The point of content marketing was never to simply increase the number of head turns or clicks but to provide content that would shake and stir the audience into action. This action essentially entailed them wanting to visit your website or blog more and in many cases, literally a lifestyle alteration (especially in case of websites and blogs working on social and green causes). As Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute says, “As smart content marketers, we need to keep in mind that channels come and go, but good stories (and storytelling) last forever.”
- Not the Eggs but the Golden Hen: Authoritative Content over Number-Quirks
When you think of content, don’t count the numbers or the pages- the main question is “What is the point?” If you can get through to your audience in a short and powerful piece than a three-page essay, then you are growing the Hen of Golden Eggs than turning into a basket of eggs hatching into forgotten stories.
- Turning the Telescope: Who are you writing for?
Think of marketing content like building a house for a family. Who is the family? More specifically, who is your audience? Make customer profiles. If your website is about pet care, then make a list of all the things a pet caretaker is going to dig about and make your blog or webpage the ultimate guide for them.
- First through the Eyes, then Through the Mind: Pitch in Beauty-Dripping Images
Evolution has given us instincts that allow the eyes to recognize what is pleasant and what isn’t: the beauty and beast policy. Add high-resolution photos to your blog than images with watermark and royalty tags.
- Mingle, no Single: UberSuggest for Keywords
Don’t use the same pattern of keywords every time. Let your posts and blog gleam of new forms of keywords. For this purpose, use UberSuggest.
- Do Your Homework: Gather Statistics and Research Data
Make a database of all the statistics available on the topic of your website. Use this database continually through the content. This will bring to your doors high inbound links.
- Setting the Honey-Trap: Write Top 100 Posts
Make your website an answer to any question your audience could ask. Prepare top 100 posts on topics which are trending in the genre.
- The Prophet: Write an Estimate Post
Predict the future of your domain and write your prophecies in form of an interactive graphic.
- Leave Footprints, not Stains: Only One Call-to-Action
In each post, make sure there is only one call-to-action. Bombarding your action with CTAs will seem like you are setting up propaganda than spreading news and knowledge about the topic.
- Share Your History: Slideshare Moments
Let your experience speak for you through presentations and documents. Upload them on Slideshare and embed on posts.
- Be the Light: Create Decision Guides for Your Readers
Be the Old Wives’ Corner for your audience by setting up decision guides that will help them through tough calls: euthanasia for medical blogs, body image for weight loss websites, separation anxiety for pet care web pages and so on.
- Open Doors to the Ballroom: Set Up Opt-In Lists
Give your readers the choice to be part of your eFamily by setting up opt-in lists which appear when they visit certain pages. Make sure the opt-in is colored in words which will tell the audience- “You have the question. We are the answer!”
- Hold Out the Mike: Invite Stories from Your Readers
Let your readers pour their stories to you. Make sure your demands on the story are minimal. “Drop in a short note on your experience with our Green-Life Parenting Tool! Share the love of parenthood!”
- Be an ePidemic: Cook a Viral Info-graphic
Put out the face of your website and blog through an infographic that will trend like a raging fire over the forest of virtual reality. Recent examples include Business Insider (“Media Consolidation: the Illusion of Choice”), Mashable (“Sitting is Killing You”) and Visual.ly (“11 Untranslatable Words from Other Cultures”).
- Inserting the UnderBelly: Sticky Top Bar Plugin
In April 2014, ProBlogger launched the Sticky Top Bar Plugin which stays put to the top of the page as you scroll down. Darren Rowse, the Founder and Editor of ProBlogger Blogs mentions ‘drive people to sales page’ and ‘sign up subscribers’ as two primary uses of the bar. It is like watching a movie on TV: a series of advertisements that gradually seep into your subconscious acting upon your instincts while you are in the shopping aisle.
- Mining New Quarries: Find New Ideas With Portent
Use Portent’s The Idea Generator to birth unparalleled brainchildren of the industry.
- Track the Trail: Follow Up on the Best Posts
Every week, make a list of the top three posts and write a follow-up on them. This will allow you to make a gateway into the other posts and pages of the website.
- Showcase the Big Guns: Talk to the Giants of Your Industry
Get in touch with five top figures of your domain and request to distribute their content through your website/blog.
- News to Blogs: Spice Up Newsletters
Dig through your old newsletters and reinvent them into blog posts.
- Blogs to News: Quirky Blogs
Discover the best blogs and turn them into newsletters.
- Scan the Fields: Poll or Survey with Your Audience
Do a poll or survey every month with your audience and post the results in a short blog. Make sure the blog states: the facts followed by a brief on how it reflects the significance/position of your website.
- Sow Seeds of Ideas: Invite Your Followers to Contribute
Put up invitations for ideas, images and videos to social media and build a story around them. Let the audience feel like they are part of a global yet interconnected family through a singular story featuring multiple images/videos.
- Amp Up Your Circle: HootSuite Your Website
Utilize HootSuite to keep up with the new trends and news on the domain. Be a regular member of discussions in the social media platforms. Post a blog about a trend spreading across social media stages.
- Stir the Dust: Write on a Spicy Topic
Choose a topic which is currently contentious and happening in your domain. Write your opinion on it- this implies an argumentative work and not simply an explanatory one.
