Content marketing involves all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. So anything from corporate blogs to newsletters, from social media content to press releases, all counts as content marketing. Don’t be so naive as to say your customers don’t read! Your website would be nothing but pictures if your customer base didn’t read.
Here are three content marketing tips for the industry leaders:
Reconsider Article Marketing through Guest Posts
Article marketing is a part of content marketing, and was lambasted recently by Google when the search engine degraded a whole bunch of article directories and content mills for poor content. This does not mean that the practice of using articles to increase brand awareness and search engine ranks is no more. It just needs to be done differently, and the way to do that is to just publish those articles elsewhere. Consider the blogs and publications that are most relevant to your industry and customer base. Have you thought of getting a column or piece into one of those outlets? That’s what is called a guest post, and is far more effective than the old way of article marketing. First of all, that blog or publication will take the time to promote the piece. Second of all, those venues tend to have some quality control, so your piece will surely end up next to quality content as well. Third of all, content marketing only works with quality content, which is easier to do when your content is alongside reputable names.
Share Company Presentations
Presentations are content too, and an easy way to beef up your content marketing is to share any presentations that anyone has done recently. Has the sales division done a presentation that shows how sales or revenues have increased? Share it. Has your company just approved a new project that’s worth mentioning that was pitched in a presentation a while ago? Share it. Does the company have a few slides that outline the history and growth of the business? Share it. You get the picture.
Don’t Neglect Your Web Content
Yes, the very content on your website constitutes content marketing, so make sure to pay attention to it from time to time. After all, your website is a showcase for many demographics: customers, potential customers, journalists, even the competition. Make sure the information on your website isn’t outdated. Make sure that it’s optimized for search engines (a good way to do this while breaking up the text is to utilize headings and subheadings, kind of like how we do it here). A good thing to do to refresh your web content while improving search engine rankings is to add new pages from time to time. This gives the search engines reason to come back and crawl your site while giving visitors something new to read (a blog is also another way to achieve this feat).
Overall, every industry leader is utilizing content marketing, but there’s always room for improvement. Whether that’s putting together a more comprehensive content marketing strategy, or improving the quality of your content marketing, it’s a marketing tactic that many businesses find valuable.
