What does good content marketing look like in 2016?
19th January 2016
Ingredients of good content marketing
The interest in content marketing certainly shows no sign of letting up. However, an awful lot of poor quality low-value content is pushed out which may be having a detrimental effect by turning off some sections of the audience. For 2016 the best content marketing will integrate the following key elements:
Unique content
Content needs to be unique, fresh and new. Ideally it needs to engage with prospective customers on addressing the problems they may be grappling with in their businesses.
Big ideas
Content that centres on big ideas is powerful stuff. A solution or service provider may have a big idea such as a model for analysing a specific problem area; this can provide the basis for developing and array of content. It’s even better when there is a solution that implements the model to solve a business problem.
Repurposing
Content needs to be put out in a variety of formats. It’s important to develop content in formats such as white papers, guides, blogs, slide decks, videos and social media. Different readers have different preferences.
Distribution channels
Content formats need to be pushed out down all the channels that are relevant to your market. For most businesses this is likely to be channels such as email, web, PPC. Also social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram work for many businesses.
Content discovery
Content discovery is the latest distribution weapon that seems to be finding favour. Essentially this is PPC for content, with ads driving click and download activity. Two of the biggest players in this area are the content discovery platforms Outbrain and Taboola.
Active influencer network building
It’s all very well pushing content out to people to see if they are interested. Some of the best content marketers are going after people they know are interested or at least that have a stake in the market. Building the network by actively promoting products and services could be achieved by tactics such as targeting those on influencer lists, or perhaps obtaining an invitation to do a guest blog by an influencer.
What will your content marketing look like in 2016?
In the quest for the flow of customers that are the lifeblood of business, content marketing has an important role to play. However, to make sure that your content marketing is being effectively executed and with high quality content that doesn’t have a negative effect on the audience, make sure you have an internal marketing team that can produce great content or are able to source if from a good outsourced partner.
