It is never enough to emphasize the importance of content marketing in today’s era. The times when slimy on-the-face advertising gauged unbelievable results are gone. It’s 2020, and nearly half of your consumers’ devices has an ad blocker software installed. The reason why every marketer is employing subtle ways to deliver the message via content marketing. Plus, since it’s revealed by a study that content marketing costs 62% less and generates 3 times more leads, it has become a more lucrative choice. However, crafting an effective marketing strategy is not a child’s play, but if you wish to master it, here’s a quick guide that I have compiled after considerable reasoning on my own experiences and observation to create epic content marketing campaigns.
Content marketing campaign framework based on AIDA
To get started, let me introduce you to the well-known AIDA model (if you haven’t already heard of it), which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. It is one of the oldest methods of content marketing strategies with a credible history of generating results far better than expected.
Garner ‘A’ttention
The first step is the most difficult to achieve, especially considering how 2 million articles are published every day. In this sea of content, if you want to emerge as the largest wave your content must stand out from the rest, such that it makes your audience jump out of their seats and appreciate you for the quality of your matter.
Kick-start this step by creating a buyer persona of your brand or the targeted reader base of your content. Analyze them in detail – reckon their reading habits, their area of interest and the new trends buzzing on social platforms. Don’t just end there, look for more answers – what are the problems faced by your targeted group of people, what are the solutions you can offer and the list goes on. Once you are satisfied with the gathered information, start creating content but remember your heading must be top-notch. After all, that’s going to be the deciding factor whether or not your prospect clicks on your piece.
Cultivate ‘I’nterest
Once you have captured the attention of a consumer, you need to employ the right strategies to maintain their interest until the last sentence of your articles. For that, your content must reflect that they were written with the readers in mind. Include elements like case studies, analysis, and research statistics if you are working on something serious. You could occasionally use videos, visual elements, behind the scenes bloopers, interviews, etc, to keep the readers engrossed in your material.
There’s a reason why 51% marketers prioritize visual assets: when you add in components that connect with your audience, you can keep them interested for a long time, which leads us to our third step.
Generate ‘D’esire
The transition from the interest stage to the desired stage should be smooth, or it can cost you your interested leads. You need to increase the level of interest to an extent where the consumers actually think about purchasing your product. For instance, if you are selling marketing services, you can discuss the most common problems, discuss solutions and slowly take them to a stage where you introduce yourself as the guardian angel (without even hinting at it directly). Long story short, your content must push the consumers to a level where they think that they really want it and is all geared up for the final stage.
Induce ‘A’ction
This is the last stage in your AIDA strategy, where you are just an inch away to reaping the benefits of the efforts you’ve put in the last three stages. The action stage is to incentivize the consumer into finally buying your product. Make sure you add a call to action in each of your content pieces, ones that are simple enough for the audience to follow, like including a link for buying the product because CTAs contribute to over 83% of post leads. At this stage, you need to offer plenty of reassurance to ensure the consumer that it is completely safe to buy their product. If they have privacy issues, include links to your privacy and cookie policies. If they doubt online shopping, include addresses of your stores or offer a money return policy. This will help you gain their trust and induce them into action.
The AIDA model helps a great deal in gathering new leads and converting them into loyal customers. You only have to make sure that your efforts are free of the loopholes in implementing the policy with an out-of-the-box approach.
Now when you have comprehended the heart of the matter, let’s understand some little know hacks to rock your content marketing campaign.
7 ways to rock your content marketing campaign
Combined with the model, here are 7 ways that can help you achieve your desired content marketing campaign goals.
Create a content marketing calendar and fill your dates with creative content ideas
To keep the interest in your audience alive, you need to be consistent with your content. Updating once in eternities will force them to abandon you and seek engagement somewhere else.
More than 69% of companies use an editorial calendar for their blog content and if you also wish to leverage the benefits that a calendar has to offer: create a content calendar to time your posts and updates, and stick to a schedule. It will help you maintain regularity in your attempts and connect much better to your users.
Brainstorm ideas that will make your content appear as well-planned, structured and will give the impression that you are dedicated to your audience. Put in keywords to enhance your SEO, and address common problems or questions put in by users. Occasionally, you can feature personal experiences and interviews of satisfied customers that will encourage consumers to purchase your product. Bring out the markers and jazz up your dates!
Connect with an influencer to leverage higher convincing power
As everyone is aware, influencers are people with a high social following and they have the ability to influence a large number of people in a particular field. More often termed as influencer marketing – it has been on the top of the marketers’ list. You can use them to garner the attention of a large audience for the promotion of your product or you could just share some content on their channels, based on your agreement.
