target group, and your competitive advantage, the conversions will happen in the following ways…

• Call To Action: Enough of saying ‘learn more’, ‘benefits’, ‘what we do’, and so on as your ‘call to action’ buttons. Instead call them ‘Yes, I Want To Become A Millionaire’ if you run a personal finance business, for example. Or ‘I Want To Own My Dream Home’ if it’s a real estate website, and so on.
• Landing pages: If your home page is where all your website traffic lands on, then that’s your landing page. But what does it contain, because first impressions count? Does it have everything the customer is looking for, so they don’t have to sift through innumerable pages, clicks and browsing before reaching a business decision: to hire you or move on. A good landing page is where all the customer’s queries are answered; it’s the direct product or service marketing page that does not beat around the bush, and conveys the takeaways for buying your offering. This could mean, information or links to call to action buttons, pricelist, testimonials, case studies, white papers, newsletters, blog posts, and contact email IDs and/or phone numbers.
• Test Drives: If you or your product is new to the market, a better bet would be a trial period before a customer can decide on buying or rejecting your product. Once they decide to buy your product, allow them the choice of monthly or yearly payment with relative advantages. Make sure, your pricing suits all pockets. If a trial is not possible with your offering, it could be a free sample of work before the client decides to hire you.
• Videos: In an increasingly visual world, the return on investment for video marketing is many times higher than text. Therefore, having animator videos or you coming in front of the camera and explaining about your offerings would build that one-on-one connection online. Another option is to have video testimonials or product tutorials. It could also be a demo your product in use or a video case study of how you turned around a company’s website or landing pages.
• User interface: Ensure that your online identity is clutter-free, classy, and mirrors your brand language. If your brand is minimalist, make sure your website is just the same way. Similarly, ensure that everything your brand stands for is right on the home page, so that a person doesn’t have to go looking for what you are all about.
• More is less: Whether you are selling an ebook, an ecourse or a product, the more information you give about it, the better it is for the customer to make a buying decision. If it’s a book, outlining all the chapters in the book would give a sneak preview of what the reader can expect. Similarly, a product description should include every information, such as the size, the accompanying accessories, the various colours, and so on.

What are you waiting for? Still have some questions? You could check out our content marketing FAQs. Once satisfied, let us know about your business requirement, and we will customise the content strategy that works for you! Contact us now.

(This piece was originally published on Write Wing Media)