Creating engaging and educational content is the key to an effective inbound marketing strategy. The content is the hook that will encourage people to find out more, and convert into leads. Therefore, it must be nothing short of fantastic. People want value, and they will appreciate good content that will help them solve whatever problem they might be facing. There is so much content out there in 2019, so you must stand out from the crowd and offer something over and above what you’re competitors are doing. But what kind of content should you be producing?
This is a common question that a lot of SMEs and Agencies tend to ask themselves, along with, ‘how often should I be posting content?’ We hear these a lot from prospects and clients during the on-boarding process, and we are here to help.
It all depends on your business and what industry you are in. A clothing shop will have a lot more content to post on social media in the form of photos of new stock, but how do you produce engaging content if you’re a tyre company? Or a B2B business?
We understand that creating fresh and innovative ideas for content can become frustrating, but the answer is, there are content ideas around you everywhere. You just have to get your creative thinking cap on! We have come up with five simple tips and tricks to get you thinking about the content you need to be producing.
Use yourself as inspiration for contentÂ
Take some time to look over all of your previous content and see what worked well and what didn’t. Look at what links your audience clicked on within the piece of content (because you should be including links to your site, a landing page or a sign-up form), and you’ll get a good idea of what they want to read about.
The beauty of content marketing is that you can re-purpose a lot of it. If you sent out an email campaign on a certain topic that created great engagement, why not make an infographic on the same subject or create a video or blog post about it? You know that you’ll get a good response. Listen to your audience and create the content they want to see.
Create lists
People love lists! They are quick and easy to skim through when people are browsing on their mobile phone as they are a lot more engaging than a large lump of text.
Whether it’s using your expert knowledge to create your top 10 tips or listing your five favourite products to use, this will give you a good few ideas when it comes to creating a blog post or an infographic.
Obviously, you need to keep it relevant to your industry and create exciting and educational information that your audience will really appreciate. Content marketing is all about adding value to your potential customer. Give them something for free and they’ll be really grateful. Jot down a few ideas and think about posting them on a weekly or a monthly basis.
Look at the news or current issues
If it’s a quiet week or month, look to either the local news or global issues and see if you can incorporate a news piece into your content plan. Can you link it in? Or can you share it and write a quick and easy-to-read social media post about it. Don’t just think about what you like to read about, but what your personas will care about.
Take your audience behind the scenes
People are nosey, and if you give them an insight into the background of your business they will love it. Take them behind the scenes, show them your office and introduce them to your staff. Take them through your full working day (a good idea is to choose a day when you are relatively busy rather than just sitting at your desk all day) or let them meet your CEO or senior management.
If you let them into your company on a personal level, you’ll create a more personable relationship and hopefully generate more leads as a result. A good way to do this is on Instagram or Snapchat stories, or create vlog style videos for social media.
Create a weekly/monthly content round-up
I’m sure I’m not the only one that has seen something on Facebook and thought, ‘I must go back and read that when I am sitting down this evening’, but I always forget. In the digital age, we live in, people are scrolling through many social media apps daily and more often than not, they could unintentionally miss your content posts or simply not have the time to read it there and then.
Why not create a weekly or monthly round-up of all your content in the form of an email newsletter and show them what they have missed? It will remain in their email inbox and let them view it in their own time.
More from Zymplify on Inbound MarketingÂ
The basis of an effective inbound marketing strategyÂ
The top inbound marketing tools to use in 2019Â
Inbound marketing and lead generationÂ
