A flawless content marketing strategy is hard to come by. Though it’s an essential part of your content marketing system, the practice undergoes frequent changes, which means that sometimes even the best content marketing tips go out of style very quickly.
That said, we’ve spoken with some experts in the field who shared their top content marketing tips. They discuss everything from why it’s prudent to think like a journalist to the power of storytelling in your posts.
1. Ask Customers Outright
A really successful tactic we’ve had is documenting questions from contact forms and incoming calls and answering them on our blog. You want to mimic the language that your audience is using, so they can best understand the solutions and information you’re providing. By analyzing commonly asked questions from these sources, we were able to identify the content our audience was looking for and help others who are most likely searching similar queries.
Ciara Hautau
Lead Digital Marketing Strategist
Fueled
2. Repurpose Your Content
One of the best content marketing tips for getting the most out of your content marketing is to repurpose it. If you have a video, you can post it on multiple social media platforms. The same video can appear on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and your website.
In addition, you can take the audio from that video and put out a podcast. On top of that, you can have a service transcribe the video so you can have the text you can use to blog, tweet, or post about on just about any platform, from Medium to Twitter.
That’s an approach that Gary Vaynerchuk is known for doing. It’s brilliant because it lets you get a considerable amount more visibility for the content you produce. That recipe will help keep your brand top of mind to customers, so they are more likely to tell others about you and buy what you have to offer.
Lewis Goldstein
President
Blue Wind Marketing
3. Prioritize Authenticity and Speak with Customers
Re-evaluate your social platforms. If you haven’t updated your social media strategy recently, it’s time to reevaluate your platforms based on your audience. Instagram and YouTube for millennials. Facebook for older demographics. Twitter and LinkedIn for corporate professionals. It’s important to have a presence across at least 2-3 but pick one to really engage on.
You should also prioritize authenticity. Consumers no longer respond to traditional marketing strategies. Be confident as the face of your brand, highlight your team members, support the local community and demonstrate the values you stand for.
Also, remember to make it a conversation. Don’t talk at your online audiences. Ask questions, get to know them, request feedback and opinions.
Keep in mind that we don’t own our social media either. But we do own our email lists. Focus on driving social traffic to your website and offer a free resource to turn site visitors into email subscribers. You can reach them with more relevant content when you know more about them.
Lastly, invest in a content strategy expert. If your website, social profiles, and other marketing material don’t look cohesive, it’s time to bring in an expert so that no matter where your audience finds you, they recognize your content.
Meg Ehman
Founder
MWE Creative
4. Zero in on Customer Intent
My tip for businesses trying to strengthen their content marketing efforts is knowing which type of content to focus on. For this purpose, I recommend the following process:
For each targeted query/keyword that you’re looking to rank for, try to come up with possible user intents behind that query. If there’s more than one possible intent, divide them into three categories: more likely, less likely, and very unlikely intents.
Create content that comprehensively addresses an intent that’s more likely. Google tends to prioritize results that provide a satisfactory amount of content for a more likely intent.
For example, it’s very unlikely that a web page with the history of pizza will rank in the top positions for the query “pizza”. The reason is that the intents to look for pizza places nearby or to look for pizza delivery are much more likely than the intent to know about the history of pizza. Even if your page provided a very comprehensive amount of content about the history of pizza, it wouldn’t rank in the top positions because it would be addressing an intent that is considered less likely.
Danilo Godoy
Founder
Search Evaluator
5. Quality, Not Quantity
If you want to create great content for marketing, the key is quality, not quantity. One of the most common mistakes of marketers is to produce huge amounts of low-quality content instead of focusing on producing articles that are genuinely good.
With the energy you’re putting into writing lots of low-quality articles, you could create a single piece of content that’s better than anything else out there. Writing something that’s more in-depth, presented more clearly, and better written will put your article and site ahead of the competition.
It’s no longer good enough just to have an article on a subject if you want your content marketing strategy to work. It has to be a great article. So, don’t take a scattergun approach and try to write about everything. Target the subjects where you can write something in-depth and insightful.
If your content isn’t better than what’s already out there, your efforts are likely to go unrewarded and ignored by search engines.
Sam Orchard
Creative Director
Edge of the Web
6. Create Your Own IP
Create your own IP by leveraging data available from the provision of your product or service, or data aggregated from customers and users (or others). Ideally, it’s data no one else has or can easily collect, from which the conclusions you draw will interest —and hopefully surprise—the target market and media.
