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Content adds value to the marketing mix, but only if it’s crafted with purpose. Effective content strategy is much more than just the regular publication of blog posts, emails, social media, and articles. While these content elements are needed, it is more important to create them with a goal and value to the target audience in mind. Creating content with a strategic goal becomes a valuable marketing asset and not just another commodity.

There’s a delicate balance between content that captivates, informs, and drives conversions, and content that fades into the background. While mastering this balance may seem challenging, it’s entirely achievable. By implementing strategic improvements, you can significantly enhance the positive impact of your content initiatives.

THESE TRAITS MAKE CONTENT A COMMODITY

Certain universal traits make some content more effective than others. This is the reason why creating better content starts with understanding the characteristics you do not want your content to have.

Generic

Think about how much content your target audience consumes daily. The digital landscape is overrun with it. Unless your content is original in some way, it will get lost in the infinite sea of information. Generic content has several different traits:

  • It is eerily similar to much of what is already online, in that it lacks unique insights, perspectives, ideas and approaches.
  • There is no clear or compelling relationship between the content and your industry and product(s)/services(s). Relevancy is missing.
  • It does not add anything new or valuable to the topic at hand.
  • The content is merely shared, reposted, etc. without adding meaningful insights to it.

Lacks Strategy

Creating content is not something you should do without a strategic reason for doing it. Do not make the mistake of publishing or posting content because it “sounds good,” “makes the company look good,” or because it seems like “low-hanging fruit.” In reality, there is no such thing as an easy win when it comes to content. You should always have strong reasoning for any of your content creation efforts.

Ignores Data Analytics

Collecting and applying data analytics is the pillar of a successful content creation plan. Skillfully curated data reveals insights such as what will appeal to your target audience, where your target audience spends their time online, what problems are most pressing to them and what kind of verbiage and images capture and keep their interest. Without this crucial information, you are essentially left throwing content to the wall and hoping it sticks.

Falls Behind the Times

The world moves at the speed of light these days, especially online. You may be up-to-speed on your own industry and niche, but you cannot afford to ignore current developments in other areas.

For example, neglecting to familiarize your team with the latest artificial intelligence (AI) tools and how they can enhance your marketing efforts. Or putting too much emphasis on traditional industry influencers, while failing to follow new voices on the scene. If your target audience senses that you are out of touch with current realities, it will erode their trust in your company’s ability to help them solve their problems.

WHY THE COMMODITY CONTENT APPROACH FAILS

The entire point of content is to offer value. Content with the characteristics outlined above offers little to no value. It has no unique or fresh perspective, no helpful insights and is basically a rebrand of tired old information already out there.

Why would your target audience choose to engage with your commodity content when there is plenty of highly valuable content available to them? If you were in their shoes you would seek out other sources of information, right?  This is ultimately why a content strategy is crucial to your goals.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR DATA-DRIVEN CONTENT STRATEGIES

Research consistently demonstrates what drives successful content. Based on the analysis of high-performing content elements, the following key takeaways provide actionable strategies for your content creation.

  • Prioritize In-Depth Content: Studies show that longer articles (1,000 to 2,500 words) receive significantly more social shares and rank higher in search results. Aim for content that provides comprehensive value.
  • Optimize for Readability: Articles that take approximately 7 minutes to read tend to garner the most engagement. Use lists and subheadings to break up text and improve readability.
  • Enhance User Experience: Google favors content that keeps users engaged. Aim for an average time on site of at least 2.5 minutes.
  • Leverage Lists: Articles with lists receive significantly more shares than other formats. Incorporate lists frequently to boost engagement.
  • Focus on Quality and Relevance: High-quality, targeted content generates significantly more leads than generic content.
  • Personalize Email Campaigns: Tailored emails with relevant content achieve much higher engagement rates than generic campaigns.
  • Drive Social Media Engagement with Quality over Quantity: Social media algorithms prioritize high-quality, engaging posts, leading to increased visibility and interaction. Content that is relevant, visually appealing, and encourages interaction (comments, shares, likes) consistently outperforms generic or low-quality posts.

