Content marketing is an ever growing and changing type of marketing. Every time a new medium emerges, content marketing changes. Additionally, trends and research help set the pace for what efforts companies pursue.
Each of the below innovations can help you as a business owner make the most of their digital marketing efforts in 2017 to evolve with the industry:
Maintain a Consistent Voice
Many companies have different parties handling social media and content creation.
This separation of tasks makes it difficult to maintain a consistent voice throughout the entire marketing initiative.
Consistency of brand voice remains the most powerful method in ensuring effective content marketing and will only become more important in 2017.
Creating a consistent voice begins by researching your target audience and learning how they speak and search.
Seek out forums within your industry, and identify social media influencers to capture the data needed to incorporate those buzzwords.
Be sure your style guide is updated and distributed to all departments’ to help every employee working on alongside the marketing efforts use the same lingo.
Use Social Media for Customer Success Support
One of the latest trends that’s taken over the world of content marketing is using social media as customer service, and intentionally making this part of your content marketing strategy.
For example, Nike has taken to Twitter to help people solve any issues they have.
Every tweet they respond to is seen by countless people, putting Nike front in center within their line of vision but also showcasing them as a brand that is listening, cares, and responds.
Prioritize Educating Your Customers
Teach your customers what they need to know to learn about your products/service in order to become a customer.
Every piece of content should be designed to teach your customers something about your business, product or the industry.
Where things become difficult is educating without being boring or salesy. Infuse your personality while keeping in mind what you would be incline to read in order to create copy that is entertaining and educational.
Educating your customers helps with immediate conversions as well as setting your business up as an authority. The more accurate, quality content you have, the more authority you retain.
Invest in Email Marketing
Email was found to be the absolute best method for distributing content for B2B businesses in 2016. What does this mean for 2017? You must invest in email marketing.
Email is the oldest method of distributing information, yet it remains one of the best mediums for contact potential customers.
If you are already running an email marketing campaign, it’s time to double down on it and send out communications that are even more personalized, concise (attention spans are dwindling) to the right targeted segment at the right time.
If you presently do not have an email campaign, 2017 is the year to get started!
Create an Actual Content Marketing Strategy
The biggest content marketing innovation for 2017 is to create an actual content marketing strategy.
While this may not sound innovative, a surprising amount of organizations do not have a documented online marketing strategy. A written strategy will help you remain focused on providing value outside of your product or service.
Content Marketing World has a workshop specifically for creating a documented marketing strategy.
Are you ready to take your content marketing to the next level? Stay on top of each of these innovations for 2017.
If you want to take your knowledge even further, visit the Content Marketing Conference 2017 to hear experts speak about their own ways they’re innovating within the content marketing industry!