2020 has made a name for itself and it’s not just because it’s the start of a new decade. A whole country caught on fire, a world-wide pandemic, civil unrest, and…murder hornets! With specifically the pandemic taking over our everyday lives, companies have not only had to rethink how and where people work, but tactics that are sensitive and effective to continue to keep their companies’ doors open.

The consumer is becoming ever more educated than before with our phones as mini portable computers that are with us everywhere! So how can companies keep pace or get ahead of the consumer? By the use of content marketing.

Content marketing can been seen as your companies’ “authentic voice” because it deals more with education versus the push of promotional marketing we are all use to from days past. Content marketing is a large part of your consumer’s entire experience with your brand than just being seen as another sale.

Video (specifically short-form)

Videos continue to be the juggernaut of content marketing as a highly effective and frequently used tactic. Offering a personal element that can’t be found in just words, as you can see expressions and hear emotion from what is being showcased. As users are spending more time on their mobile devices, there is a large transition to social media video marketing that can be spread across multiple channels.

Video marketing used on social allows for your brand to be positioned in a way that allows for full user interaction. They can view, re-watch, like, comment and share all within minutes. This not only increases your social media awareness, but will drive engagement and sales from having one or several small snippets of valuable brand-boosting tools.

There are many different ways that your video can be utilized for your marketing strategy, just not on social, but can be used on your main webpage and housed on a dedicated YouTube channel.

Live video is a large part of how companies are engaging and keeping their users engaged in what the brand has to offer. Q&A sessions, event updates, special announcements are all part of how your company can generate excitement, awareness and knowledge for your consumer base to persuade them to complete a transaction.

Podcasts

Although podcasts have been around for a long time, in recent years the momentum and subscribers to podcasts has increased dramatically. These are great because they can be pre-taped (just like video), but without the visual creation costs (makeup, actors, lighting, etc.) with concentrating on one specific topic at a time.

Although, not every company warrants a podcast, finding the right one to buy ad space on would be beneficial pending your target audience.

Voice Search

This content marketing principle has been new in recent years, but the utilization is very high with the capabilities of our smartphones. Understanding how your consumers use their words to search for items or services that your company offers, will help your team know how to position yourself in searches with SEO keywords and paid ad spots at the top of search results (also known as the snippet).

Voice search is faster and more convenient for the user – so your website content will need to be fully optimized, especially in mobile view, to be one of, if not the first result shared.

Dynamic (Variable) Content

As the consumer is increasingly becoming highly engaged and educated. How can highly personalized marketing pieces be accomplished? Segment your data!

Dynamic content (personalization) doesn’t have to mean adding the consumers name in the email, it also means adding specialized messages that can still be sent out to a larger group by segmenting your data. This allows for multiple versions of one email to be sent to several different groups easily pending on your slice of the data pending user behavior.

Adding data variables within your copy is another example to achieve personalization without having to create thousands of individual emails. This is provided that you have the right email platform to help you achieve such personalization.

Interactive Content

Attention spans are so limited these days that what companies need to do is figure out how to grab a consumer’s attention and keep it for longer than 7 seconds. It’s an old marketing tactic with a smaller timeframe for companies to work with. Quizzes, surveys, polls, and highly engaged visuals – such as infographics are great ways to engage and interact with your consumer, while having the opportunity to educate them about your company’s products or services.

Data-driven Content

When it comes time to strategize and create your content marketing plan, it should be driven by data. So much of what marketers develop should be formed by what data has been gathered and analyzed (as much as it seems like it’s shooting in the dark some days).

Everything listed above (and more) can be tracked and measured to conclude if it was a successful campaign or tactic.

With free tools such as Google Analytics that are available, it is a great to see traffic and the consumer journey. If your company is able to, finding a software that is capable of seeing a holistic picture of your marketing data in a centralized place will only allow your team to make more informed plans from past performances.

Conclusion

So much of 2020 has been unknown to the world and will continue to be for some time. Constant adjustments to strategy are taking place in every company in every industry. A key component to helping your company ensure success is to critically look at the data being presented to you with a heavy analytical eye and understand what pivots need to be made or what path to continue on. Transparency is what your consumer is looking for with so much that feels out of control, being a trusted voice in the midst of what seems like perpetual chaos will help bring a much needed calm to those that surround it.

With partnering with Colleen Eakins Design, we can help create visually impactful pieces that will aide your content marketing strategy.