When it comes to developing a content marketing strategy and producing original content, it can be difficult to cut through the noise and determine which content marketing strategy is the right fit for your business. If you feel like your current content isn’t reaching the right people or achieving your goals, it may be time to rethink your messaging and explore and experiment with some different types of digital content.
#1: Blog Postings
A blog allows you to establish yourself as a subject matter expert and help your brand repeatedly connect with people. If your business is continuously releasing useful blogs that resonate with your audience and provide value, your brand will stay top-of-mind when they need information about a subject related to your product or service.
At least posting one high-quality content piece a month is a good starting point. Highly suggested to release a couple of blogs a month or start thinking about adding additional types of content and elements to your blogs, like images, videos, or other types of content that can reach your target audience in different ways.
#2: Social Media Posts
Being active on various social media platforms gives your brand the opportunity to build relationships with your audience. Consistent social media presence can make your brand more visible to your customers, and it can keep you on their minds more frequently.
Social media is another tool that can drive website traffic. This is the perfect setting to share other content marketing strategies you have in place, especially your helpful blogs. With any contents you post on social media, be sure your post has a link back to a relevant page on your website.
#3: Free Guides & Information
By giving away a little of your expertise, it will generally give people the information they’re looking for to reach out and contact you. Readers are not necessarily reading about a topic because they want to do it themselves, but because they want to know more about the process before hiring it to be done.
By sharing what some people would consider too much, the user views your brand as straightforward and transparent about your work, incentivizing them to be your customer.
#4: Podcasts
If your company has the time and resources to produce consistent content, consider starting a podcast or webinar to establish yourselves as the experts on a specific subject matter.
Podcasts don’t have to be very long in order to be effective. In fact, it could be important to keep your outline short and sweet so you don’t lose your audience’s interest in the middle of your podcast and your voice talent doesn’t feel the need to fill time with unnecessary information. Another important thing to remember when getting started with podcasts, is this type of content is expected to be released regularly, at the same day and time each day, week or designated time period you choose.
#5: Videos
A video can engage an audience like no other content can, and people love this type of content right now. If your business isn’t taking advantage of video yet, you’ll want to try something soon so you don’t fall behind the trend.
Video is a fantastic way to showcase your knowledge by demonstrating some of your business processes and explaining what you do to others. Many service industry businesses can benefit from educational content like this. An example is to make a simple time-lapse video of your process, if it’s something viewers would be interested in watching. We’ve used educational and how-to video as a content strategy for a number of our clients and have seen fantastic results.
#6: User Generated & Curated Content
When you have customers engaging with your brand, it is great to take advantage of that and share it! Firsthand testimonials, interviews and other user generated content build your brand’s reputation.
People don’t just want to hear from you about how great you are, so it’s more convincing when the positive information comes from someone else. This type of content can be informal, and businesses can simply share a positive review or ask a customer for a quick interview about their experience with the brand. With customer reviews becoming more prevalent in the decision-making process, this could be a great way to easily provide potential customers with that information.