Content comes in all shapes and sizes and it’s something that anyone interested in digital marketing will know is super important to your business’ online success. If you’re completely new to content marketing and want the 411 on what it is, what it does and how it works, then check out our useful beginner’s guide to content marketing. If you want a touch of inspiration on what different types of content are great ways to engage your audience, we’ve picked out some of our top ideas for how to draw your customers in and (hopefully) keep their attention…
#1 Blog posts
If you’ve seen the Koozai blog, you’ll know we love a good old blog post or two. They’re incredibly useful tools for answering your customers’ queries, and what’s more, they can be nice, meaty pieces of content which explain, inform and instruct. You can add a touch of creativity to blog posts with eye-catching imagery and maybe an infographic (see #8 for more), plus it’s a fantastic way to get those all-important keywords injected into your website. If you need a bit more guidance on the importance of keywords and how to optimise for them, we’ve got a post all about long and short-tail keywords which is worth a read.
#2 Video content
There’s a reason why we all love a bit of YouTube. You can rest assured if you need to know how to do something, want an in-depth product review or are just a bit bored and in need of entertainment, YouTube will never let you down. You can host your own videos on YouTube if you wish but having some video content on your site is a good idea to help build trust with your customers and encourage them that you know your stuff. ‘How to’ videos are a great place to start, and you don’t need any fancy gear either, a decent smartphone will do the trick. Here’s some tips on how to get professional quality videos using your smartphone. With videos being easily shareable too, they’re a great content avenue to explore.
#3 Research pieces and whitepapers
Authoritative content works wonders for engagement and can help your brand gain backlinks too. If you can spin original research into an in-depth, informative and exciting piece of content, you’re onto a winner. Don’t panic though, it can be easier than you first think. You don’t need to have access to a wealth of first-hand discovery data that’s never been seen before (although that would be awesome), you can create research pieces based on interviews, experiments and investigative content. There’s also the whitepapers element to discover too, which is an in-depth, authoritative content piece which presents a problem alongside a solution. We’ve recently been working on our own whitepapers, as the world of digital marketing can be a complicated place and we want to help our site visitors get as much out of our website as possible.
#4 Case studies
Case studies can fall into the above category, but we wanted to separate it out as we love a good old case study. The ideal content tool if you want to show potential customers what you can do, case studies provide that exact opportunity. Shout from the rooftops some of your best results so that prospective customers are impressed and want to know more about what you could do for them personally. Think about how to present the information, for example what did they need from you? Were there any challenges you faced? How did you help them? What results did you achieve for them or what problems did you solve? This is an easier opportunity for service-based companies, but take a look at our case studies as an example of how you could explore case study content. Don’t forget, check with your client to make sure they’re happy for you to post the results on your site.
#5 Trending content
We’d all love for our content to go viral, but unfortunately it’s not something that happens for many of us, even with a plethora of social platforms to get stuck into. Only around 1% of video content on Facebook will achieve more than a million views and be considered as going ‘viral’, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hop on the trends and provide useful content around what’s going on in your industry. By creating something that evokes emotion, is timed well and keeps up with the pace of your industry gives you as good a chance as anyone at creating something memorable.
#6 Podcasts
When you find a podcast you like, it’s safe to say you’re hooked. So, if your brand warrants creating something fun, friendly and interesting, a podcast might be the way to go to grab some audience engagement. Podcasts have been popular for a while now, and they show no means of slowing down. Since 2017, the number of podcast listeners has been growing steadily, and as of 2020, there were over 15 million of us in the UK listening to our favourite podcasts. If your brand would benefit from guest speakers or Q&As, we recommend you consider this method of content creation.
#7 Email automation
Email automation is essentially fancy email marketing, but instead of you having to set up each email and segmenting the data yourself, it’s a pre-determined sequence that means your subscribers get the right emails for them personally… at the right time. You can set up your own triggers that work for your business, and once one of these triggers is met, a relevant email will automatically drop in that person’s inbox. Once set up, it means you don’t have to manually create each campaign, which is definitely timesaving in the long run, plus you’re dropping the right sort of content into potential customers’ laps. If you want to know more, Campaign Monitor has a useful guide which you should check out.
#8 Infographics
Infographics are really lovely ways of showing information in an eye-catching and creative way, and they’re really easy to share too. Some marketers argue that infographics have lost their appeal and aren’t as relevant as they used to be, however if you use them properly, they can definitely be a strong content tool to have in your arsenal. If we’re going to make a point about it (which we are), at the end of 2020, articles containing infographics got 178% more links and 3x more shares, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Check out where we got these stats from and tonnes more to prove why infographics are still worth doing. Just make sure what you’re including is actually useful, it’s clearly laid out, not too complicated and highly focused and you should be onto a winner.
If you’ve had any experience producing content that aces audience engagement, feel free to pop it in the comments below, we’d love to hear about your own business success.
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