Although content marketing use among B2C marketers has risen from 86 percent last year to 90 percent this year and B2B small business marketers see content marketing as a way to level the playing field with larger businesses, less than half of those marketers have a content marketing strategy. Because content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads, it makes sense to study up on what constitutes quality content. Besides being rich in keywords, it’s important to be:
- Timely. For your content to mean something to your customer, it needs to be current. Tying content to something recently in the news is a perfect way to make your content timely.
- Relevant. If it’s current, then it’s relevant–at least for most of your audience. If not, then develop content relevant to your customers. Think solutions—what problem is your content solving?
- Interesting. To make your content interesting you need to write in a conversational tone. If you can’t write it yourself, hire someone who can.
- Educational. What are your customers learning from your content? What can they take away from your content and share with others?
- Engaging. Decide what emotion (anger, joy, excitement) you want to evoke from your customers and write your content to engage your customers with the appropriate emotion.
- Responsive. Ask for a response from your customers. Do you want them to share the information, click to get more information or print out a timely coupon?
- Accurate. Don’t mislead or overpromise.