- Handy Ideapps: Save Your Ideas Instantly in Your Phone or Diary
Carry a pocket-diary or install an ideas app on your phone which will let you drop in and save any idea that pops up while you are doing something as ordinary as staring at the ceiling (A fan-shaped infographic maybe? An eQuake resistant blog?)
- Gen-Z Your Strategies: Stay Up-To-Date with Reddits
Scan through the Reddits and subscribe to the relevant ones in order to receive consistent news on ongoing trends.
Continued on part 2
- Choose Your ePeers: Be a Part of Private FB Groups
Select five closed FB groups which work diligently on your domain and have a team member go through the latest news daily. In case you come across any topic or person outing-the-box, then blog them into a post and spread the word.
- Make an Army: Collect Views From the Biggies and Cook a Blog
Create a list of questions to ask at least 50 big-shots in your industry. Collect their answers. Now, post an integrative blogmy (blog+army) with all the answers.
- Map Your Pages: Class Your Data into Categories
You can create two ways of easy navigation for your audience depending on the type of webpage: a map with a network of categories (Big Apple HotDogs), an interactive infographic (Dangers of Fracking), 2-D or 3-D scrolling (Walk and Talk Azores and Acko), illustrative designs (Jacqui Co), patterns (Data Veyes), the God’s eye view (75b) or a simplistic approach (Racket and Narrow Design).
- Create ePotions: Post Ultimate Guides
Form Ultimate Guides to themes in your niche which will be simple and will speak out blunt/frank. Readers want inspiration; they want action.
- Weave a Success Story: Share a Life Story of Biggies
Trace the life of a prominent company or person in your domain and share it in short snippets daily. This will keep the people hooked onto the upcoming ones and allow for more inflow of interest.
- Leave the Scent to Your Book!: Share an excerpt
Post an excerpt of your eBook which is most representative of the content. Drop in a series of comments about the books (maximum of three) near the excerpt to stimulate the readers to download it.
- Search for the Gems: Quora Your Day To Lead
Go through Quora questions and find what is bugging your targeted audience. Write a post about the questions with original data and if possible, the ultimate guide.
- Become the Top 10: Make Top-10 Lists
The only way to making it to Top 10 in your industry is by being what the readers want. The audience desires quick answers to questions. So, make a Top 10 series about your domain: the top 10 homemade lip balms, top 10 eco-friendly cosmetics, top 10 green companies and so forth.
- Create a Savior Post: Provide fixes to common problems
Make a list of all the common problems that the reader might be facing in going through a certain process (cooking a dish, getting ready for an event, taking care of an elderly, navigating an app, ordering a product online) and provide answers to them in your post.
- The Silent Adjudicator: Track social media debates and Surmise
Catch an ongoing debate in a social media of your domain and write a quick post on the debate with a concluding note.
- Shake Off the Rust: Learn Continually about Content Strategies
Schedule a weekly learning time for content strategies and continually update yourself to these. This could cumulate into that one post which will be the content-marketing masterpiece of our times.
- Buzz with Alphabets!: Write an eBook to Increase Your Networks
By writing an info product (eBook), you will expand your social network and reach out to potential biggies.
- Preserve Your Originality: Website Name on Original Photos
Put the name of your blog or website on all the photos you are originally using. In case your photo is shared, instagram’d or pinned, then so will your website or blog.
- Grow a Tree of Topics (ToT)
Start with a broad topic and write a post on it. While you are writing it, jot down all the sub-topics that arise from it.
- Initiate Beginners into Your Cult: Form Beginner’s Guide
Be a guide to those who are interested in the topic but feel intimidated due to technicalities. Use diagrams and charts to explain topics which are technical.
- Arch over different arts
Choose a film related to a burning topic of your domain and review it ending with a brief on what you think about it.
- Pick up the crumbs: Write a post on an insightful comment
Show your genuine interest in the domain by writing about and on a comment posted to your blog.
- Open-ended stories: Let Your Reader End Your Post
Write a post with no ending. Ask your readers to send in their opinions and endings. You can also turn this into a competition where the submissions are displayed on the webpage every day.
- Stir Minds Up! Put up “What would you do?” posts
Make a monthly hypotheticals column where you present a case study or tough call situation. Ask your readers what they would do in such circumstances.
- Trace the Words in Your Yard!: Review a Recent Book
Have you found any recent book in your domain to be an excellent guide or an unprecedented leader? Write a review about it and share across social media platforms.
- The Inspirer: Quote-Decorate Your Blog
Showcase the top 20 quotes in your domain (in graphic form).
- Be the Resource-Hub: Share Other Useful Articles
Make a list of all the articles (in-site and out-site) related to a topic and post it for your readers. This will bring you in touch with other domain-enthusiasts and could spark partnerships as well.
- Being Human: Share your story!
Remember that your readers are essentially human and at end of the day, have their share of tales to tell. Create a video sharing your experience about something related to your domain or simply a topic that would bring out the humanistic spirit that you might intend to instill in the readers.
- Trash to Treasure Move: Alter Your Old Posts into New Trends
Sometimes, posts dating years ago could be trump cards to setting off- ‘Do you remember?’s. Mingled with nostalgia and awareness of the evolution in your domain. Ask your readers to respond to a single post showcasing the old ones integratively.
- Create a Topic-Store: Gather in Links to Topic in a Post
Create a list of all the pieces relating to a certain topic in your website and make a cumulative post on it. This can be regularly updated with related posts.