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Content marketing is a powerful branding tool when properly executed all the way through to conversion. The key is building upon your core message and communicating the desired behavior and/or perspectives you are trying to change -- cultivating enough momentum to reach both your primary and secondary audiences and to send your content viral. When your content begins to resonate across multiples audiences, it can take your brand to places that you never thought possible.
Defining your brand’s content marketing platform is an extremely important place to start. Your platform must define your brand’s distinction -- its unique point of view. Your platform must illustrate the unique perspectives you are attempting to communicate through each distribution channel on which your content is delivered. This is where your audience will initially decide if your content adds value to their particular needs and interests. Be patient. When you are creating a unique platform, it takes time for your audience to know exactly what your content is trying to convey, the impact you seek to create and the behavior you are trying to change.
For example, my platform is defined as the immigrant perspective on leadership and workplace innovation. What makes it distinct is that my content is focused on the importance of how to reinvent organizational, leadership and consumer identity during times of uncertainty. The enterprise is experiencing a paradigm shift -- from the business defining the individual, to the individual defining the business. My content emphasizes the immigrant mentality and communicates it as one of survival, renewal and reinvention; similarly, we must value the importance of constantly reinventing ourselves as leaders, brands and organizations in order to sustain our competitive edge. My content topics range from personal branding, change management, and leadership, to preparing for the cultural demographic shift, marketing and career management – across all industries.
Content marketing is more than defining your brand’s platform, it’s knowing how to give your platform life through the richness of your content’s purpose and meaning and its ability to propel engagement with your target audiences across multiple outlets. It’s about establishing the content’s foundational/guiding principles (organizational, leadership and brand identity) and solidifying the different topics that your brand’s value proposition can most effectively communicate to educate your audience about its guiding principles (e.g., personal branding, change management, leadership, etc.). On the surface, this may appear like a common sense exercise that can be easily implemented. The reality is that this process is extremely complex; it not only requires a deep understanding of the behavioral changes and/or perspectives that you are attempting to deliver, but also being in tune with the content that your audience is thirsty for. The best content marketing strategies drive consumer engagement by solving for growing tension points and/or narrowing demand gaps in the marketplace. When engagement is converted into sustainable revenue, you know that your content strategy is on the mark.
Maximizing your content marketing strategy requires a multifaceted approach to assure that your brand reaches the desired relevancy among your targeted audience and beyond. Here are eight areas to strengthen the foundational/guiding principles of your brand’s content platform to assure that your core message is fully amplified and that your content conversion rates are high.
1. Articles/Blogs
Writing articles/blogs on your brand’s subject matter is something that must be done frequently, authentically and with high quality. Creating great content that is unique and engaging is both an art and a science. It’s difficult, but can be mastered over a period of time. Write your own content and own it. Your audience must know that it’s coming from the brand owner (i.e., thought leader or brand manager and/or communications). Though many people and companies use ghost writers for their content needs, over time your audience will see right through this and begin to feel slighted.
Make your content newsworthy, timely, relatable and create an emotional connection with your audience. Make it genuine, authentic and true -- and followers and revenue conversion rates will begin to climb. Your audience wants to know you before they begin to buy from you. Also, don’t focus your approach on aggressively selling your audience, but rather stay focused on educating them so the transaction is organic and loyalty is sustainable.
2. Webinars
Expand your content into other distribution channels that your audience can experience – like a webinar. This not only allows you to share your content’s core message verbally, but also allows you to invite other industry partners and/or thought leaders into the fold. It’s important to get others to start talking about and/or reacting to your content and its guiding principles. If you are the only one talking about it, you are involved in a one-sided conversation which weakens your platform’s intentions and your brand’s relevancy.
Allow others to get involved in the conversations that you are attempting to create. Trust your brand and share the momentum that you are trying to create with others.
3. Keynotes
Delivering your content as a keynote allows you to get an audience’s instant reaction and address any questions and concerns that come up. When delivering a keynote, it’s like conducting a focus group as your audience provides you with instant feedback about your content via their questions, body language and level of engagement.
Also, when you are delivering your content in a keynote forum, you are perceived as a trusted authority on the subject matter. When you get paid to deliver your content, it is because you are seen as an authority and this is when you know that your content marketing strategy is building real momentum.
