Content marketing is something that businesses which rely on the internet for sales have been taking seriously for several years now, although the parameters which define a successful strategy in this area are regularly shifting.
Because of this it pays to regularly re-evaluate your tactics when it comes to content marketing and consider how it impacts the broader decisions you take to help manage your online presence.
To get you started, here are some things to think about that will make a big difference to how you perceive content marketing in 2015 and how your strategy might evolve this year.
Make the Most of Mobile
It is impossible to escape the fact that mobile devices are taking over the internet and reshaping it in their image. In fact, most Google searches are now carried out from portable devices rather than desktop PCs.
Mobile optimisation of the site design itself is important and can be carried out by third parties like polarwebpeople.co.uk, who offer web design in Huntingdon. But what about the actual content?
Formulating pages and posts with headlines which are short, to the point and eminently enticing to the reader will help to generate clicks and conversions, especially if you are planning to share content via social media where many people now spend most of their time.
Moreover the formatting of the text and the font you choose will need to be based on its legibility when viewed on small touchscreen displays rather than 20 inch desktop monitors. A mobile-first means of content marketing is highly desirable today.
Plan, refresh, retire
Your content marketing strategy should have an integrated life cycle which you can use to establish your goals for a particular campaign, plot out the publication schedule and then ultimately think about a point in the future at which it will be strategically beneficial to retire content rather than allow it to persist.
This cyclical approach also allows for revisions to be made mid-cycle, as well as empowering businesses to measure just how effective their current strategy has become based on various metrics.
A big part of achieving this is down to actually formalising a content marketing strategy in a written document, rather than allowing it to exist as a loose, ethereal set of goals that are not necessarily followed in a consistent manner.
Content for Digital Storytelling
Storytelling can help to humanise marketing and make brands seem more approachable. And it is a long standing tactic that works just as well in the digital age as it did in the past.
It is even something which politicians are leveraging in the social media realm in order to increase their standing with the public, so it is certainly an avenue which businesses should explore.
Storytelling is all about turning away from a bland, matter-of-fact way of conveying information and instead embracing a fluid and engaging narrative perspective; showing the audience why your business is great rather than flatly telling them that it is. And content marketing can thrive with this in mind.
