5 essential elements for your marketing strategy
In this post, we will discuss the following:
- Content marketing - what is the purpose?
- The search engines love content marketing.
- Never be afraid to share your knowledge!
- Product descriptions - sell the hole in the wall, not the drill.
- Video is a must-have.
- Sneak past your competitors with skyscraper content.
- Use gated content to collect emails.
Content Marketing - What is the purpose?
So what does this marketing concept cover? Agencies and business owners have a sea of different approaches to marketing, but one thing is certain - content marketing should always be one of the top items on the agenda every online marketing strategy.
The whole idea of content marketing is that through valuable content you create a better relationship and loyalty with your visitors. The aim is to give the customer something knowledgeable or interesting to read or look at. It's no longer about selling, selling and selling because customers don't bite. Instead, you need to pique their interest and trust in a different way - with content marketing.
Search engines love content marketing
It takes a lot to impress the search engines, and they're actually quite picky. That's why it's not easy to give them a dance. However, you can make them weak at the knees if you have the right content on your site. After all, Google is a business like yours and everyone else, which means they want to give their visitors the best experience. For this very reason, the search engine is very picky when it comes to letting people rank - however, good quality content can help you.
With the right content, whether it's text, video or something else, visitors will typically stay longer on your site. This increases dwell time, and when that happens, it must be because the content is engaging and relevant. Google wants to show that, so a high dwell time will lead to better rankings. In this context, video is a good idea, as we will discuss later. The same goes for texts, which should be long. This gives Google the impression that there must be a lot of useful information on your page. There are more keywords and LSIs in the text, and at the same time the visitor has to spend more time on the page to read. All of which contributes to a better ranking.
Source: backlinko.com
Above we have a graph describing how fewer words can lead to poor Google rankings. Content is king - a cliché - but studies show it time and time again, so keep that in mind if you want to rank well.
Never be afraid to share your knowledge
Good content is about creating value for visitors, and there's almost no better way than sharing your expertise. Yes, it can seem a little anxiety provoking and you may fear that customers don't need your product or service. That's also very possible, but if they actually manage to do without your services, you'll have a loyal visitor who will probably return to you if they need your product or service at some point.
It's about fighting for the famous trusted advisor stamp, as this will often put you top of mind when your help is needed. It is of course a more long-term sales strategy, but a blog or knowledge portal can bring you a lot of traffic, which contributes positively to your marketing.
Below are two examples of companies sharing their nuggets of knowledge in specific areas.
Source: coolshop.dk
They are experts when it comes to gadgets and technology, so it is obvious that they provide some content that can help and inspire people interested in the field. It's not something they necessarily profit from in the here and now, but it's an investment in the future.
Source: bisnode.dk
Bisnode is one of the leaders when it comes to data and analytics, and they have a blog where they try to give their visitors some tools so they can be at the forefront of their own data - and it's free.
You've certainly got the point now - that you should share your skills, even if it's not necessarily billable in the first place. It's good brandingand this can help build long-lasting and good customer relationships.
Product descriptions - sell the hole in the wall, not the drill
Your product texts must of course include all the important specifications. If the customer is left with one or more questions, this may result in the customer going to the competitor instead.
Having said that, it should be stressed that product descriptions are also a key part of your content marketing strategy, and therefore you need to create value with them. You need to describe what "problem" you can solve with the product or service, so that it is clear to the visitor that he or she actually needs it. You need to sell the hole in the wall, the opportunity for that great movie night, that nice feeling in your body, not the drill, the flat screen or the massage. Your visitors won't be tricked into buying, but they will buy because they see the value and the "problem" that can be solved with what you offer.
Video is a must-have
There's no getting around it. Video is an essential element of any content marketing strategy. You need to pack away your shyness, get in front of the camera and talk about your services, your products or share your nuggets. If you don't like being in front of the camera, get one of your employees who is good at finding the sweet smile.
You may not be convinced yet, so here are some facts that might convince you:
- Having video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80 %.
- Video in your emails can increase click-through rates by 300 %.
- By 2021, 82 % of internet traffic is expected to come from video.
- Denmark's second largest search engine - after Google - is YouTube.
There are many reasons, and if we were to mention them all, it would take up the next many pages. However, if you would like to read 55 statistics about video, you should click on the link.
Whether you get through them all or not, just know that if you don't already have video on your site, it can only go too slowly. The same goes for your social profiles - you'll be surprised at the positive impact.
Sneak past your competitors with skyscraper content
You may not have heard of it before, but as the name suggests, it's about building on top of something to make it even better. It's a strategy of looking at your competitors in the industry and then doing it better, but how better?
Examine their pages. How much text do they have, how concrete are they, and do they have video? Then do the same, but better. If your competitor has five pieces of advice in 500 words, write ten pieces of advice in 1000 words, including category and product texts and blog posts. You may also want to consider throwing in a video if your competitor doesn't have it on their pages, because as the statistics above show, customers are more likely to act if they've seen a video.
There are many ways you can fight your competitors, so it's no sin to look at others in the industry and do better.
Using this tactic can bring you more visitors and converts, but it will also help you overtake your competitors in terms of ranking - so check out their pages today.
Use gated content to collect emails
We've been around some of the key elements, but before we close, we'll pull one of the heavy lead machines in from the side. Gated content may not be a concept you're familiar with, but the approach I imagine you encounter on a daily basis.
As the name suggests, gated content is a situation where content is locked and it will require an active action from the user to access the content. However, everyone has a key to the content, as it is typically an email that can open a holy grail of knowledge. Typically, gated content takes the form of e-books, white papers, demos or similar. Here, a company or agency gives access to some exclusive content in exchange for an email, but why bother?
Emails are gold in any business as they are warm leads that have either purchased or otherwise shown interest, and once they are signed up, you have the opportunity to send offers, news, advice or similar and become top of mind with a user.
You may have grasped the concept from the text above, but if you are a visual person like many others, here are some examples.
Source: nelly.com
Nelly is one of the leading providers when it comes to providing clothes for the fashionable woman. The above is a good example of gated content, because if you want to get discounts, exclusive news, advice or anything else in the fashion industry, you have to give up your email. In short, you get access to a universe of knowledge and offers to enjoy. And as "payment" for all this, you have to provide something as simple as an e-mail. It doesn't seem like much, but for Nelly it means a lot.
Source: activecampaign.com
Next up is ActiveCampaign, which helps businesses automate their email flow, relevant for any company that wants to succeed online. However, there are obviously more providers in this market, which is why ActiveCampaign is trying to entice people with a free trial - and they require an email, of course. This way the customer can see the content and possibilities the tool offers, just like there is now another potential customer on the list at ActiveCampaign.
Now we've also been through gated content, but before we round it up, it's important to stress that it needs to be razor-sharp content that visitors are greeted with, otherwise they'll quickly feel cheated. So when you create a white paper, an e-book or any of the above, there needs to be some oomph behind it, otherwise it can backfire.
You have now been introduced to the most important elements when it comes to content marketing. If you don't already have these elements on the drawing board, it's a good idea to sit down and make a plan. Google and visitors will recognise good content.
