At our last Hugoversity training session – once again brought to you through the power of Zoom – Head Girl Charlotte and Prefect Beth were on hand to help you keep your marketing content. Missed it? Not to worry, we’ve summarised the key points for you below.
Let’s start with a definition; Wikipedia describes content marketing as ‘a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online’. What form that content takes is up to you – it may be blogs and features or videos and animations, although we do have some figures later on that may make you think.
The most common reasons for your marketing being unhappy are not sharing enough content (or sharing it inconsistently), having no clear goal in mind and not being creative enough to stand out in a crowd.
And this is all something you need to avoid. Content is all about building relationships and creating trust in your brand, and the stats are clear; 70 per cent of marketers are actively investing in their content marketing, so you need to keep up.
So, what can you do to cheer your content up?
Diversification
Ok, you may have a Facebook page that you regularly update, but are you doing enough? Are you using everything at your disposal to make sure that content stands out, such as photos, videos or animation?
When you’re thinking of ways to diversify, it’s important to bear in mind your target audience; the younger generation are all about videos and photos, while if you’re targeting an older demographic, more traditional media, such as press releases and brochures, may work best.
If in doubt, ask – your audience can tell you how they prefer to receive their content, no guesswork needed!
Content tips
So, you know what sort of content you’ll be creating, but what are you going to fill it with?
You need to ensure any content you create has some intrinsic value to your customer. Will it make them laugh, or tell them something they didn’t know? Otherwise, it’s just noise.
It’s worth building SEO into your content strategy too; with Google most people’s first port of call for, well, anything, these days, you need to make sure you’re on at the top of those all-important results.
Sharing is caring
You’ve created this fabulous content, but how are you going to let people know?
Once again, you need to consider your target audience. Social media is still a great way to reach the younger generation, while an older demographic prefers something more tangible, such as magazines and radio.
The key thing to remember here is quality not quantity; it doesn’t matter if you reach millions of people if none of them are actually in your target market.
It’s also a good idea to share your content somewhere where your audience can react; at first it may seem daunting to put yourself out there and see what people are saying, but your audience wants that sense of connection, so it’ll be worth it in the long run.
The measure of it
You’re not done yet; once you’ve sent your content out in the world, you need to see how it performs.
The beauty of Google and social media is that you can see exactly how your posts have gone down, enabling you to stick with what works and scrap what doesn’t.
It may seem time-consuming, but it means you can really hone your activity and get better results down the line.
If your content needs some comfort, throw us a bone on 01325 486666 or email into@harveyandhugo.com
