Content Marketing, What is it?

For better or worse, our society demands instant gratification. Users selectively consume content whether it’s fast-forwarding through commercials, skipping over Snapchat stories, or swiping right to indicate interest on a dating app without a second thought. We are super-browsers, and we quickly adopt and discard information with lightning speed.

Although target audiences are more accessible than ever before, these content-heavy online environments present a unique challenge for marketers’ efforts to be recognized. Luckily, a content marketing plan can help you reach the right person, with the right message, in a way that is helpful to both your business and the clients.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a way to attract and retain clients by producing and delivering beneficial content that appeals to your target customer.

Here are the three key goals to keep in mind when developing your plan:

1. Grab people’s attention
2. Provide a reason for them to care
3. Encourage them to act (and see results)

Attention-grabbing tactics

Develop infographics

These use illustrations and eye-catching statistics to explain a concept, process or topic. Infographics not only provide valuable information, but the stunning visuals capture people’s attention among a sea of text-based social media posts. Infographics are also great for simplifying complicated subject matters so audiences understand and are compelled to share.

Build trust and relationships through video

Videos present an incredible opportunity to humanize your brand. With apps like Snapchat and the newly-released Insta-Stories, as well as classic sites like YouTube, you can introduce your team establishing a connection with your community.

Many bloggers and online influencers do this very well and create a sense of friendship with their readers. Merritt Beck of The Style Scribe uses video to get to know her followers on Snapchat, her preferred platform (username: merrittbeck). In addition to recording herself giving tips and tutorials about beauty, cooking, exercise and fashion, she simply chats to the camera as she goes about her day. This intimate glimpse into her private life makes Beck highly relatable and gives her readers a chance to see her come to life off the pages of her blog.

Through Snapchat stories, Beck has built a community of people who genuinely trust and respect her. Therefore, when she recommends a product to buy or a class to take, it’s almost like she’s a friend making a recommendation instead of someone trying to make a sale. As a result, major brands have taken notice, entering into partnerships with Beck to help generate sales.

Give Them a Reason to Care

A large part of the online social experience is to connect with others who are sharing opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics.

Before publishing any content, put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask: “Does this pass the ‘who cares?’ test?” Essentially, confirm that every post will make your audience think, provide information they wouldn’t otherwise have, and/or share a new perspective they may not have previously considered.

Start by monitoring and listening online to determine what your audience needs.  Compare these insights to the content you’re aiming to publish and make sure it is helpful, and addresses what they like, or lack and want to know more about.

Tap into human psychology

There’s a real human with feelings, thoughts and emotions reading your content. Leverage this fact to powerfully connect with them. How does your content creation apply to someone’s life and how does that make him or her want to act? 

You know what your clients are passionate about so create content that speaks and adds value to those subjects. You can approach this from a few different angles.

• Emotional: storytelling that evokes strong feelings, which can be sadness, love, anger, frustration or happiness, among others.
• Intellectual: sharing facts, statistics and peer-reviewed information that strengthens the argument you’re trying to make.
• Shock: leverage jaw-dropping current events or reveal behind-the-scenes information that commands audience’s attention and likely generates powerful user-generated responses.
• Urgency: communicate immediate action is needed on the reader’s part in order to influence change. Procrastination is a powerful motivator, and if your audience knows time is of the essence, they are more likely to act quickly.

Earn Action

By pairing these psychological approaches with strong calls-to-action, you have an opportunity to captivate your audience, which often leads to spontaneous engagement.

The next step is to ensure that content creation and marketing is a good use of your time. To do so, you must measure effectiveness by gauging audience response. Did the audience do what you asked them to do? To check, ensure you have powerful calls-to-action (CTA) embedded in the content. Additionally, you may embed hyperlinks within a blog or webpage, highlighting a buzzword which suggests that if clicked, the reader will be directed to more information on the topic. When users respond to the action, you can track their journey on your site and see which information resonates best.

Examples of measureable CTAs include:

• Click here to learn more: drive traffic to your website
• Buy now (and save): increase sales and highlight special promotions
• Sign up for our e-newsletter: capture your audience’s attention in their inbox and promote your thought leadership through email marketing
• RSVP to an event: track the number of parties interested and committed to attending your event online or in person.

The bottom line is: in a fast-paced world of content creation, make your work something people want to consume and seek out, not avoid. Try implementing these best practices in your editorial calendar production, and send me a tweet or leave a comment to let me know how it goes.