If you want your content marketing to succeed, then you need a strategy. You can’t just create content and expect people to find it and love it.
When creating your content, you need to keep three important elements in mind:
- Your target audience.
- Your business objectives.
- How you’ll promote that content.
So when it comes to creating content, what are the most effective content types for companies? And what are the top priorities, goals, metrics, and tactics businesses are using?
Here’s what’s trending in content marketing strategy for 2017, according to a survey of 300 marketers at U.S. enterprise companies. The survey was conducted by Clutch, which provides research and reviews on advertising and marketing agencies, as well as other types of firms.
1. Top Content Priority: Brand Story
Brand story is the most important element of a content marketing strategy, according to 18 percent of the content marketers surveyed by Clutch. Other important factors were mission statement (17 percent), content types (17 percent), metrics (15 percent), and audience personas (14 percent).
Surprising to see personas so low, as that should be one of the top priorities if you truly want a consumer-centric strategy. Make it your mission this year to identify who is interested in your content and create content that meets their interests, needs, desires, concerns, and expectations.
Check out these SEJ posts for more ideas and tips:
2. Top Content Goal: Brand Awareness
Brand awareness was the main goal for 49 percent of companies, according to the survey results. Higher visibility in search engines was the top goal for 30 percent of companies, while lead generation was the main goal for 21 percent of businesses.
When creating content, always make sure you have a goal in mind, whether it’s to generate social media engagement, bring in organic search traffic, or convert visitors (sign-up, download, or buy). That will make it easier to measure the results.
Check out this SEJ post for more ideas and tips:
3. Most Effective Content Format: Research/Original Data
Out of 10 popular content types, research/original data performed best for companies, according to 18 percent of content marketers surveyed. Other effective content formats were infographics (17 percent), product reviews (16 percent), blog posts (14 percent), and videos (13 percent).
Clearly, infographics remain a hot visual content marketing trend. The key is to feature original data and information. Check out these SEJ posts for more ideas and tips:
4. Top Content Success Metric: Sales
The most important metric content marketers use to measure the success of content is sales – how many people make a purchase, according to 32 percent of those surveyed. Marketers also were focused on tracking consumption metrics, such as links, page views, downloads (29 percent); lead generation metrics (29 percent); and social sharing metrics (10 percent).
If you aren’t setting goals and tracking metrics, then you’ll never know if you’ve achieved your goal. And you’ll probably come to a very wrong conclusion: that content marketing is a waste of time and money.
Check out this SEJ post for more ideas and tips:
5. Top Content Promotion Tactic: Paid Advertising
Paid advertising (paid social and native ads) was the top content promotion tactic used by 71 percent of marketers surveyed. Other top tactics were organic social media posts (70 percent), traditional marketing (69 percent), email newsletters (63 percent), and events (62 percent).
Content that isn’t promoted will be ignored. Here’s a great takeaway from Clutch to end on:
“Spend less on content creation and more on distribution. Creating high-quality content is futile if you don’t dedicate enough effort or resources to get it in front your audience. And, if you don’t have enough money to do paid advertising, focus on earned media, such as pitching journalists and influencers.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Depositphotos
Other Images: Clutch
