Content marketing is the process of creating written pieces, videos, and infographics in order to educate your audience and encourage them to buy from you. There are so many ways to use content to market your business that it can be overwhelming.
The good news is that there are a lot of tactics that work really well! Your results will depend not on “right” or “wrong” but rather on what your audience prefers. That’s why understanding your target customer is so important.
Interested in how to be successful with content marketing? Here are five must-know tactics that you can implement today.
Watch Your Language
I don’t mean swearing, necessarily. I mean that it’s essential to speak the same language that your audience does when it comes to describing the problems you solve. For instance, don’t use “self-care” if your audience talks about “me time.”
How do you find out what language your audience uses? Start by researching your competition’s popular posts. Pay some attention to what your competitors say, but mostly look at what the comments say. How do customers talk about the problems they have and what they hope to achieve with the product or service?
Second, take a look at online listings for products like yours. Look at both five-star and one-star reviews. What terms and phrases do customers use to describe their issues and desired results?
Once you’ve made a note of these things, use them in your marketing. Your audience will feel like you truly understand them and will be much more likely to buy from you.
Use Video and Infographics
People absolutely adore visual content. Video is exploding as a method of reaching your audience, and the average user will spend 88% more time on a website that uses video. Since you want people to engage with your website and continue to build a relationship with your brand, it’s a huge win.
Infographics are another important way to connect. You can communicate a lot of complex information quickly and easily with an infographic, and they are incredibly sharable. When people share your content online, you can build your audience and expand your reach at a rapid pace.
Written content is one way to communicate, but it’s far from the only way. Branch out into video and infographics!
Repurpose Existing Content
There’s no reason to start from scratch every time you need to create content. You almost certainly have a lot of existing material that you can reuse in different forms. For instance, do you have a blog post that you could use to create a video? Or a report that could be recapped in an infographic?
You probably have existing advertising material that you could turn into educational social media ads or educational pieces that could be turned into an opt-in gift to build your email marketing list. Creating content can be a big job, so don’t overlook what you already have.
If content marketing in general just seems like too big of a job considering the other work you have to do running your business, you’re not alone. Fortunately, you can connect with top SEO services in Toronto who can help you with optimized, consistent content.
Don’t Overextend Yourself
We all probably know at least one person who’s simply a flake. They are sometimes where they say they will be, and other times they don’t show. They may have a lame excuse or they may have no explanation at all.
Don’t be that flake when you’re marketing your business. Once you establish a presence on a particular platform, whether it’s your blog or a social media platform, stay with it! Be consistent and don’t disappear.
The key to this is to choose your platforms carefully. There’s nothing wrong with being active on only one social media platform if that’s what you can handle. It’s much worse to be on three but be inconsistent.
Promote the Content You Create
Finally, be sure that after you put all that effort into creating blog posts, videos, and graphics, that you promote it! After all, no one will have any idea what you’re doing unless you tell them.
Where do you share? Anywhere you can, but focus on platforms where your target audience spends the most time. This requires you to do some research on exactly who you want to reach and how you can do so.
You can share within social media groups you’re in or that you run, as long as you also interact in other ways. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and even Twitter can be great options. Also look into content promotion networks.
Don’t forget about your email list! You can use an email blast to share new content with your audience and invite them to forward it to their friends and associates as well. You can expand your reach by tapping the networks of your existing audience.
When you promote your content, you’ll get the benefits from it that you worked so hard for!
