Vinay Bhandari
No other marketing medium takes a business closer to its prospects and customers than content marketing.
Consumers will continue to demand new content. However, they don’t want content that isn’t better than the ones they’ve seen.
Despite the intense competition for attention by brands in every niche you can think of, there continues to be a high demand for fresh content.
Consumers will continue to demand new content. However, they don’t want content that isn’t better than the ones they’ve seen
Top brands are searching for talented content creators. Top talents are scarce.
Create better content that disrupts the current standard content in your niche.
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Here are the 7 types of content.
Video is my favorite medium for learning.
Search engines love videos. Businesses that use videos receive 41% more web traffic from search engines than companies that don’t.
Top social media platforms support videos. For example, Facebook gets an average of 8 billion video views each day.
Facebook video views
Start with a small investment in videos.
MedCognition, a startup that creates and markets its realistic holographic patient simulation for pre-hospital providers uses a video on its homepage to educate prospects.
If you’re shooting videos by yourself, it’ll take some time to build up the skills required to become a top video content creator. Give yourself some time to learn – to make mistakes.
If you intend to employ people to handle video production and promotion for your company, you should still start small.
See how videos affect your revenue. Increase your investment as you begin to see more revenue from the videos you publish.
Learn where your prospects watch video content online before you publish your first video. You won’t reach your customers if they scroll on Instagram and you post videos on YouTube.
If you help your audience learn and grow, they will come to you when they need your product or service.
I’d read guides that taught me something new. I’d read guides that changed my life.
I still remember some helpful guides I read 10 years ago. I still remember writers who wrote them and companies that published them.
companies that published guides
People will remember brands that educate them. When you educate your audience, you invest in their lives. You improve their lives.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform. Its customers are online merchants. Shopify published a guide on how to deal with the legal aspect of e-commerce business.
Shopify legal guide
Brands that train their customers position themselves as a helpful resource. They earn more trust than brands that always ask for the sale.
Ask prospects or customers what they’ll like to learn. Ask them by email, phone or SMS. No second, minute, hour or day you invest in your customers will go to waste.
After knowing what your prospects will like to learn, go ahead and create high-quality guides for those topics.
In an opinion piece, you can share your views from different angles using different stories.
New York Times is one of my favorite sites for reading strong opinion posts from experts in politics, business, tech, health, and science. It’s not uncommon to see headlines of opinion pieces in the New York Times trend on Twitter.
Below is a recent opinion post that trended on Twitter.
An opinion post from New York Times
When Mark Schaefer wrote about content shock back in 2014, it sparked a debate among marketers that year. That piece was one of the most popular opinion posts in the digital marketing space that year.
Opinion posts have the power to travel faster than most other types of content.
Spark an argument. Get people talking and arguing. Get friends arguing with each other.
Choose one side. Everyone shouldn’t agree with you. It’s not a bad idea for some people to disagree with you.
Sometimes, we disagree with each other. Friends disagree with each other. Siblings disagree with each other.
Before you write an opinion post on a topic, ensure that you’re an authority in it. You should be an expert on that topic.
For example, Drip IV Lounge, an IV clinic in San Antonio has an article on their site titled “Is IV Therapy Safe?” Articles like this make prospects see the business as an authority.
If you don’t know about a topic, it’s impossible to make people believe anything you write.
Unless you founded a company, employed in a startup, or have friends or family who are founders, don’t write an opinion post on startups.
For example, Paul Graham has been in the startup world for decades. He has experience. He’s an authority. When he speaks, people listen.
Someone like Paul Graham opinion pieces are going to be popular because he’s respected. He’s an expert.
Nicholas A. Parr, a Maryland attorney that specializes in DUI, crimimal defense, personal injury, etc, publishes interesting opinion posts on his site.
Writing product reviews is a great way to gain some people’s trust online. If consumers trust online product reviews as if their friends wrote them, it’s an opportunity for you to appear much like a friend.
By writing product reviews, you can rank for some long tail keywords in your niche. As consumers find your product reviews through search engines and social media, they also discover your brand.
Product reviews get you in front of people who may buy your products or services in the future.
When people find and engage with your product reviews, you become an authority. They see you as an expert.
Don’t like every product you review. Stay neutral in your reviews.
Consumers will see you as a trustworthy expert when you share your experiences and views about a product or service.
Keep in mind that you’re not in it to make money. Write reviews because you want to attract an audience that needs your product or service.
Write both positive, negative and neutral reviews of products based on your experience using them.
Matthew Woodward wrote a negative review of his experience with WP Engine. His audience liked it. The post has received 666 comments.
Matthew Woodward experience with WP Engine
He shared proofs to show he’d used WP Engine.
Businesses that sell services should also write reviews. For example, on the website of The Law Offices of Nicholas A. Parr, you’ll find reviews from clients of the firm.
You may need to hire a designer to make your guide attractive. A how-to content is simpler than a guide.
A how-to content can contain anywhere between 1,500 – 2,000 words. A guide may have between 10,000 – 30,000 words.
If you want to create a content that teaches people how to perform a skill in a short time, then a how-to content is what you want.
You can produce a how-to content within 5 – 15 hours if you’re an expert on the topic. Guides may take 1 – 3 weeks to create.
The difference is that guides are in-depth. They require a lot of research and more demonstrations in the content. Both are good.
Some of your visitors will prefer guides. Some will prefer how-to content. Publish both.
However, because guides require a lot more investment, you may want to create more how-to content. For every 10 how-to content you publish, you may create a guide.
The design is an essential aspect of many successful infographics I’ve seen. The design of an infographic is the first thing that draws people’s attention to it.
The design of an infographic
The design of an infographic is its first impression. If the design is poor, an infographic will receive less or zero attention.
The next essential part when investing in infographics is the promotion. Promote your infographics. Promote hard.
Reach out to people through emails. Some influencers like to share infographics on their sites and social media accounts.
If your infographic appeals to them, they’ll add it to their blog posts and link back to you. They’ll share it with their followers on social media.
BuzzFeed is famous for its listicles.
buzzfeed listicles
Econsultancy is UK’s premier marketing blog. They did a study in 2013 and found that 9 out of 10 most popular posts on the blog were list posts.
Numbers attract web readers. When they see a number in a headline, they know what to expect from the article.
web readers love numbers
The problem is that there are too many list posts on the web. Most of them contain old ideas.
Don’t copy what everyone has written. Be creative. Find new ideas. Or, use old ideas in a new way that make your content looks different.
Get outside of your niche and find ideas competitors haven’t covered in their content.
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At Confluencr, one of India’s foremost Influencer Marketing agencies, we maintain a strategic process to market clients’ content. We pick industry relevant i...