It’s a fantastic way to generate awareness, media coverage sales and funding interest. JD Power & Associates’ entire business is built on this idea.
I successfully did this while running marketing for an IT security startup. We analyzed A/B data from testing the conversion effect of our website security trustmark. Conclusions and implications contained in the Digital Window Shopping Report completely surprised the eCommerce industry because the then-prevailing industry belief was that shopping cart abandonment was bad; our research proved it wasn’t because many return to buy.
It was new, provocative and generated tons of media coverage over three years in the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. In fact, it became an annual industry barometer. This marketing creates proprietary content that companies can own and merchandize in dozens of ways for both sales and marketing ends.
Nigel Ravenhill
Marketing Consultant
nigelravenhill.com
7. Don’t Forget Video and Mobile
Utilize the free tool Answer The Public to stay on top of the current trend of questions being asked around your keyword or phrase. Google ranks search results based on user intent and Answer The Public pulls the curtain back on what internet users are asking/searching for.
Also, design for fat fingers. Sixty percent of all Google searches are done on mobile devices. Touch screen navigation can lead to accidental clicks on buttons if designed too small or located in the way of a finger trying to scroll down the page.
Lastly, start creating content that’s optimized specifically for YouTube. YouTube is the world’s 2nd largest search engine and is two times more popular than Bing. Google also owns YouTube and showcases YouTube videos high in search results. Say your keyword several times in your video and immediately at the beginning as YouTube transcribes videos.
Aiden Angeli
Founder
Ripe Marketing
8. Think Like Your Customer
My number one tip for any business attempting to grow their brand using content marketing is to write content that your audience is already searching for. Instead of trying to assume what your audience wants, do the research beforehand so that you can pump out high-quality content that you know your audience will love. Not only will this produce faster results, but it will also save time and money as you won’t need to experiment as much.
On top of that, try to create content that solves a problem. If your free content can successfully help someone solve an issue they’re having, that builds trust and authority in your niche.
Dylan Houlihan
Founder
Swift Salary
9. Go Beyond Answering Questions
One bit of advice that I give to all of my clients trying to improve their content marketing efforts is to provide some additional value beyond the answer to the question. For nearly every question out there, there is always something you can create such as a PDF guide, Word Doc templates, Excel templates, etc. These little things really help a reader get on their way to solving their problem and makes them more likely to return and read your other content.
Ryan Scollon
Digital Marketing Consultant
ryanscollon.co.uk
10. Attack the Competition
Every experienced blogger and content marketer that I’ve met has gone through the same transition. They started publishing lots of content while brainstorming topics. Then, they filled the gaps with newly discovered keyword clusters that they didn’t already mention. At some point, they realized that they needed backlinks. They also found out that the majority of published pages get no traffic, or have search terms with no buyer intent.
A few months, or even years later, they end up with roughly the same successful strategy. That is, go straight after the competition. Thoroughly audit and examine the top-performing pages and keywords on other people’s websites. Focus on the sites that are strictly niche-related, and get decent traffic to commercially viable pages. The audit can get done with SEO software such as Ahrefs or SEMRush. You’ll be amazed to see that there are usually only a few pages responsible for almost all the organic traffic.
From there, recreate a version of these pages, but make them better in every way that you can. Make sure that you cover the results of the trial and error of your competitors, but ensure that your page deserves to be number one in search.
Jason Lavis
Managing Director
Out of the Box Innovations Ltd.
11. Offer Exclusive Content to Subscribers
I think with an ROI of 4,400%, email is still one of the most powerful marketing channels. If you aren’t offering exclusive content to your subscribers, you’re missing out. In fact, a study showed that segmented campaigns produced a 760% increase in revenue.
Utilizing that along with writing relevant, actionable and longer content (which, as we know, performs better in Google) can be really powerful for your business. While doing all this, don’t forget to develop content marketing goals. What are you trying to accomplish with your content strategy? Is it more sales in the next 90 days. Is it brand awareness? Keep all this in mind and you’re on your way to a killer content marketing strategy.
Mikolaj Ziemianek
Digital Marketing Assistant
App Institute
12. Be Consistent
My main tip for businesses looking to strengthen their content marketing would be to strive for consistency. Having a publishing calendar which you regularly monitor and update will not only help you organize your time more effectively, but it will help build a reader base.