The most critical aspect is to select the right influencers for your brand. Two determinants that must be considered in this process are relevance and engagement. But be careful not to solely depend on influencers. Re-check your signed agreements with them and don’t enforce your products on them as it gives a very superficial effect, which throws the viewers off. Try to take a mild approach and see how your brands turn into a buzz overnight!
Repurpose content to save time, efforts and resources
Versatile content means material that you can share on various platforms. Often, it happens that companies spend a lot on creating different content for each of the platforms, making a content marketing campaign seem like a herculean task. This is not the way for smart heads. Ask your creative team to stir up content that can be used on various channels where you can promote your brand.
Say, if you are making videos for YouTube, you can use one still from the shoot or some behind the scene or a blooper to share on Facebook and Instagram. You can also summarize the video content and convert it into a blog post for your readers who may miss out on the posts on social media. Make sure to optimize your site for mobiles as 71% searchers expect them to load faster than Desktop. This will allow you to repurpose your content and save a lot of ideas and finances. Stats reveal that 60% of marketers reuse content at least two to five times because smart is the new savvy!
Update older content to generate multiple benefits from a single post
Updating your older content is another easy trick to push your content up the ranking ladder, even Neil Patel, the maestro of content marketing, admits to it!
One of the factors used by Google to rank your site is novelty and as you introduce more and more content on your website, the older ones become inconsequent resulting in lower ranks. The necessary updates and revisions in your older posts pertaining to the current scenario of the industry can help you rekindle the newness of your site and improve your Google rankings.
Correct spellings or grammatical mistakes, update the statistics you used, check and remove broken links, link new and better resources or even include newer multimedia elements that can actually boost the rankings for your entire site. It’s simpler and easier than creating new data every day and it can bring back one of your best-drafted pieces. If this wasn’t enough, here’s some more motivation that explains why it’s time for an update!
Create an opinionated post on someone/something popular to establish a voice
If you have been looking for an opportunity to voice your opinions on something or someone which has become a viral sensation recently, here’s your chance. Articles that talk about leaders, influencers, and celebrities have a higher chance of being more received by the audience. For instance, you can discuss a strategy followed by a highly respected industrialist or brand or discuss on the issues that have been bothering the world in the recent day – maybe the fire that’s burning Australia or the outset of the war between Iran and the US. Throw in a punchy headline and see it go viral, faster than wildfire!
Get your timing right to gauge maximum traffic
One super easy trick to boost your content marketing campaign is to post at the right time. If you randomly post your material and hope someone to come buzzing at it like they’ve been waiting for it, this cannot happen unless you are Ed Sheeran.
If you have consumers staying in all kinds of time zones, you have to post your content according to their time. For different social media platforms, look into the analytics and find out at what hour of the day your visitors are most active. Schedule your post within the stated band, and you will attract traffic more than the posts timed without any prior research. Here’s a study by TrackMaven that reveals the best time to post on various social media platforms. Well, who said timing didn’t matter?
Utilize opportunity gaps to angle your article in the right direction
Opportunity gaps are ways in which you can reposition your blogs in the space of marketing so that you can enhance its visibility as well as derive more traffic. Here’s a detailed dig on the four cited gaps: Quality Gap, Authority gap, Freshness gap, and Relevance gap.
Quality gap is the void that’s created in the hearts of the readers when article quality is low. (Haha!) Well, while the literal meaning is not by the words, leverage from this gap and create quality-driven content to drive the audience to your post.
Authority gap is when the good articles stem from unreliable sources. This is when someone with better authority (like you) can step in to fill the vacant.
Freshness gap is when you see a topic has been out of date for a long time and demands an update. All the posts from 2010, it’s 2020 and its time for a content refresh!
Relevance gap is when Google presents random results in response to your query. This is where you can fill in. Create content on those topics and utilize these gaps well to soar your traffic.
Over to you…
A content marketing campaign is not just about spilling some never-heard-before words and binding them with a storyline. It’s a lot more. From the new trends to the forever-new propositions from your competitor’s master strategy to your own game plan, you must keep details of every little thing.
Remember, content marketing does not follow a one-size-fits-all approach, so it is on you and your team to apply and experiment with these content amplification tips.
If you need more inspiration for your content marketing strategy, make sure you check out our epic post on content marketing statistics!
Ready to create your own successful content marketing plan? Check out these five steps in this infographic from Temple University.
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