11 Actionable Content Marketing Tips for Digital Marketers

Digital Marketing | 14-05-2021 | Alex Lysak

11 actionable content marketing tips for digital marketers

Blogging Like it’s 1994

Back in 1994, a blog was essentially a personal diary with a (much) bigger audience. It usually offered a glimpse into the writer’s personal life. Whatever was on the author’s mind at the time was shared, such as holiday experiences, likes, dislikes, rantings, and musings.

For some, that was too much information, but others soon noticed there was an audience for it. ScanTeam is a fine example of how to leverage the power of content to drive the success of app development company in a wide variety of industries.

No longer bound by the traditional marketing channels of radio, television, and print, professional marketers have taken things to a whole nother level. With the ever-increasing influence of Content Marketing, a wealth of digital marketing tips has also evolved to give the promoter an edge over their competition.

Digital Marketing VS Content Marketing

It’s often assumed that these terms are interchangeable, but in fact, they are quite different. Digital Marketing encompasses a multitude of channels and tools to get the message out. The focus of Content Marketing is the content of the message rather than the tool itself.

When we think about digital marketing versus content marketing, we must treat them as two distinct concepts. Too much emphasis on one of them over the other could seriously inhibit our marketing return on investment. Of course, our content is likely to be influenced by the shape of our digital marketing strategy, so we can’t address them in complete isolation.

Our guest author Alex Lysak, CEO of ScanTeam, is here to share some of his top content marketing tips, so let’s dive right in.

Data, Data Everywhere

Information is everything, as Alex will testify. He’s been an expert in SEO projects since 2011. Before we launch into writing our content, we must consider who we are writing for. We should do our research and have a clear customer profile. This is a crucial factor in how we present our content. What’s the point in writing an excellent article if it’s not relevant to the reader?

The First Hurdle

No different from a newspaper, the headline is where the action starts. We need to give our article a headline that will grab someone’s attention and make them want to find out what’s inside. Create an irresistible headline that inspires the reader to find out more.

Keep It Light

When we’re passionate about our subject matter, it’s easy to forget that, initially, our reader may not be as invested in it as we are. We should keep our audience engaged with content written in an informal tone. It’s best to use simple language -- if reading our content becomes a chore, the reader will get bored and leave.

Make It Relevant

Attracting a reader is one thing, but we need to keep them with us. We aim to ease them towards committing. It’s about more than just having a great headline. For inspiration, we can always look online within our industry for some content marketing ideas.

We can keep their interest by offering professional insight or our personal experience of the subject matter. We can gain the reader’s trust in our brand by showing that we know what we’re talking about and communicating it in a relatable way.

Long Enough To Be Interesting

The blogging service Medium carried out a survey and found that, on average, better-performing pages had articles that took between three and seven minutes to read. A seven-minute read equates to roughly 1,700 words.

Although a long article provides good opportunities for keyword optimization and comprehensive content, it can also reinforce our brand’s integrity. It could all turn out to be a waste of effort if it’s not optimized. Size isn’t everything!

Something To Do

Instead of simply feeding our readers information, we need to enable them to accomplish something by making our content actionable. We must take them through the steps to achieving their goal – which may have been why they came to us in the first place. Actionable content takes the reader by the hand and guides them to their objective.

Let The Content Do The Work

We’ve done all the hard work of creating our highly effective article, but that doesn’t need to be the end of it.

Why not take different elements of it and present them in other formats? For example, steps in a process could be posted on YouTube as a “how-to” video, and a table of statistics could be presented in a social media post as an infographic. In this way, we can expose our business across many more channels with not much extra work.

If inspiration is running low, this page at Active Campaign has some great content ideas for any digital marketing agency.

Recycling Is Good

Any good digital content marketer will use analytics to check the effectiveness of all elements of their commercial strategy. There’s nothing wrong with taking a well-performing article and updating it with a refresh of the text, links, and even images or videos. Sometimes, articles can benefit from an extra boost that makes them relevant.

Be Our Guest

This is a great way to extend the reach of our brand to an audience that may not otherwise have heard of it. Having a post written by a guest who already has a strong following can work as a “referral by association.” Both parties get the opportunity to reach out to new audiences, and we can exchange online marketing tips.

Bring Them Home

Here is where we start to lead our readers along the path from their goal to ours. This can be broken down into the following three, key stages:

Informing, Not Selling

Having gained the reader’s attention, the key here is to keep them interested and engaged with our content.

We can use various tools to do this, including:

- Blog posts
- Webinars
- Videos
- Still Not Selling

We’re still not going for the sale at this stage, but we’re giving our readers reasons to become our customer. We need to gain their trust by showing them that we have the expertise to provide the solutions that they need.

The resources available to us include:

Case Studies

Technical information and data sheets
Demo videos that showcase our product
…Now!

Here’s where we bring it home. By providing our readers with an organic path to becoming our customers, they feel that they are in control and haven’t been put off by a “hard sell.”

We can use “superpowers” like these to close the deal:

- Professional testimonials
- Customer reviews
- Our simple, trustworthy sales/engagement process
- Get the Basics Right

Before we publish our article, we need to ensure that we’ve rigorously checked the spelling and grammar. When a potential client comes across a piece that’s riddled with errors, they may start to doubt the accuracy of the content itself.

Summing Up

We have seen here that successful digital content relies on understanding the target audience, providing relevant content, and maximizing its reach.

Now it’s time to see if your digital marketing plan is as effective as it could be, so take the time to review it. Ensure that you follow these tips for content marketing, and you’ll be well on your way to success.

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Author

Alex Lysak

Alex Lysak is a  CEO of ScanTeam, digital marketing company.