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4 minute read
Content marketing isn’t just about writing a great blog post (although that certainly helps). It’s more like an obstacle course, with a prize for those that finish the race. Imagine that you are one of those runners, what can you do to win the race? Here are 13 different strategies to your content marketing race to finish a winner:
Strategy 1: Enter the Right Race
This essentially means that if you are best at hurdles, then do hurdles. In other words, align your content marketing race to your strengths and goals. Not every piece of content serves the same function. Before you start, decide what is your goal? Then, choose the right type of content that serves that goal. Examples of some goals for content generation are:
Thought Leadership - Pick content that helps to inform people about your brand, your expertise, and that lead to high engagement.
Conversion - Create landing pages and sales offers. You also definitely want to create a sales funnel with your content to reach this goal.
Both Thought Leadership and Conversions - Use short pieces to attract attention for thought leadership and longer form content, like eBooks, for conversions.
Content for the Long Haul - This is like running a marathon versus a short race. To have endurance, you should use “Evergreen” content that shows no signs of aging.
Strategy 2: Pass the Baton
What is the baton online? It’s your keywords. Without keywords, search engines don’t understand what you’re talking about or who to send your way. Your content needs to optimized for specific keywords and themes to draw the right crowd. Keywords should appeal to your ideal market customer.
Strategy 3: Who Is the Favorite?
Trend-setters and trends are what drive traffic, so make sure to capitalize by offering up some of the favorite types of content your audience desires. If you can tell by viewing past traffic patterns on your own blog, you can go to places like Google Trends, Reddit, or Alltop, to find out what is in the lead so far and create content around the same topics.
Strategy 4: Promote Yourself
You got to go out there, just like regular athletes, and start to promote your content. Do guest postings, use a trailer video, or partner with others. Send out emails and newsletters to your fans (email subscribers) to keep them updated. Use paid advertising and mobile-based marketing campaigns.
Strategy 5: Be Uniquely You
Simone Biles said it best when she corrected someone telling he she was the next Michael Phelps. She informed them that no, she was “the first Simone Biles.” Similary, you have to be uniquely you to stand out from the crowd and claim your gold medal with your content. To do that you can:
- Do your own original research,
- Substantiate your thoughts with facts,
- Teach things through your unique viewpoint,
- Be the expert on that subject,
- Tell the story the way only you can.
Strategy 6: Make Headlines
Want star power? Then, be a star with your content. Create those headlines that make people sit up and notice your content. If you’re not sure what that is, go take a look at the content that draws your attention. You might notice it is clear, descriptive, and often provides solutions to problems people have in their lives.
Strategy 7: Be Personally Appealing
Have you ever noticed in the Olympics how the commentators always tell you a little bit about the athlete, making them seem human and more personable? These types of personal bits of information can be included in your content to make it more appealing too.
Strategy 8: Don’t Cheat
Besides the fact that you’ll end up disqualified in any race for cheating, it also conveys to people that you don’t have an honest and authentic character. In content marketing, that means you are not spamming people, you don’t pull black hat tricks, and you don’t make claims that aren’t true about yourself or your products and services. Always remain as transparent as possible, and that reputation will help sell your products.
Strategy 9: Look Professional At All Times
Athletes dress up for their roles and so should you and your content. If you’re competing in the Olympics of content marketing, make sure to put on the spangled, sparkly, suit. It gives you an air of credibility and authority. Your content should always look professional and include appealing images. Layouts should be clean and crisp, with bold headlines and be in an easy-to-read, even skim, format.
Strategy 10: Tell Your Friends You’re Competing
Not only are your loyal friends and followers your best cheer squad, but they also can tell their friends and followers about your content too. To enable that behavior, make sure all your content is easy to share with “one-click” sharing buttons on blog posts that can easily post clips of it insocial networks like Facebook and Twitter. Use in-roll video links for more sharing and Click To Tweet as a tool for Twitter too.
Strategy 11: Track Your Progress
How will you know if you are ahead or behind in content marketing? Don’t just go by comments and shares. You need to actively track the URLs you use to share your content online by using shortening tools, like Bit.ly, that tell you where your links have gone and how many times they’ve been clicked.
Strategy 12: Get Out There and Do It
There is no shortcut to building up those race-winning muscles except get out there and start running. Similarly, you will learn a lot by just getting out there. Start promoting your content online with a plan in hand to win. Get a partner or coach to help with "workout" goals.
Strategy 13: Meet and Achieve Your Goals
At every step of the way, make sure you are getting the results you want and if not, make changes. Results can vary by audience, so keep in mind that what works for others may not work for your particular audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.
And please do us a little favor and share this article with others, for there’s a good chance that it will help them with their content marketing.