Sources: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

HOW TO CREATE A CONTENT PLAN THAT SUCCEEDS

The solution, therefore, is to produce content that your target audience perceives as valuable and that they cannot find anywhere else. You need to map out a content plan that has a high chance of succeeding.

Take Advantage of AI – in Moderation

AI is arguably the biggest buzzword of the moment across many different industries. The use of this technology has grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years alone, so you can only imagine its influence in the near future.

This comes with a huge caveat, however. Leveraging AI tools for content creation and sharing hinges on being able to do so in a savvy way. In other words, it is imperative to retain a human touch and authenticity in your content distribution efforts. Recognize when AI might enhance your content and when it might do more harm than good.

Smart ways to incorporate AI tools include:

  • Informing your content creation strategy
  • Identifying your target audience
  • Locating beneficial industry collections
  • Personalizing messages and buyer journeys with AI-powered data
  • Enabling an advanced chatbot that provides answers to common inquires or relevant information

Build a Complete Content Ecosystem

Content pieces that work together are more effective than those that stand alone. When you have a content library of assets that share common threads, it reinforces your team’s expertise. The hallmarks of a solid content ecosystem include:

  • Deliberate, careful thought around how each piece is distributed
  • Conscious organization of each piece as it relates to the rest of the network
  • Built out with content that supports the marketing goals you have set

One of the best ways to assemble a content ecosystem is by applying content clusters to the pillar pages on your website. This objective is often achieved by making pages with high-level information about topics the center of surrounding “cluster” pages that take a deeper dive into related subtopics.

Pillar pages and their accompanying content clusters achieve two key objectives: They appeal to members of your target audience at the point where they are in the sales funnel and they establish the pillar pages as sources of authority to search engines.

Leverage Data Analytics

Yes, you can have too much data. However, you can never have too much accurate data. Can you recognize the difference? The former is not anymore helpful than having too little data, whereas the latter is a powerful tool for creating effective content and distributing it on the channels where your target audience goes for information.

Collecting accurate data is only the first step. Figuring out how to leverage it in the most advantageous ways is essential for success. Never underestimate the power of correctly applying accurate data to inform your content creation and distribution process.

Define Your Audience

Data analytics are critical for identifying your target audience. Until you do this, any content you publish will fail to hit the mark. Start by amassing a wealth of data about your audience and pare it down. You can do so by identifying what their most pressing problems are and how your company can solve them, along with their level of knowledge about the issues that they need to address and what kind of roles they play in their organization.

Position Your Team as an Authority

The more your target audience trusts your team’s expertise to solve their related problems, the more likely they are to convert. Positioning your team as an authority, therefore, is imperative. Content is an excellent way to achieve this objective.

Thought leadership articles and blog posts are perhaps the most well-known tactic for establishing authority, but they are certainly not the only one. Social media posts and interactions, as well as e-books and how-to videos, are also effective tactics.

Get Creative

Make your content – from copy to visuals – catchy. You need to capture the audience’s attention from the outset. People’s attention spans have become considerably shorter in recent years, and this trend shows no sign of reversing. If you do not manage to capture your target audience’s attention immediately, you risk losing them.

PRO TIP: Utilize AI-powered technology to identify fresh content ideas, optimize your content for search engines or speech recognition, test variants, customize buyer journeys through behavior pattern trends, and uncover gaps or improvements.

TRANSFORM CONTENT INTO AN ASSET

By following this guidance and avoiding the pitfalls that can downgrade content to a commodity, you greatly improve the chances that your content creation plan will prove successful. With a bit of extra thought and care, you can significantly drive up the value of your content to your target audience.

 

Need help planning a corporate meeting or event to strategize on effective and unique content? Discover how Gavel International’s meeting planning can help your business.

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SOURCE(S):

1 https://backlinko.com/content-study

2 https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking

3 https://www.semrush.com/blog/anatomy-of-top-performing-articles/

4 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/anatomy-perfect-blog-post

5 https://medium.com/data-lab/the-optimal-post-is-7-minutes-74b9f41509b

6 https://www.bluecore.com/resources/bluecore-2022-retail-ecommerce-benchmark-report/

Jim Bozzelli
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