When you have all the right elements, your content marketing efforts start to look pretty sweet. Before long, you know what content to create, how to optimize it – and how to make the right offer.
Good marketing is about more than just writing an entertaining blog. It’s about offering value and making connections. It’s about stamping your position as the authority figure in your niche.
But it’s also about making those necessary sales.
Let’s take a look at the crucial elements of content marketing that your business needs.
The Branding
The way you brand your content is key because it’s branding that gives you consistency.
If you take a look at veteran content marketers like Gary Vee, you will see a consistency across all his content. His tone is the same, his message is the same, his delivery is the same – and it always has been.
Source: Garyvaynerchuck.com
Branding is what allows Gary Vee to connect with a specific audience. Although his message might be what another audience is looking for, his branding alienates them. It appeals to a certain specific type of person.
Before you begin working on your content marketing strategy, nail your branding first because this will go onto inform your voice, your tone, your visuals and so on.
Start with a logo maker tool, add your logo to every single piece of content you ever publish, and then work on your brand’s purpose and values.
The Share-ability Factor
It’s pure win when your content goes viral. The more it gets shared, the more it means that people find it valuable. Moreover, you’ll reach more people and grow your audience.
Not all content gets shared, of course. Here are some tips to make your content more shareable:
- Produce in-depth, long form content. Why? Because this is the type of content that gets shared the most. People want as much value as they can get from you, and this helps you to engage and connect with people.
- Add data and facts and figures. Facts and figures make your content look more credible, which enhances your bid to be an authority on your subject. They also help to build trust between you and your audience. Infographics also work well.
- Include images. We interact with images 39% more times than we do with text. If you include smart, eye-catching visuals that can somehow help to make an emotional connection with people, you can improve your contents share-ability factor.
The Offer
The content itself isn’t meant to promote or sell your products and services directly. As outlined above, the content is what engages with people and makes a connection. It gets them on your side.
However, you’re ultimately here to sell. This is why all good content marketing needs an irresistible offer.
Logan Paul has millions of followers across social media. His content marketing is on point. He entertains people every day – but he often repeats the same offer multiple times in one piece of content.
An offer doesn’t always have to be something people have to pay money for. It could be a free eBook or a cheat sheet that act as lead magnets. Whatever you offer needs to be valuable, and it should be accompanied by a call to action that’s clear and direct.
Moreover, the offer should always be related to the content.
The Optimization
Content is a total waste of time if no one can see it. And while social media is a good place to reach more people, Google remains one of the best ways of reaching the right people.
SEO works because when people type something into a search engine, they are looking for something with specific intent. If you can direct the right traffic to your content, you can boost conversions and sales.
Key to grabbing more high-quality traffic is optimizing your website for SEO. This means doing your keyword research right, optimizing your title and meta tags, and it also means working on a backlinks campaign.
If you can fit the right keywords into the right content, you’re onto a winner.
The Analytics
Analytics are the “behind the scenes” bits that your audience don’t see, but which are key to the success of your content marketing campaign.
Monitoring your analytics is important because you need to know what is and what isn’t working. It’s also key that you know who your audience is, what type of content they like best – and why they like that specific type of content.
Perform A/B tests, too, to see what type of headlines and CTA’s are producing the best results.
The more you know about the performance of your content, the better you can make it.
Conclusion
These are the crucial elements of content marketing that your business needs. Work on your branding, make your posts as engaging and valuable as possible, and make your offer clear and direct. Keep checking your analytics too so that you’re always improving.
About the Author
Michelle Deery is a content writer based out of the UK and writes copy for Heroic Search, a SEO agency based in Tulsa. Her content has been featured in Entrepreneur magazine. She writes on a variety of topics within the marketing niche. Her work helps businesses attain continued success. Twitter: @MichWriting