Best Practices for Content Marketing

Content Marketing Examples

When it comes to creating a content marketing strategy, planning is key.

For example – building an editorial calendar that is well balanced/diverse can ensure that you have a solid mix of approaches to your different audiences/buyer personas.

It’s a great exercise to build out a vision of your typical buyer personas, so that you have a clear vison of your target markets and their buying habits.

Inbound marketing initiatives can be less costly, but a slower build - so it needs to be a part of your long-term strategy.

While outbound methods can still be successful, they generally don’t deliver as well as they used to on their own. Content marketing will supplement and compliment your overall marketing plan.

Your content needs to feel natural and tell a story. People have become more savvy to sales techniques, and you'll find yourself wondering why your marketing isn't driving more sales if you take the hard sell approach these days.

Your overall intent needs to be:

o To inform and educate

o To attract and engage

o To build trust towards your brand through being a though leader in your industry.

o To be perceived as adding value, and be a genuine source of help

So what should you be considering?

What problem are you solving? 

What makes you unique? 

Do you know what your competitors are doing?

Here are some best practice examples of content marketing that could be put into place within your business…..

Expedia – Stuff, Made to Travel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMaispXEh94

This is a great example of video content that:

a. Tells a story – storytelling is  SUPER powerful

b. Is thought provoking and taps into emotions

Expedia hired Ewan McGregor/production company to create a 30 second video that asks the viewer: “Will any of us look back on our lives and regret the things we didn’t buy? Or the places we didn’t go?”

This is designed to inspire and give a sense of perspective, particularly after the unprecedented events of the last 2 years. This video has received 49 million hits on YouTube. I wonder what their conversion rate is?

You don’t need to hire Ewan McGregor! Or even work with a huge production/budget.

If you can inspire your audience to be attracted to your product you are taking them on the first step of their buying journey.

IN ADDITION, their “Traveller Value Index” report highlighting the shift in traveller preferences since the start of the pandemic adds credibility to their brand through thought leadership. Being a trusted source of information can only add to the confidence that people have in their brand.

E-Books

People go through a process of research before they buy. You want to deliver value to your audience – not just sell to them. And E-books are a great way to do this.

There's a book written by Gary Vaynerchuk – Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. The basic moral of the story is to nurture your audience with value, value, value before you sell.

By creating an informative, free E-book that shares valuable advice and tips you will:

o Get potential customers to take the next step in their buying journey

o Enhance their experience

o Establish trust in your brand – you know what you’re talking about

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great example of content marketing to the masses

Some stats from Infinite Dial highlighted that 62% of people in the US have listened to a Podcast at least once (nearly two thirds of the population in the US).

Listeners can be engaged and inspired without leaving their home. This is where the Armchair Explorer’s Podcast was a clever way to take people on an inspiring trip.

   https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/armchair-explorer/id1495103557 

 

Aaron Millar has a series of 30 to 45 minute travel podcasts, taking the listener to a range of exotic locations. He does this through:

o Storytelling
o Music
o Cinematic effects

For a travel brand this is genius, as with the world opening up people will no doubt want to be travelling again.

And if you have attracted an audience through your awe-inspiring podcasts, they are more likely to buy from you.

Blogs

With blogs there is no limit to how much you write about/share with your audience. Timely topics created as blogs can then be shared through social media and on your website which means more valuable content, reaching more people.

AND Valuable, informative and relevant content means higher rankings on search engines. This includes backlinks from 3rd party websites which search engines love!

Blogs in particular that are timeless work well – or at least can be updated where needed. It shows knowledge in your area, and there's trust in knowledge



The examples given are perhaps better in some ways for a travel company than other examples of content marketing such as travel guides and newsletters.

Travel guides could become out of date reasonably quickly – which is OK for online versions, but printed guides would be costly.

Newsletters these days can get lost amongst a barrage of email spam hitting people’s inboxes.

(I personally, have seen an increased since the start of the pandemic).

It’s hard to get the frequency right with newsletters, and can be a slower start as you build your audience. They can however, be good to showcase timely topics.

In summary, the ROI can be hard to measure with content marketing but the value it adds can be clear through increases in conversion.

Content that you create, can be re-purposed for use on social media platforms – shaping the content slightly differently for each platform so that you are tailoring your approach to each demographic.

So, I hope that is helpful. These are just some of the best practices you can consider when building out your content marketing strategy and editorial calendar.