A consistent approach with regular, new content:
- encourages search engines to visit your website
- builds visits from your newsletters, SoMe and RSS Feed
- keeps existing audience reading and engaging with your business
Ben Culpin
Content Marketer
WakeupData
13. Tap Into Pain Points
It’s getting more important to move from single keywords to topic clusters. Since the Google algorithm is constantly improving, content marketers should change their tactics as well.
Identify your strongest blog posts and research keywords around a similar topic. These topics might have fewer searches but will have an impact on the overall topic ranking. You can even treat each topic cluster as a microblog. This is not only good for your SEO, but can also position you as a thought leader in a niche field.
At the same time, readers now spend less time on pages and it’s crucial to follow simple steps to turn your content into a lead generation tool.
- When outlining answers within lists, paragraphs or tables use a ‘verb’ at the start to ensure it’s punchy and answers the question when scanned over on smaller devices.
- Include FAQs and how, what, where, why terms into headers and subheaders to make the content more digestible.
- In longer posts, reinstate the steps and emphasis of the post within subheaders.
David Hoos
Director of Marketing
The Good
14. Focus on Topic Clusters
It’s getting more important to move from single keywords to topic clusters. Since the Google algorithm is constantly improving, content marketers should change their tactics as well.
Identify your strongest blog posts and research keywords around a similar topic. These topics might have fewer searches but will have an impact on the overall topic ranking. You can even treat each topic cluster as a microblog. This is not only good for your SEO, but can also position you as a thought leader in a niche field.
At the same time, readers now spend less time on pages and it’s crucial to follow simple steps to turn your content into a lead generation tool.
- When outlining answers within lists, paragraphs or tables use a ‘verb’ at the start to ensure it’s punchy and answers the question when scanned over on smaller devices.
- Include FAQs and how, what, where, why terms into headers and subheaders to make the content more digestible.
- In longer posts, reinstate the steps and emphasis of the post within subheaders.
Pavel Gertsberg
Head of Growth
Disciple Media
15. Plan Things
First, have a plan. Content marketing lays on the foundation of trust of your readership that you’ll provide useful content regularly. Create an outline for your content at least six months in advance, and create a publishing schedule. Blog posts twice a week, always at the same time, can become a great contribution to your general marketing strategy.
Second, jump in when the opportunity arrives. Besides the schedule that you should stick to, look for opportunities to jump in with your thoughtful content whenever an opportunity arises. This is a great way to gain visibility with your content and to use the buzz for your advantage. On the other hand, your community will know that you’re there for them when extraordinary things happen that you’ll be relevant when chiming in.
Lastly, make content pillars. Content pillars are long pieces of content that extensively cover specific topics. They typically come in the form of e-books. As such, they are a great way to gain more subscribers to your business mailing list (you can offer free eBook and deliver it to people’s inboxes, after which you get to keep their address for future send outs). Content pillars are also a great way to prove your devotion and expertise in the topic, creating even stronger trust of your customers.
Nick Galov
Marketer, Co-Founder
review42.com
16. Make Your Own Tool
Content marketing is a long term strategy, but there’s one thing you can do that doesn’t require a lot of resources, can be done quickly, and brings results.
It’s about creating a simple tool that helps your target audience do something related to your industry. For example, if you’re in the women’s health niche, you could make an online calculator for ovulation cycles, delivery dates, etc. Another example would be an online loan calculator from a certain bank.
It’s a lot easier to promote a free tool rather than a blog post, a landing page or a video. Plus, making these tools is very cheap in relation to the results they can make.
Find a problem simple enough to be broken down into a few inputs and do the work to make it presentable and eye-catching.
Aleksandar Pesic
SEO and Content Manager
Market Republic
17. How to Tackle Each Stage
Before:
- Choose your topic. Make sure it’s one that resonates with your target audience. It’s best if you give the reader something, not ask for something. Give them tips or knowledge that will help them make their lives easier, don’t just talk about how great your company is.
- Define your purpose. Think about what you want the purpose and outcome of your communication to be. What do you want your audience to feel after they’ve read your content, or what action do you want them to take?
During:
- Write an attention-grabbing title. Lists of 3, 5, and 10 go over very well. How to… is another great beginner. Get your point across succinctly and pique interest.
- Use an active voice. This just means the subject of the sentence acts upon its verb. The structure is subject, verb, object. It’s an easy way to read, making it a great way to write.
