Just Some Good Content Marketing Reads…
For those who truly know us, you know that we have a hard time sitting still. When we do eventually sit still, we are typically reading…and usually we are reading about…marketing. So instead of hogging all of our good reads, we like to pull up our favorite articles, quotes, and nerd-out a bit on them. So without delay, here we go!
Martech Zone: Basic Types of Content Marketing (Source)
“Videos – A must-have for every organization’s content strategy is video. If a picture says a thousand words, videos can provide an emotional connection that surpasses any strategy. Thought leadership, tips, explainer videos, testimonial videos… all of them communicate effectively to your audience and are in demand more and more every day. Not to mention that people often search for videos more than any other medium!”
Yep, yep, and yep. The ‘emotional’ connection is where we tend to gravitate. There’s something intangible about seeing, listening, and feeling something in video format. It instantly leads to a connection that surpasses the expectations of the audience, and if done correctly, it creates and/or intensifies TRUST.
“Email – pushing your message back to a subscriber has one of the highest returns of any content marketing strategy. By regularly emailing your prospects and clients, your messages provide both value and a reminder that you’re there when they need you. All of these other strategies can drive people to your brand that aren’t ready to make a purchase… that’s when you want to ensure they sign up for your email. Every content strategy must have an email marketing strategy to nurture and drive existing subscribers to a conversion.”
Email is often one of the communication channels that’s thought of THE LEAST by clients, and I really, really, really wish I could explain that it should be thought of THE MOST. It’s super important for the reasons listed above. I don’t even need to repeat their words. Just read them. They are correct.
Content Marketing Institute: Insights from Content Marketing Experts in 2022 (Source)
“Humanize your content: Henneke Duistermaat, the founder of Enchanting Marketing, says originality is super important if you want to get noticed: Do the same as everyone else and you’ll just camouflage yourself. At the same time, she says that you should weave original stories into your content and treat your output like a personal conversation with your reader. Making your content human-relatable and personally relevant to the people you want to consume it will help you stand out from the competition in 2022.”
I like the notion of humanizing content through weaving in original stories. Notice, it’s not about the medium. They aren’t saying ‘use video, it’s the best way to do something’. They are saying ‘make a human connection through story telling’. That can be done through video, but doesn’t have to necessarily done that way. Be original and be human.
Search Engine Journal: Content Marketing Tools (Source)
So this one is basically a glorified list of tools that one might use throughout their day in marketing. The reason I included it is because there are tons of tools out there, and it’s possible you might have heard of some of these but you might not have heard of all of them. Some are free tools, some are paid (and expensive), but if they help you do your job as a marketer better, it’s pretty easy to see their utility and pony-up the money to achieve better, quicker results.
AHREFS: Understanding the Buyers Journey (Source)
“Now that you have the topics for each stage of the buyer’s journey, it’s time to create content for them.
It is likely you’ll have to create different types of content for the different stages. For example, in the Awareness stage, buyers are looking for information, e.g., blog posts, videos, etc. Whereas for the Consideration stage, buyers are comparing, so they may be looking for category pages or comparison pages.”
So…in this case, I actually don’t find this specific article that mind-blowing. That being said, the concept AHREFS is underscoring is in fact mind-blowing, but the way they covered it…not as much. I saw it more as a method to push their own services, but to that end, they actually did exactly what content marketing is all about: knowing what your customers are interested in, developing content (in this case, an article) and serving as the guide to help them achieve their goals.
So what is mind-blowing about understanding your customer journey? I’ll tell you! Without overselling it, I would say it’s a lot like looking at a strand of DNA. It might not have all of the answers, but it basically shows you the instructions of what you need to do to find the answers. If you know the customer’s journey to finding your product or services, then you should be able to work backwards, create content for each step of the journey, and make pivots accordingly. It’s sort of like taking an open-book exam in school: the answer is somewhere in there, you just have to know where to look.
