Companies don’t make money on the things they produce; they make banks when those things are consumed. And for people to read your stuff in this day and age, you’re going to need much more than just writing words.
That’s why you see so many people sharing 10 posts a day on their Facebook and the only person who likes their posts is their grandma.
Why? Because they fail to execute content marketing in the most effective ways possible.
And businesses that have mastered the art of content marketing are far better off than Jack who’s still doing business like it’s 2010.
Keeping that in mind, we’ve prepared this in-depth guide on how to master content marketing and how to distribute content across different platforms. This will allow you to save your time, energy, and money in trial and error and help you harness the full potential of content marketing in the shortest time possible.
So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is all about creating authentic content that solves a problem(s) in people’s lives.
And businesses that use this are on track to establish themselves as an authority in an industry. The motive behind it is to win the trust of people, nurture the relationship, and eventually sell them their products.
This type of marketing can be done across many formats, including but not limited to blog posts, podcasts, videos, ebooks, social media posts, infographics, etc.
But it gives birth to a question…
Do you Still Need Content Marketing in the Age of A. I?
Yes.
No matter how much science or A. I make progress by leaps and bounds, humans will still face problems and they’ll need a solution for that. So, it doesn’t matter if it’s 2024 or 2030, the need for quality content will never be over.
Interesting, right?
Now, let’s get to the meat of how content marketing will help your business in 2024 and beyond.
- Build Trust and Authority
When you post original and high-quality content solving real problems, people feel a sense of connection with you. This plants a seed of trust in people.
When your content actually helps them, they compare you to everyone else they’ve come across in your industry.
Then they start looking at you as the go-to person and will happily buy your products or services.
- Builds Brand Presence
Generally speaking, human nature operates on reciprocity. When people get great value out of you, their natural response is to give you something in return.
In this case, they tend to share your work with others. That’s the basis of referrals and word-of-mouth. Congratulations! Now you’ve got free marketing. The more people know about your business, the more it will flourish.
- Improves Your Ranking on Search Engine
Whether it’s Google, Bing, or Yahoo, search engines tend to reward websites that consistently put valuable and high-quality content. Once your website ranks on the first page of any search engine, your brand will get enormous visibility and traffic without spending anything on ads.
- Generates Leads and Sales
And finally, when you attract the right type of people to your website and help them with targeted content, a good percentage of them will eventually turn into paying customers.
Now that we’ve covered why it is important, let’s dive into the strategies that are the backbone of effective content marketing.
Essential Strategies for Maximizing the Impact of Content Marketing
It sounds easy to write something and copy and paste that across all your socials. Boom! Marketing done right. Done and dusted.
Except, it doesn’t work like this. Pulling this off involves a blend of creativity, understanding your audience’s demographics (age, location, interests, cultural nuances), knowing their journey, analyzing the data you gather at every step along the way, and using it to make informed decisions.
That said, let’s explore the essential strategies that will allow you to maximize the impact of your content marketing.
1. Define Your Audience and Create Detailed Buyer Personas
A common pitfall in content marketing is creating generic content that fails to resonate with any specific audience. To avoid this, the first step is to clearly define who your audience is, and what they want in life, and outline a detailed buyer persona.
Buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers. For example, how old they are, how they live everyday life, how deep they’re in the problem and how badly they want a solution.
This persona is based on real data about customer demographics, behaviour patterns, motivations, goals, and challenges. Once you outline your avatar, you’ll be able to craft content that directly addresses your audience’s pain points resulting in higher conversions and more sales.
If you don’t understand your audience’s pain points, they won’t even read or watch what you’ve got to say..
So…
How to Create a Buyer Persona?
- Conduct research through surveys. Interview your current customers, take their feedback, and give them an incentive to do a survey.
- If you don’t have an existing customer base, you should gain insights from social media groups and web forums. Go where your customers are talking about their problems and observe their buying patterns.
Meaning, how other products have failed to give them the promised outcome and what objections they might have that would prevent them from buying your product. This research will give you enough data to get started.
2. Create a Marketing Strategy with a Fine-Tooth Comb
Now that you have created a buyer persona, the next step is to go through your objectives with a fine-tooth comb. In other words, what message do you want to convey?
How would you say x on FB versus how would you say the same thing on Twitter considering the type of audience you have on each platform? It will give you clarity on what’s working on your socials and what’s not working and you’ll be able to make informed decisions accordingly.
3. Produce High-Quality & Evergreen Content
According to Forbes, you see around 4,000 to 10,000 ads daily.
Do you read or watch every single one of them?
No, right?
Because either a copywriter didn’t hook you with a punch-in-the-gut opening statement.
Or the ads weren’t relevant to you.
So, if you don’t start off strong, people will scroll past your Facebook posts in the blink of an eye.
To make things worse, now every Tom, Dick, and Harry is an “influencer.” Everyone and their mom are self-proclaimed experts, so it’s hard to find authentic content on the internet.
And if your content is refreshing, meaningful, and has an impact, you’re going to build a lasting relationship with your audience.
Best Practices for High-Quality Content
- Research is Your Best Friend in the Business
Thanks to clickbait stuff, users now have a hard time trusting content creators. They know it’s a trap therefore, “This will solve 90% of your problems” doesn’t stick anymore.
So your best bet is to back everything with claims, expert opinions, and research to establish credibility.
- Use Storytelling
Humans forget 40% of the new information in as little as 20 minutes. However, tell 10 stories, and people may remember three or more, months or even years later.
Why?
Because people resonate with stories.
Narrating a curiosity-driven story is the single most powerful vehicle to convey your message and win over potential customers.
- Make it Easy-to-Read
Use headings and bullet points in your writing. Split long paragraphs into short ones. Generally speaking, your paragraph should consist of three sentences. Four at most.
The longer your paragraph is, the more cluttered it looks, and the more difficult it is for people to read. And they’ll probably stop reading. Congratulations! You just lost a potential customer.
4. Distribute Your Content Across Multiple Channels
Make sure to leverage social media to its full potential. If someone follows you on Instagram and not on Facebook, they won’t get to see what you share on Facebook.
I’m not saying you should copy and paste everything across your socials.
The reason is that your audience on LinkedIn is probably more sophisticated than that on TikTok or Instagram. The latter won’t get the message meant for the former and if they cannot grasp it, they most likely won’t think twice before unfollowing you.
So, make some tweaks in the messaging for it to resonate with the right people.
5. Repurpose and Refresh Existing Content
One of the optimum ways to maximize the impact of content marketing is to repurpose old content. For example, you can take a video and turn it into a series of blog posts.
You can also merge different articles into an e-book or a how-to guide. This will enable you to create quality content while utilizing something that’s been done before.
In a Nutshell
No matter what business you’re in, content marketing will always stay in demand for both online businesses (sometimes offline as well). And not adapting this in 2024 and beyond is like a digital suicide that’ll kill a lot of opportunities for you and your business.
Got any questions? Drop it in the comments below.