As a content marketer, it is your job to deliver content that engages with your audience.
These can be articles to inform – such as this one you are reading – videos to entertain, books to read, newsletters, great copy on your website and more.
If the reader engages with it and it’s not directly your product, then it is content.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 79% of B2B marketers have a content marketing strategy of some sort, and it’s easy to see why.
Content makes it easy for your customers to get to know you before you buy your products. More than 50% of visitors see 3-5 pieces of content before making a choice on whether or not to buy your products.
However, that is also a problem: there is so much content out there, that some people may believe that content marketing is becoming a victim of its own success.
This article will help you understand why content marketing is NOT becoming irrelevant as many think – it is simply becoming a bit more challenging to get into.
Note that this article will mostly talk about article writing. However, most of these key points can be applied to the vast amount of content types out there.
The importance of content marketing in 2023?
Content marketing is highly cost-effective and gives your business a chance to grow practically overnight as a result of content going viral.
However, there are way, way more benefits than just its cost-effectiveness.
Content Marketing is:
- Crucial for a successful SEO campaign
- Important for brand awareness and user engagement rates
- Beneficial for Google’s EAT score, which improves your online image and authority
- Great for PR results
- Helpful for conversion rates
The problem with content marketing
There are a plethora of problems that come with content marketing, which is why some people are saying that it is becoming irrelevant, which we like to disagree with.
Just like many other parts of marketing, the content publication process is simply becoming more difficult as a result of increased accessibility for all businesses.
Nowadays, just about anyone can publish an article: 4.4 million new blogs are published every single day, meaning that you have to compete against millions of people in order to defend and grow your position as the authority in your niche.
However, that doesn’t mean you will have to fight off millions of people every single day. That would just be insane!
Google’s algorithm has expanded to the point that it can differentiate between quality and non-quality products. Things such as spelling mistakes, filler content, keyword stuffing and spammy ads all lead to the content being demoted down the search results.
In order to preserve quality, Google has published some strict guidelines on how to create successful content.
Notice that, just like our SEO strategies need to adapt to the ever-changing algorithm, these guidelines are also subject to change. More technical parts such as HTML tags and hyperlinks are specifically subject to regular modifications.
How to create high-quality content for your website?
Surprisingly enough, high-quality content can be hard to come by. It’s easy to pump out garbage, quite frankly. Just hire cheap content mills and spam your website with terrible articles, right?
Well, that won’t do you any good.
Content Marketing delivers you its bountiful results only if the content you are providing is high-quality.
Yet, what does high-quality content actually mean?
topflight’s content marketing team have put together a comprehensive guide to design and implement a cost-effective and high-performing content marketing strategy.
The CHAT method
I pride myself on inventing the CHAT method for my content marketing endeavours. This has helped me create countless viral articles, including some huge successes.
It’s surprisingly simple!
C stands for Concise: don’t start ranting on. Get straight to the point. No fluff is needed.
Imagine content marketing as spoon feeding a baby: you need to constantly keep this baby engaged so that they can keep eating the food. And if you have to pretend your spoon is an aeroplane, so be it.
- Avoid talking about unnecessary things.
- Deliver your point in as few words as possible. Why speak so many words, when few do trick?
- Use short words. We love a good logophile, but we don’t love any sesquipedalian loquaciousness. Yes, I bet you five quid you didn’t even bother reading those two words.
H stands for Helpfulness: also known as relevancy. Understand your customer and the problem they are facing in order to create content that helps them overcome an obstacle. This will help you understand what type of content is more suitable.
For example, if the customer’s problem is that they can’t tie a shoelace, then a 2000 words article describing the history of shoelaces won’t help them… But a one-minute video will.
A stands for Attention: do something that grabs attention. Talk in your own voice, use humour, and spin the subject around in an interesting way… The floor is yours!
For example, I remember offering an article called “Why SEO sucks”, and in that article, you would then see all the benefits of SEO twisted in a way that made them look like disadvantages.
You can also do things from different Point Of View. Do you sell dog food? Then describe your dog’s average day from his eyes, and his reaction to eating the dog food. Do you sell hoodies? Then I bet your hoodies will love being the centre of attention as they discuss their strictly-platonic relationship with the other t-shirts you are selling.
Weird. Quirky. But definitely interesting.
And that is why content marketing is so important. There are no rules in content marketing, and creativity is rewarded.
T stands for Transitions: ok, now we are moving on to the more technical parts of writing. Connective words such as “then”, “therefore, “but” and so forth help your reader transition from one word to the next. In turn, this leaves them more engaged and glued to your content.
Although article writing obviously shows the benefit of Transitions, the CHAT method can be applied to virtually any type of content: if it is a video you are making, focus on the editing to keep the reader more engaged. If it is a website content you are redesigning, then focus on your call to action and your UX design to keep them engaged and reduce your bounce rate.
The future of content marketing?
Imagine content marketing as the bridge between customer and product. This bridge will forever stay relevant, although the way marketers convince you to cross this bridge may evolve over time.
Here at topflight, we are always looking for new, exciting ways to encourage the transition between visitor and customer, and therefore, it is only fair we are now going to be looking at the future of content marketing.
We expect blog writing to remain relevant. Although SEO practices have changed drastically over the years (no more keyword stuffing, for example), people will always try and find new information to read, no matter how much the Internet changes.
However, this information can be delivered through multiple mediums: emails, images, interactive elements such as quizzes and sliders or video content can help retain engagement rate and create higher quality content.
Perhaps, creativity really is key.
In the future, we also think that the way marketers need to push out content to the reader will change. Technologies such as VR and improved social media algorithms means that the user will receive information that is highly tailored to their interest and platform.
This will result in a “niche down” of some sorts, where marketers will really have to focus on targeting an ultra-specific demographic using incredibly detailed content that will help a select few.
This can be incredibly beneficial to the customer, however, since they’ll be able to solve just about any problem they have only using the content you have pushed out – leading the way to improved brand loyalty and customer retention.
And what about AI in content marketing?
As we move into 2023, it’s expected that AI-generated content will become an increasingly prevalent part of content marketing. While AI-generated content has been a controversial topic in the past, advancements in technology have made it more accessible and sophisticated.
One of the most significant benefits of AI-generated content is its efficiency. AI can generate large volumes of content in a short amount of time, freeing up marketers to focus on other aspects of their campaigns. Additionally, AI-generated content can be tailored to specific audiences and even personalised based on individual preferences, making it more effective at engaging with consumers.
As technology continues to advance, we can expect to see even more sophisticated and effective uses of AI in content marketing.
Conclusion
Content Marketing is challenging and, just like SEO, may take a while to deliver its results.
Local and international businesses benefit from content marketing agencies such as topflight to create content that is highly relevant and ultra-specific to their audience in order to guarantee results.
As a performance-driven agency, it is our role to create content that elevates your authority and establishes trust between you and your customers. As aforementioned, people have selected us for our skills and what we have delivered, not what we promise.
This is why you should contact us today to learn more about content marketing, and how to navigate through the jungle that is the Internet nowadays.
Table of Contents
Alex Grossi
