Are You Marketing Your Content the Right Way or the Wrong Way?
In the last five to 10 years, content marketing has become a very popular form of digital marketing across many industries. Part of the reason is it costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing on average. It also generates three times as many leads.
However, even though content marketing has risen dramatically in popularity, many businesses do it wrong and see poor results.
Many businesses simply put content on their websites and leave it there, hoping it will attract hordes of viewers. This is one of the single greatest mistakes businesses make when trying to do content marketing.
Sometimes, it works. But more often than not, it doesn’t. The truth is it takes much more than luck to make content marketing work well. Generic content on websites simply doesn’t work anymore.
Content without marketing is dead! A lack of effective content marketing is why companies say traffic and lead generation is still their top marketing challenge.
There are two ways to do content marketing, the right way, and the wrong way. Here is a breakdown of each.
The Right Way
The first principle of good content marketing is showing up where your customers are. This means you need to know which social media channels they hang out on the most. Once you know this information, you need to create a strong presence on these channels.
Another key component is making sure your website content is answering questions that people are asking on Google. You need to know what keywords your banking customers are searching for. You must also have solid content on your website with these keywords and provide the answers to your customers’ questions.
MarketingProfs CCO Ann Handley, when speaking about content marketing, said, “Quality content means content that is packed with clear utility and is brimming with inspiration, and it has relentless empathy for the audience.” This is the kind of content you need.
You need to ensure the marketing e-mails you’re sending out are answering customers’ questions and anticipating their needs. Your company needs to provide helpful, clean content at every key touchpoint for your customers. As you can see below, e-mail is the most effective marketing content channel for prospective buyers. Therefore, you need to get this right.
Consistency is also key. Your brand voice and style must be consistent across your website, social media accounts, e-mails, and other channels. Consistency is great because it helps to build trust, as well as help to reinforce your brand identity. Consumers like brand consistency.
The Wrong Way
One of the biggest mistakes many companies make when attempting to do content marketing is inconsistency when posting. They may speak in a different voice or a significantly different tone across their marketing channels. This could be highly irritating and confusing to consumers.
Posting irrelevant content is another key mistake companies often make. Generally speaking, consumers don’t like to read content that’s generic, irrelevant, or completely different from the content they were expecting. The content needs to hold their interest and draw their attention, not bore them.
Not adding pictures to posts is another mistake many businesses make when posting content on Facebook. Facebook posts with pictures create substantially higher engagement levels than posts without pictures.
Not recognizing where the companies’ customers and potential customers hang out is also something many companies fail at, unfortunately. For example, many businesses will do things, such as focus on Facebook, when most of their customers hang out on Twitter. Advertising to the right channels is of paramount importance for getting content marketing right.
Not using video content in your marketing efforts can also be a big mistake. As you can see from the chart below, video content is extremely popular. So, if you don’t already have videos in your content marketing strategy, you should include them.
Finally, the last mistake many banks and financial institutions make concerns the e-mails....-->
In the last five to 10 years, content marketing has become a very popular form of digital marketing across many industries. Part of the reason is it costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing on average. It also generates three times as many leads.
However, even though content marketing has risen dramatically in popularity, many businesses do it wrong and see poor results.