Great content is at the heart of any digital marketing strategy. A key driver for increasing traffic to your website, catchy content creation is both an art and a science in the digital age. The concept of creating and sharing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract your target audience is a crucial part of your online success.
Here’s our top 8 content marketing Do’s and don’ts to keep you on track:
Content do’s
Find your target audience
Each piece of content you write could not possibly engage every one of your customers – in the same way that your products or services aren’t designed to be purchased by all. For this reason, you need to define your target audience and create audience relevant content at all times.
Talk to customers
Feedback is key to knowing when you are on the right track. The more opportunity you have to gauge how your audience perceive you, the better able you’ll be to create content that resonates. Run surveys, ask for social media engagement and start conversations with your clients that can help shape future content.
Focus on great design
Never underestimate the importance of great design when it comes to both your website and blog. Responsive design means that your site will render perfectly on desktop and mobile devices – along with pretty much every screen in between. Your ultimate goal is to get people to visit your website or blog, make a purchase or engage with your brand. If your design is failing you, you’ll have a hard time making people stay.
Think brand
If people read a piece of your content and love it enough to share it a thousand times, you’d better hope your brand is unique and prominent enough that they’ll associate your name with the brilliance of the piece. The widespread nature of effective content is one of the best methods for building brand awareness.
Content don’ts
Avoid the hard sell
Consumers have a better buying experience when they make an informed purchase. A good blog piece will encourage people to make a purchasing decision without the use of forceful language or assertive tone. The occasional promotional post is encouraged, but lean more on the side of education and entertainment versus promotion.
Don’t follow the crowd
Keeping tabs on your competitors is always a good idea, but mimicking their activity, is strongly discouraged. Keep your content strategy unique and true to your brand values, and you will have a much easier time generating interest.
Don’t duplicate content
Plagiarism is a very serious offense in the content marketing world, one that will tarnish your brand’s name. Furthermore, stay away from duplicating your own content. Duplicate content not only makes your brand look bad, but can also result in search ranking penalties.
Don’t become selfish
Being seen as an open minded thought leader is far more attractive than talking about yourself and your products all the time. Not only will social media channels penalise you for too many promotional posts, but you will find that your audience prefers to be educated and entertained – so keep to this within your content criteria and you won’t go far wrong.
How many of these good practices are you already implementing? Our in-house content team can help you generate fresh, original copy which reflects your unique brand personality and targets the right audiences. Get in touch if you need a hand getting your content to the next level!