Another week, a zillion more happenings in content marketing (and a few you shouldn’t miss). Why spend all your extra time reading through every single piece of news and advice on the internet when you could have someone else do it for you?
There’s no need to beg; we’ve already rounded up all the best content marketing trends of the week just for you!
Let’s Get Digital, Digital. Come On and Get Digital, Digital.
Four Digital Marketing Areas to Focus on During Crisis Recovery via Forbes
So, you had to temporarily close your business, adjust operations, or put your previous marketing strategy on hold. Regardless of the way your business has changed (and the way it’s probably continuing to evolve) during the pandemic, it’s more important than ever to find a way to let your customers know that you’re still there and in what manner your services or products are available.
According to this article from Forbes, harnessing an updated digital marketing strategy is the best way to stay in touch with your customers and keep them connected to your brand throughout the pandemic. To start, bolster your digital presence with a solid content marketing campaign and SEO strategy. Next, read the full article from Forbes for even more ideas.
Do You Know Things That You Shouldn’t Know About Your Audience?
How to Create a Not-Awkward Personalization Strategy via Content Marketing Institute
We’ve all experienced it, the creep-factor of modern, digital advertising. (Um, can you say stalkers?) You have a conversation about growing succulents in front of Alexa, and the next time you look at your phone, there’s an advertisement for cactus fertilizer. Or you visit a B2B business’s webpage only to discover that they already know what company you work for. Cue the Psycho theme music: Eek-eek-eek!
Today, digital marketers have all sorts of mind-blowingly incredible data-collecting abilities at their disposal. If you’re one of these digital marketing wizards, then you need to figure out how to use the information you have without freaking out your audience. Take a cue from this article from Content Marketing Insitute and learn how you can be a smart marketer without also coming across as creepy.
Where Does the Blogging Magic Happen in Your Industry?
Blog Topics: How to Find Your Sweet Spot (Even in a Boring Niche) via Moz
Writing blogs is hard work. It turns out that getting those blogs seen (and enjoyed and appreciated and shared) is even harder work. If your blog’s performance isn’t meeting your expectations and you have a killer SEO strategy, then you might have a problem with the actual topics you’re choosing to write about.
Selecting the best topics to get your blog found, read, and shared is actually really challenging – especially for marketers working in industries that are generally considered to be boh-ring!
If your blog topics lack the luster of being interesting, entertaining, and useful, then take a moment to read this article from Moz that aims to help you find your brand’s blogging sweet spot.
Ask Your Audience to Click Like They Mean It
Write Better Emails Using Comedy Writing Strategies via WriterAccess
Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools in the digital marketer’s toolbelt (or toolbox – I don’t know where you keep ’em). Unfortunately, the emails you send are cozily enjoying the inbox company of hundreds or thousands of other marketing emails that your audience receives. So, how do you ensure your recipient opens your email even if they choose to delete the rest?
Make it worth their while – that’s how.
One major way you can be sure your recipients always open your emails and maybe even look forward to receiving them is always to enclose a laugh. Humor is marketing is POWERFUL, and there’s no reason you can’t harness that power for your brand’s benefit. To learn more about using comedy in email marketing campaigns, read this article from an expert-in-funny at WriterAccess.
How Playing Games with Your Target Audience Could Strengthen Your Strategy
How to Implement Gamification in Your Content Marketing Strategy: Useful Tips and Tools via Business 2 Community
If you’ve ever looked under a bottle cap to see if you won a free drink or peeled a Monopoly sticker from a super-sized fry, then you’ve been the willing victim of gamified marketing. This type of marketing cleverly uses games to advertise, and people actually enjoy playing!
In content marketing, gamification isn’t just about handing out surprise discounts (although sometimes it is), it can also be about promoting your brand while offering your customers entertaining games to play. Take a look at this article from Business 2 Community for some really clever ideas on how to gamify your content and some wonderful tools that’ll simplify the job.
All Aboard! The Proper Way to Bring Writers into Your Content Marketing Strategy
Writer Onboarding and Brand Guidelines: The Unsung Heroes of Content Marketing Success via Search Engine Land
Whether you have an in-house creative department or you outsource your talent, you can’t expect your writers to read your brand’s mind, and that’s why you need a set of brand guidelines and a process for onboarding new content marketing talent. With the right communication and set of instructions, you’ll save time and minimize revisions because a good writer will be able to emulate your brand voice and personality from the get-go.
If you’re already working with freelance writers or if you’re thinking about hiring one, put your feet up and check out this video and article from Search Engine Land. A few minutes learning about onboarding writers will save you a lot of future frustration.
Fill Out Your Content Strategy with an Emaciated Marketing Budget
How Content Can Drive Marketing Success in Lean Times: 5 Tips via Search Engine Journal
If you’re like most businesses in the current economic climate, then you’re probably operating with a fairly lean marketing budget – and that’s okay! You gotta do what you gotta do to survive, but a shrunken budget doesn’t mean you have to give up on success. You can actually accomplish a lot in content marketing and meet your business goals on a surprisingly small amount of cheddah. So, go ahead and keep pinching your pennies while you take a gander at this helpful advice from Search Engine Journal.
A full-time freelance writer and editor, Jennifer G. believes that understanding each client’s unique business, brand, voice, passions, and goals is the true challenge of content creation. With every new client and project, she loves diving in, getting acquainted, and developing long-lasting relationships. Jennifer is also the author of our weekly content marketing trends report that hits the blog each Friday.
