,Are you looking for new ways to boost your online appeal? If so, it may be time to rethink your content marketing strategy. The more specific and well-thought-out your approach to content marketing is, the more effective it will be in targeting the audience you’re trying to reach. If you’re dissatisfied with the current results of your marketing efforts, it might be time to think about changing up your tactics.
Whether you’re trying to market a brand-new business, developing content for a new product or service, or attempting to rebrand an existing business, finding the right type of content is a must if you want to stay visible online. If you’re looking for some ideas to get you started, here are three techniques that will help you refocus your marketing approach and start getting the kind of results you’re looking for.
Study your competitors
When you’re running a business, it’s important to trust your instincts and follow the path that seems best to you. However, it’s also important to pay attention to what others are doing—and learn the right lessons from them. That means studying your competitors and deciding whether they’re doing anything that you could benefit from emulating. After all, the best way to be successful is to find some success stories to learn from. It’s also worth seeing what could be improved upon from your competitor’s strategies.
The easiest way to start is simply to check out some of your peers’ websites. Pick a sample selection of 4-5 of your competitors—whether local or otherwise—and spend some time perusing their online content. Compare and contrast how they approach the task of promoting their products and services. Study everything, from site layout to the writing voice. Do they offer web-exclusive features, such as downloadable PDFs? What techniques do they use to catch the attention of potential customers? Are the sites easy to navigate? How do they reflect the unique personality of the business?
You may also want to check out your competitors’ social media presence. After all, in today’s internet-centric world, smart use of social media is indispensable for any business that wants to earn a competitive edge over their peers. How often do they update? What kind of voice do they use in their posts? Do they offer any perks for their followers? As you study your competitors, be sure to take notes and keep thinking about how you can put their best practices to use in your own online content strategy.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes
If you want to be successful online, you need to understand the way your content’s readership—your potential customers—think. The better you understand your audience, and the more specifically you are able to pinpoint what they are looking for from you, the better equipped you will be to provide the kind of engaging content that will draw their attention. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to do that:
Create a customer profile
One of the best methods for understanding your audience is to develop a profile of an average customer. What traits define them, what their demographics are, what stage of life they are at, what their shopping habits are—all of these factors, and more, should be part of your analysis. You can use this profile to decide what types of online content will be most appealing to your readership.
Use online polls
Informal customer polls are one of the fastest and easiest ways to get feedback from your customers. Whether you do them through email, through Twitter, or another medium, these polls will help you understand what your customers are thinking about right now, and what their preferences are.
Engage with your customers
Whenever possible, it’s important to reach out directly to your audience. Don’t ignore them on social media when they leave comments; instead, respond to them. Reply to any reviews of your business you find online. Respond to customer emails as quickly as possible. The more engaged you are with your customer base, the stronger a relationship you are likely to build with them.
Use a professional content provider
One of the most common problems that many businesses and agencies run into with online content is that they simply do not have the ability to produce regular content that meets their standards. Between the need to post routine blog updates and the imperative to stay fully engaged on social media, the demands of online content can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there is a simple solution: Reach out to a third-party content provider.
When you rely on an outside agency to provide you with content, you won’t have to spend your valuable time, energy, and resources on creating the content yourself. You also won’t have to hire full-time staff in order to fulfill that role. Instead of struggling to keep up with your online content schedule, you can simply depend on a writing professional to create a content calendar and regular content for you.
When you work with a dependable content provider, you won’t have to worry about whether the content will always be up to your high standards. You can also rest assured that the content will be reflective of your business’s voice and values. In other words, relying on an outside content specialist makes the entire content creation process much simpler. Are you tired of the way your online content currently looks and reads? If so, hiring a skilled professional could be the best possible move for your business.
Ready to give your online content the shot in the arm it needs? Connect with Pennington Creative. Our digital marketing specialists have the skills and experience needed to help you get the most out of your content. From blogs and onsite copy to infographics and press releases, we provide a wide array of essential content services. If you’d like to learn more, feel free to contact us through our website today!