4. Roundtables
Test and measure the impact and relevancy of your content marketing strategy in a small intimate/private roundtable setting. Invite 5-10 client partners that you believe would benefit from your content’s core message and the overarching objectives that you are trying to achieve. When you can be transparent about sharing your intentions, you will get the real feedback you are looking for that will allow you to strengthen your strategy and course correct along the way.
My organization has done this many times with clients and the results have been tremendous as we strived to establish our brand as a trusted content / thought leadership resource. Many times these roundtables excite clients to invest in our campaigns on the spot.
5. Summits/Conferences
Participating in summits/conferences is another way to deliver your content. You know your content marketing strategy is relevant when you can align your core message in support of the summit/conference objectives. Also, because content has become so commoditized (not much differentiation), your unique platform has the opportunity to be discovered in your role as a speaker and/or panelist. Your content’s reach doesn’t have to be focused on just one industry vertical either. The more flexibility and versatility your content has to reach more audiences the better – as long as it doesn’t lose its impact along the way. If you attempt to stretch your content too much, conversion rates may decline.
Unlike conventional thinking, you don’t necessarily need to be a speaker and/or panelist to launch your content marketing campaign. Being a guest can be just as impactful if you are prepared to ask the right questions (during the question & answer sessions) to feed into the group dialogue in a way that allows your core message to influence the conversation and get noticed. In the end, you are trying to connect with the right companies to potentially partner your content with and/or the right people that will help you convert your content into revenue.
6. Social Media
The utilization of social media as a distribution channel for your content is mandatory. However, you must be strategic in the social media outlets you decide to use. Not every social media outlet may necessarily support the audiences for your content’s core messaging. If not mindful of the social media outlets you select, your brand’s reputation and relevancy can be damaged in the process because you are unknowingly creating tensions points with certain audiences.
Social media requires continuity and consistency in delivery. Know your audience well and distribute the right amount and type of content to get the attention and viral impact you are looking for. Finally, use the right photography, imagery, videos and other visual aids to further accentuate the message and/or perspectives you want to convey and create buzz for your brand.
7. Traditional Media
Create a media kit that packages the success stories of your content marketing strategy – and that clearly illustrates the reach and viral metrics of your messages (from points 1 – 5) with traditional media outlets. When traditional media finds your content to be relevant, it becomes a powerful advertising outlet for your brand.
Many content strategies target traditional media on the front end. You need to establish a success story/case study that communicates the significance of your content strategy before approaching traditional media. This is a relationship that must be earned over time. If you are consistent in continuously improving your brand’s content platform and guiding principles, traditional media outlets will slowly begin to take notice. You need to be patient and not force this relationship.
For example, my most popular article on Forbes is titled, The Most Successful Leaders Do 15 Things Automatically, Every Day. This article has been published and featured in over 30 countries, 20 languages and its application has been used to illustrate its benefits across 15 industries. This article – which unexpectedly went viral upon its launch and continues to find its viral footing every 2-3 months – is an example of being consistent with my content’s core message and the unique way it is delivered. To put this into further perspective, not only did it land me an interview on CNN, but the article was featured in a recent episode of Bravo TV’s reality show Flipping Out. Watch the one minute video below and the unique way the content was used.
8. Whitepapers
Once you have the metrics to feature a successful content marketing strategy, share the findings of your qualitative and quantitative outcomes in the form of a whitepaper. This not only helps you validate the impact of your content strategy and how its perspectives led to behavioral changes, new conversations, launch of a new industry trend, and/or your desired conversion rates – it establishes your brand as a case study for others.
Distributing a whitepaper is also a valuable discipline to help you design best practices in preparation for your next content marketing strategy – and allows you to share it with corporate clients that may not have believed your strategy was strong enough for them to engage with when you initially presented it to them.
These eight content marketing tips will catapult your brand relevancy and ensure you get the most mileage out of your content marketing strategy. But there’s one more. Consider publishing an e-book about your content marketing strategies – this can further associate your brand with genuine consumer engagement and expertise in content messaging and delivery. Share what you’ve learned and how you applied it to reach your target audience, to solidify the foundational/guiding principles of your brand’s content platform, to amplify your core message, and to sustain high content conversion rates.
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