- Don’t use fancy words. Even if your audience is well-educated and savvy about your topic, your goal is to make your content easily digestible. They’ll be more impressed that you can communicate a complex topic simply than if you show off how much jargon you know.
- Include a call-to-action. Always include a call-to-action at the end of your content, including a way to contact you. Don’t ever put the reader in a position of wanting to contact you and having to go looking for the information.
After:
- Always review. Review your content to determine if you’ve communicated the knowledge, perceptions and emotions you want to. Have a colleague review it as well, to see if they experience the takeaway you planned.
- Check the analytics. Are people clicking on it? Sharing it? The more you can do to track engagement, the better you will be able to choose topics and build a strong content strategy for future projects.
Crissibeth Cooper
Director of Marketing
KNB Communications
18. Tell a Story
The most important thing when it comes to content marketing is to tell stories. People buy emotionally and then justify the decision intellectually. Stories are the best way to create an emotional connection with your readers. On top of getting people emotional, a story will also help the reader to engage with the content and keep reading. If you make it too much about the ‘content’ or the ‘value’ it makes it harder for the readers to engage.
The goal is to get people to remember you. Throwing out the tactics and value is great, but the story is what will make it stick.
Justin Stephens
Owner
justindcstephens.com
19. Recruit Good People and Invest in New Ideas
Conduct an audit of the assets you have. Expert content marketers know how to look for content under every possible metaphorical stone. Identify what content is currently effective for your business, and what you will want to “invest” in for the future.
You should also have a team that knows what to do with your assets. Content marketing is more than blogging or posting to social media. Content can live in multiple places – YouTube, Facebook, Blog, Instagram and more. Often, the same message is communicated in multiple ways across multiple platforms with a different approach. There needs to a protocols of who owns what, when and where.
Also, remember to continually invest in new ideas and formats. The only constant with content is change. The critical piece of content marketing strategy to remember it’s ongoing. Stay current with best practices!
Lorrie Thomas Ross
Marketing Expert
Web Marketing Therapy
20. Low Volume, Low Difficulty, High Intent
My top tip for content marketers is not to go after high-volume keywords. We’re in a fairly competitive industry and finding keywords that gets lots of search volume and that have low keyword difficulty is almost impossible. Instead, focus on low-volume keywords which have high intent and are easy to target.
For us, those keywords relate directly to our product. Our top keyword is “Slack alternative”, which gets a moderate amount of traffic, but the people who search for it have a high intent of trying out our product.
These keywords bring in the majority of traffic to our blog and they’re the source of the majority of our customers at the moment. Go for low volume, low difficulty and high intent.
Olga Mykhoparkina
CMO
Chanty
21. Think Like a Journalist
You keep hearing that readers want content that’s relevant, trustworthy, and authentic. Using journalistic techniques can make it happen. For example:
- Be of service. Don’t just publish news or opinions. Make sure the content you develop has service, meaning information or advice that readers can use right now to improve their businesses, their relationships, etc.
- Verify experts. If you use SMEs in your content, verify them to make sure they are who they say they are, and that they’re not just trying to sell your audience something. Also, don’t take their bios at face value. Are they really “the foremost supplier or X” or “the nation’s leading Y”? If you can’t verify it, take it out.
- Be friendly. Use a reader-friendly style instead of stilted, jargony writing. Use contractions, avoid $10 words, and avoid the passive voice.
- Check the facts. Double-check stats, facts, and spelling of names.
- Use primary sources. Go to the original source for facts, studies, statistics, etc. instead of giving your reader second-hand (or third-hand!) information.
I learned these rules as a journalist for top newsstand magazines, and they’ve served me well in creating content that resonates with my clients’ readers.
Linda Formichelli
Founder & Creative Director
Hero’s Journey Content, LLC
Turning Content Marketing Tips into a Winning Strategy
We hope these content marketing tips proved useful for your business and strategy. What method do you find works best for your business? Whatever you decide to do, always make sure you’re tracking your progress and analyzing the data for every piece of content to see if it’s working.
Whether it’s Thought Leadership or Guest Posting, you want to make sure you can arrive at the best results consistently, or at the least, understanding why a given tip doesn’t work for you.
David is the Founder and Director of article-writing.co, the fastest-growing content creation agency in North America. He has transformed companies by offering high-quality content that has impacted their SEO ranking, revitalized websites with engaging and industry-relevant blogs and website copy, and championed successful email campaign copy.
