You’ve heard it times without number content is king. Yet, your content, which is verifiably king, has performed poorly at ruling the discordant waters of SERP. Your page views remain on a low lying plateau and very rarely does your content hit that sweet spot of going viral.
Ready for a fact that doesn’t get passed around quite often? Content marketing is king – and we’re not mincing words here. An above-board content marketing strategy paired with subpar content will grossly outclass quality content paired with below-average content marketing.
Here’s the deal, in an ideal world, quality content should be king, that’s simple logic. But as you probably know, very few things are ideal, least being the online ecosphere. There’s a multitude of underhand advantages possessed by various entities, many of which leverage them above you in the field of content production. Leveling the playing field (so that your quality content can thrive) is a factor of mastering the subtle art of content marketing. Here are six ideas to get you started.
There’s beauty in diversity
By beauty, we mean clicks conversions, page views, whichever metric is essential to you. Diversity, on the other hand, translates to creating and distributing content in as many forms as is possible – written, podcasts, image, video, etc.
The reason for this is that people engage differently with different types of content. When you distribute content only in the written format, you’re limiting your reach to just the reading audience. What then happens to the over 2 billion users of YouTube?
A multi-content strategy guarantees you maximum reach and, perhaps, more importantly, access to diverse audience categories. Sometimes that’s all you need to get the engagement ball rolling.
Stay focused
What’s your value proposition in the overly saturated world of content creation? What sets you apart from your competitors? While the typical content creator tends to lean towards more sophisticated means of defining his or her competitive edge, that approach though sophisticated, is essentially what everyone does.
Often, a simple approach as is staying on point and doing away with all the fluff and bluff could be all it takes to make your content twinkle in the eyes of your audience. Doing this creates the impression of being the go-to person for concise and on-point content as opposed to being the jack of all trades who is a master of none.
Your core content defines your ROI
Core content refers to content that both appeals to your target audience and relates to your product/service offerings. If it only appeals to your target audience and doesn’t tie well with what you’re selling, or vice versa, then it is not core content. Your focus for production should be content that fits the tag of the core because they’re invariably what will pull in revenue.
That not to say you can’t divulge a little bit to produce on-demand content that’s not directly correlated to your product. You can, just make sure it eventually funnels your audience back to what’s important.
Harken to the metrics
If it’s not performing well in the interim, then the chances are that it won’t do much better in the future. As you go on the journey of being a top content marketer, you’re going to invest in and try many things. In fact, one of the time-proven methods of attaining the status of content marketing virtuoso is trying as many things as is possible.
The caveat here is, don’t fall into the rabbit hole of sticking with a particular strategy because you’ve committed too much to it, even when it has no demonstrable ROI — Harken to the metrics and weed out strategies that have failed to yield positive results.
Note that ROI is subjective; you should know what your metrics should look like for your level. Registering only 300 page views on your just your third blog post doesn’t mean that attempt was a failure.
Develop your brand, strongly
There’s a reason people tune in to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show on every airing, and no it’s not because they’re guaranteed a thrilling show every other time, Oprah for sure has her off-color days. It’s because she has a reputation for delivering quality content. The keyword here is reputation, and as a content marketer one of your primary objectives should be developing a reputation that stands out from the rest.
A stellar reputation is a guarantee that your content will stand out regardless of any prevailing circumstance. In an online ecosystem where ranking algorithms, feed selection and everything else that determines what the audience gets to see vary by the minute, this is an especially critical advantage to have in your locker room.
Finally, curate your content like a pro
However attractive publishing platforms like Quora, LinkedIn and Medium seem, they’re not the ideal distribution outlet for deriving the utmost value (ROI) from your content. Don’t get me wrong, LinkedIn, Medium, and the rest definitely have their place in the content marketing space, just that basing your strategy (in the short or longterm) on these platforms limits how far you can go and how much value you can pull out from your content.
Very few of these platforms allow for personalized ads or newsletter dialog boxes, and that’s just scratching the surface. If you’re planning on going the long haul, it’s imperative that you set up a proper website and content distribution channel. This way you’re in charge of your content and on top of your revenue generation streams just as it should be for a pro content producer/marketer.
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