Do you know how to make great content? And what can you do to make sure your content is always high-quality?
In this post, we will see what goes into creating high-quality content like blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc. And how to create a content marketing strategy that works. Please read on.
When doing business online, you often hear that ‘content is king’. It highlights the importance of developing the right marketing collaterals and strategy, delivering actual results for your business.
According to HubSpot, SMBs that use content marketing get 126% more leads than those that don’t. They also say that 61% of online purchases directly result from a customer reading a blog.
These staggering stats show you need to generate great content that resonates with your target audience and motivates them to take the desired action you intended is important.
To boost your SEO rankings, gain traffic and/or leads, you need to have great content on your blog or website. Not only does it make a better website, but it can also positively affect your business.
Let’s look at what makes great content or high-quality content.
What is High-Quality Content?
Simply put, any piece of marketing collateral that achieves your business goals (e.g. drives traffic, higher Google search rankings, increased engagement or conversions) is high-quality content. You don’t base it on the time or money you spend creating it. All that matters is the value you get out of it no matter the type of content, e.g. text, audio, images or video.
The best way to know what type of marketing collaterals your customers will be happy to receive is to ask your customers! Click To TweetWhy is Content Important?
If you have a blog, vlog, podcast, or send newsletters; you will undoubtedly have faced the problem of generating a constant flow of fresh ideas for your content strategy.
Producing great pieces of content is on the front burner in recent times due to Google’s algorithm changes that promote websites with excellent content. And demote sites with poor pieces of content in its search engine result pages.
How to Create Great Content?
You likely don’t have the luxury of running mammoth sites like Huffington Post or BuzzFeed, where you have the privilege of producing different types of content from cat memes to videos on rocket science. So how do you create different types of content?
Here are five excellent ways:
Invest In Yourself
According to this article, investing in yourself is one of the best return on investments you can have. Whether it’s investing in learning a new skill, developing yourself personally or professionally, tapping into your creativity or hiring a coach, you need to give to yourself first before you can give to others.
This is especially important if you have a business where you sell your services. Because no one will invest in you until you invest in yourself first. Invest in yourself allows you to become the best version of yourself.
From a content marketing perspective, you must read books, attend seminars or webinars (because of the pandemic), etc. and note any ideas you derive and use it in your marketing.
If you plan on using UGC across your social media platforms, be sure to check with the creator on how they want to be credited on your various channels. Click To TweetGather your team members or trusted friends to brainstorm ideas. Question underlying assumptions and take a contrarian view when discussing with others to enable you to see things from a fresh perspective.
This new perspective will help you in writing or developing unique marketing collaterals.
Behind-the-Scenes Information
If you’re an extrovert and don’t mind showcasing your personality, you can consider giving your reader a peek into your daily life. The more authentic you are with this approach, the better.
Better yet, you can provide behind the scene information on your business processes or trade shows, seminars, webinars, etc.
Be transparent. Consider providing updates on projects you’re working on. Or (if you’re bold enough) you can open up about your failures and struggles to your reader. Share your personal interest and hobbies or those of your team members. Give your reader an inside look into your team!
People love to feel like they have the inside scoop. Therefore, this will let them see your business or product from a fresh perspective and help to humanise your brand in their eyes.
It will also provide your reader with the opportunity to ask questions about your company and the steps or qualities of everything that go into creating your product or service.
The informality of behind-the-scenes information marries perfectly with social media marketing’s sense of community by giving your audience on Facebook, etc., a peek at what your company is really like.
Since behind-the-scenes information can feel more genuine, it can go a long way in your content marketing plan to grab attention and establish trust with your audience.
You can use various tools for gathering online data from across the Web, from a select group of resources or people, or individual websites. Click To TweetCustomer/User-Generated Content
Customer or user-generated content (UGC) is any piece of content created by people, rather than brands. You can share UGC on your brand on your social media accounts, website, and other marketing channels.
The best way to know what type of marketing collaterals your customers will be happy to receive is to ask your customers!
Yes, talk to your existing customers in person or over the phone; solicit their feedback via emails, social media, your blog posts, etc.
Please get to know what attracted them to buy from you in the first place, what keeps them buying from you and what would keep them buying from you in the future.
Then you can turn their feedback into inspiration for the headline of your newsletters, blog posts, whitepapers, reports, slide presentations, videos and even webinars!
If you plan on using UGC across your social media platforms, be sure to check with the creator on how they want to be credited on your various channels. So seek their permission first before using anything they create. It’s better safe than sorry. You don’t want to end up in any legal battles over this. It isn’t good for business.
Repurpose/Repackage Your Existing Content
All that repurposing or repackaging means is taking what you’ve already produced and either putting a unique spin on it, changing its format, adding new ideas, or updating various types of content to bring additional value.
Do you have existing brochures, flyers, blog or website or visual content? Have you written an article for industry and association magazines, etc.?
If so, you already have a treasure trove of different types of content at your fingertips! Merely repackage it into a different format.
For instance, consider converting the information in your brochures and flyers to blog posts. If you have a blog, consider turning your favourite posts into eBooks, slide presentations, infographic, etc.
When converting your existing content into another format, do not do a word-for-word conversion.
Website owners interested in search engine optimisation (SEO) for their content have various tools to gather data on visitors to their site. Click To TweetInstead, breathe fresh life into your content and make it fresh by adding new data and information that has emerged since you created the original content. Pro tip: Google loves fresh content that displays your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.
Smart marketers repackage their content regularly to streamline their content creation process and squeeze more marketing juice from their efforts.
Using Online Tools
There is a slew of online tools in this digital age to streamline a range of functions, including project management, customer service, social media, email, content creation and marketing.
With the effective use of these online tools, (some of which are using machine learning or artificial intelligence), you can automate your content creation process and improve your content quality. This will cause long-term sustainable results to a very great extent.
You can use various tools for gathering online data from across the Web, from a select group of resources or people, or individual websites. Familiar search engines like Google and Bing are actually powerful online data gathering tools.
Website owners interested in search engine optimisation (SEO) for their content have various tools to gather data on visitors to their site. Inform visitors to your site of the information you are gathering on them. This will help your visitors feel comfortable about their online privacy.
Using online tools to keep abreast of industry news will help you generate fresh ideas for creating fresh content regularly.
Use tools like Google Alerts, Twitter Search, or social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and StumbleUpon(Mixx) to search for industry keywords and read relevant articles sources of inspiration for creating your pieces.
These are five sure-fire ways I recommend you use to generate great content in your inbound marketing efforts.
Do you still need more tips? Then check out this infographic below for additional tips.
Infographic
This infographic covers what to write when you are out of ideas.
Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.
Final Words
Writing great content is a choice. If you put in the time and work required to create it, you win. But if you choose to take the lazy path and write poor content, you lose.
Do you find generating content for your business too tricky and time-consuming? Do you need help with creating a never-ending stream of fresh content that can help you develop new customer opportunities? Contact our digital marketing agency in Nigeria for help!
Do you have any other tips that I did not mention above or you did not see in the infographic? Let me know. Connect with me on Twitter @ademolaabimbola or @mauconline.
If you appreciate this article, please share it with your friends and colleagues on your preferred social network using the buttons below. See you next time!
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