Business Strategies Column: Get Recognized Digitally
If you are running a business or just going to enter the market, then content marketing will help you with your marketing initiatives, according to Egor Blokhin. In the article “8 Must-Have Types of Content for Your Digital Strategy” he says that whether it’s an email newsletter or a corporate blog with thousands of articles, content marketing opens new opportunities for your business.
What are the main pillars of your content marketing strategy? What types of content should be must-have elements to make your business fly? Let’s dive deep into this question.
Videos
According to recent Google data, over 50% of readers who watch a product video are more likely to buy products and services advertised online. Video content has always been the king and remains the most demanded type of content on the Internet.
Is it worth mentioning how the popularity of YouTube and TikTok is off the charts? Since its launch in 2018, TikTok has maintained its position at the TOP of the most downloaded applications in the world, with a multi-million army of users.
There are no secrets to the popularity of video content – it is easiest for a person to perceive multimedia information. Therefore, no matter what your field of activity is, a creative approach to creating video content will significantly increase leads, sales, brand recognition, and traffic.
It’s best to create short and catchy videos, no matter how long your post is. Video content can perfectly support your brand and highlight its benefits. A half-minute video will tell the consumer much more than a long article.
Live Broadcasts
Live broadcasts and streams are watched up to three times longer than traditional pre-made videos. They also create a feeling of direct participation in what is happening as if everything was happening next door. From a psychological point of view, this increases trust and interest in people and is better stored in their memory. It’s also a great way for brands to understand their audience and communicate with people openly.
Online conferences and seminars, webinars, training, master classes, and live communication – these types of interaction with your audience will become a must-have in any marketing strategy in 2021. So, if you want to make your content perform at its max, make sure that live broadcasts are a part of your content marketing strategy.
Infographics
Infographics are among the most used types of content marketing assets. They have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years.
Infographics are a marketing tool that brings together a lot of different information and can contain pictures, texts, graphics – just anything that can work for you. It accompanies the text and gives readers a clearer idea of what is being said. It is no wonder that users following directions with the text and illustrations do it 323% better than those who do the same just without illustrations.
Visual data is becoming more popular thanks to the ability to take good pictures and videos using cameras on smartphones. Marketers explain the reasons for the popularity of infographics as follows:
- It makes posts more readable and draws additional attention;
- It reflects important issues;
- It brightens messages and removes monotony;
- It is accessible to everyone and conveys information easily.
- It adds persuasiveness to text.
So, the next time you work on a landing page for your corporate website or want to start a blog, sit down and think about the main points and key ideas you want to deliver to your audience. Create infographics that best deliver the target information.
Interview With Experts
There are key opinion leaders in every industry. These are people who have thousands of followers – fans, readers, subscribers. Any information about them is always in demand. People wait for it, read it with pleasure, and then share it with friends.
Therefore, interviewing a key opinion leader or an expert in the industry is a great way to attract the attention of your target audience. For any entrepreneur, this is a great opportunity to get targeted traffic and gain respect and recognition.
Messengers And Chatbots
Social media applications and messengers have become not only platforms for entertainment but also channels of communication between people and brands. Not only is it a way of direct contact with companies but also a way to do highly personalized marketing, which allows for:
- Building close relationships;
- Talking about your business, products, and services;
- Increasing sales rates;
- Making your audience more active;
- Maintaining customer relationships.
All these tasks can be solved with the help of an established marketing system in messengers and chatbots. Of course, email marketing copes with similar tasks. However, chatbots and messengers allow for a more personalized approach.
Case Studies
Customer cases are one of the best ways to convince customers that you can solve their problems in a quality manner. After all, it is through cases that you tell about your experience or about the experience of your clients. Case studies go hand in hand with how-to articles. The only difference is that the latter talks about various tips that help to solve a certain problem, whereas the former is more about the application of these steps in practice.
Cases are great for social proof in the service industry. You can show a client’s results before and after using the service or product as well as tell exactly what you did to achieve the result. As practice shows, readers willingly share a good case study on social networks, which allows them to attract new targeted traffic for you.
Content Optimized For Voice Search
According to recent data, more than 30% of people in the United States use Google Assistant and Siri every day to quickly find the information they need on the Internet. Marketers predict that this number will grow to 50% in 2021.
This means that now the content on sites needs to be adapted for convenient voice search as well. To do this, it is important to enable the use of long-tail search queries and shift the angle to the use of interrogative key phrases. This will allow you to diversify your audience and reach a new market share level.
Personalized Advertising
People are tired of seeing random advertisements that have nothing to do with their actual interests and needs. This forces us to switch channels during commercial breaks and buy paid subscriptions to turn them off.
Therefore, traditional commercials have become ineffective. Most Internet users and marketers claim that personalized ads generate more interest and desire in people to go to a brand’s page and make a purchase.
Marketers have already started to actively use new tools to personalize advertising content. Therefore, you should rethink your strategy to stay in the advertising trend if you have not already started doing it.
Now that you know everything about the types of digital content, let’s summarize what we have talked about.
First, you should mix up different types of content. The more diverse your content is, the more traffic it will bring. Don’t be afraid to test.
Create a content plan. Any business loves structure and discipline, so create a content plan ahead of time and stick to it. This will help avoid posting random content for the sake of it.
Implementing any of the approaches in your marketing strategy requires careful analytics, target audience research, planning, and elaboration.
Michael Hammond is the founder and president of NexLevel Advisors. NexLevel provides solutions in business development, strategic selling, marketing, public relations and social media. A seasoned technology executive, Michael brings close to two decades of leadership, management, marketing, sales and technical product and services experience. His expertise spans start-ups to multi-billion dollar corporations, running businesses, business units, marketing, sales, strategy and product and services organizations. Michael brings exceptional insight, leadership, passion, and strategies that create profitability.