February 16, 2017

Content is King. This ephemeral truth lets the majority of content-driven marketing strategies, websites, social media pages and digital media companies take off with confidence, but seldom lets them reach the orbit to revolve around their customer’s mind for long enough – to develop a profitable relationship for both the company and the customer and spark a revenue-generating business model.

What makes companies like Buzzfeed, mindbodygreen and mashable command hungry eyeballs into devouring every piece of content and becoming a topic of discussion elsewhere? How does the masterplay of words become a stamp of approval for your brand and turn your customer into a loyal endorser of what you have to offer? We’ll reveal the secrets of the trade with you, and guide you to crown the content the king once again, so you can set forth on a quest to conquer what’s deservingly yours.

The Treasure Mapping

The content industry of the web is perhaps the most evolved in terms of positioning and segmenting its consumers. This does not necessarily mean that your content should address a super specific niche, but it does urge you to represent yourself with a strong identity to your consumer – one that’s consistent and that reflects in every chunk of content you generate.

The success of your content strategy essentially rests on:

  • a deep understanding of the competitive space in which you want to exist
  • and addressing the interests, ideologies and values of your target costumers in your own unique flavor –

This is what builds value for a reader and keeps them coming back. That’s treasure mapping.

Work your way back

Planning the content alone might look like a no-sweat job, but often it turns into a messy, sticky and time-consuming occupational hazard at the final execution phase. Great content can fall face-first if its final packaging makes it look like a hastily wrapped gift.

It’s always a good idea to work your way backwards, and draw a rough visualization of how the content will be well-packaged for the medium it will use. Drawing wireframes, categorizing the topics, planning the design execution – like choosing the right fonts and templates – can save tons of man hours and bring a systematic approach to churning out bulk content.

Don’t have a word count – have a wow count

Don’t limit yourself to the commitment of giving something to your customers to just read. Don’t limit yourself to a machine-like pattern of content generation to hammer your brand message to your consumers. You must treat every new piece of content as a new opportunity to tell a compelling story..

A great way to keep the content explosive is having a road map of engaging topics for content development attained through brain storming sessions. Never underestimate the power of a good discussion!

Levels of Engagement

“There are more than one ways to skin a cat.” The expression holds life time validity when it comes to content generation. As not every content has to be something you take to your study table. Some you can just munch with a hot dog, or skim through in the subway.

You must match the topics of your content with the level of engagement it needs to create an impact. Discussing the path to enlightenment is not the same as the best place to eat grills and does not require the same amount of content or persuasion to yield results. Catch our drift?

Marry with Design

Marry with design, before you resign for the day. Seeing the content like how the consumer sees it is a skill every content writer should acquire and every good content writer has. The best content-driven websites and platforms aim to enhance a reader’s comfort by providing better readability, leading the customers through seamless design strategy and making everything good look like serendipity.

Lead by Words

In the end, it’s all about giving your customers something that they value. It takes great amounts of effort and planning to consistently deliver quality content. But with a strategic approach, many puzzle pieces fall into place automatically, ensuring greater results.

Content can be a gamechanger as the consumers don’t see it fall in the same category as conventional ads. With carefully planted content in the form of testimonials, online reviews, stories of success at both the company and employee level, the marketers can humanize their brands and their attributes and present them in a non-invasive manner.

Content gives the power back to the consumers while retaining the core benefit of traditional advertising for the marketers, in most cases at a minimal cost.

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