Why Content Marketing is Sexy

13 Ways to Sex Up Your Content Marketing

Content marketing can be sexy in the same subtle way that a good looking woman can be sexy, just because she attracts attention. Content marketing encompasses a wide variety of assets in diverse formats. Examples are product descriptions, articles, photos, videos, audio, infographics, slide presentations, comments and reviews. It moves social media, search engines and sales through its unique, engaging information.

13 Ways to sex up your content marketing

With content marketing, your goal is to provide information that appeals to a variety of needs and will attract prospects and support customers. Social media and search engines help drive traffic to achieve this objective. Here are 13 ways to incorporate content into your marketing.

  1. Determine the type of content required and where. This goes beyond just transcribing offline information to an online format. Answer these five questions:
    • Should content depth and presentation remain constant across platforms?
    • How should the information be presented?
    • Where is the reader in the purchase process when they encounter it and what information do they need at that point?
    • Where is the reader located physically when they need your content and what impact does this have on where you place the content?
    • Which devices are prospects using to get your materials and how does this affect the format?
  2. Bring content creation efforts together across your company including marketing, PR, communications, advertising, creative, and investor relations to minimize redundancies.
  3. Develop an editorial function with an editorial calendar and promotional schedule to develop a loyal following.
  4. Perform keyword research including mostly the words prospects and customer use, not your internal corporate shorthand. Remember prospects and customers use different search terms at different stages of the purchase cycle.
  5. Write headlines that are search-friendly and attention grabbing to get noticed and make your content more shareable. Focus on topics of interest to prospects and customers.
  6. Employ various content formats such as text, photos, video, audio, presentations, Webinars, and PR. Properly tag and optimize non-text content to attract search engines. Think in terms of content formats that appear in search results.
  7. Facilitate information scanning to be in-sync with the way people quickly read online content. Incorporate relevant product information and links to your shopping process where appropriate.
  8. Compose easily shareable content. Enable content to be distributed by readers and others across different communications formats and devices. For location specific information, include details like address, city, ZIP code, phone number, e-mail and URL.
  9. Use other internal outposts to distribute content. Deliver information across your company. Among the areas to consider are your product and its packaging, advertising, media mentions, customer communications, and the retail environment.
  10. Ask readers, customers and the public to participate in your content efforts.
    • Find out what type of information they are looking for and want from you.
    • Invite them to create different types of content.
    • Allow them to comment on your content and your audience’s content.
    • Thank users for their contributions and comments.
  11. Dedicate your own or freelance staff to develop content and engage in related participation. If you don’t have internal resources, consider using journalists and/or editors. Remember, social media implies a conversation so you will need headcount to represent and talk for your firm on these platforms.
  12. Allocate appropriate budget to support your content marketing initiatives. According to research from Junta42, content marketing accounts for about one out of every three marketing dollars spent.
  13. Track content creation and distribution results. Here are four elements to assess:
    • Which content is most read and/or shared?
    • How many readers, prospects and customers engage with your company through your content? Track the number of shares, comments, amount of consumer content developed, and steps taken towards purchase.
    • Do customers give feedback on these initiatives? What is the sentiment expressed in their input?
    • How has your profit and loss changed? Have sales improved? How have costs behaved? Consider improvements/savings in relation to the cost of producing new content, Web site development, content promotional efforts, and search optimization.

Developing marketing-related content is sexy insofar as it promotes your brand via social media, enhances search optimization and sales and moves prospects and customers to associate with your company across a variety of online and social media platforms.

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen


Photo credit: Glitter Lips by snowkel via Flickr

Tags , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.