The 2013 Content Marketing award winners offer inspiration to marketing agencies looking to up their content game and find freelance writers who can help them take their content to the next level. So what are some of the takeaways agencies can glean from this year’s stellar roster of award winners?
Seamless Content
While the award went to a variety of different content creators and agencies, one consistent buzzword across the winner’s circle was “seamless.” Seamless integration of excellent content across multiple platforms is what makes a good agency great. More than just picking the right keywords or creating a clickable meta tag, having a big picture vision and deeply understanding how all of the moving parts in your project work to support that vision is a hallmark of excellence in this industry. One simple way to go about achieving better integration is to work closely with your team of content writers to ensure that your agency voice is clear, consistent, and compelling.
Innovation
Sure, many of the winners this year are big brands with big budgets, but you simply can’t buy a truly innovative idea. What sets many of these excellent content creators apart is their ability to recognize an opportunity for innovation that will set their content apart from the pack. An innovative approach can manifest itself in any number of ways, from committing to a new form of social media and associating your client’s brand as one of the early adopters, to forming unlikely partnerships with businesses outside of the traditional content marketing field in order to better leverage and spread your message. By hiring writers to do the heavy lifting for your content creation, you can free up your agency staff to think big and come up with truly out-of-the-box ideas that are also achievable for the resources you have available.
Opportunities for Engagement
High quality content is not just findable via SEO keywords and anchor links, but it also offers multiple invitations for readers to engage. The best content has a certain “stickiness”; it captures the attention of the audience and holds it. This means creating an interesting, clickable title for your article, but it also means holding interest throughout the piece of content with compelling writing, facts, and relevant links. Incorporating subtle calls to action to share the content also invites engagement and ensures a wider dissemination of your content. Be careful of overselling, however; no one wants to be told to like or link, but nearly everyone responds favorable to a warm invitation to join the conversation.
Caitlin C is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
