Based on my research about the topic, I found out that content today is all about knowing your audience better and maintaining a constant flow of information which is valuable to them.
According to The Manifest 62% of companies that have 5000 employees or more produce daily content. From this stat, you would get an idea about the importance of content today for big corporations and guess what if you don't have a content team you're going to lose out on your market share to your competitor sooner than you think.
Content is pivotal in shaping the future of your organisation. A successful content strategy is always around the end-user because your customer is the key element of your business and their needs are the opportunities that you could deliver.
Thus we've compiled a list of few activities you can do before you make your content strategy so that you attract the maximum ROI from your content in 2020.
Have a vision and a mission
The first thing your content team needs to have is a vision of how your customers are and what appeals to them. A mission statement could be prepared by analysing your buyers and the problems you solve for them. All it has to do is connect with your audience and make an impact.
For example, Microsofts' mission statement is -
Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
Did you think, this would be a technology company mission statement by reading it? Well, I did not. This reflects light on the importance of having a mission statement around your customers.
Know your audience better
If you've figured out a mission statement based around the needs of your users then you're good to go before you create any piece of content.
But if you haven't figured out your audience then you might want to take a deeper look at your customer's interests. Because their problems are the opportunities you have and when you think about your customers first you solve half of your problems.
You can use various tools in order to do that, for example, you can use Google search console data to analyse the traffic and external links your blogs have got. Identify the ones that are most read or viewed by your customers.
Analyse the past customer experiences through taking surveys and feedback. Know what your competitors are up to by examining their content through BuzzSumo and Semrush. Use your social media insights to understand which posts got more engagements and were able to drive business.
Optimize your content for Voice Search
By 2020, 50% of searches on Google will be voice searches, a study by Comscore suggests. Your content needs to feel like a conversation one can have with a friend. Voice searches are being used every day to find answers to everyday questions like 'Which is the best restaurant near me for a great brunch?' or 'Where can I get the cheapest rental cars?'.
Making your content as if it's a conversation is the key to a successful content marketing strategy in 2020. You can target voice searches by analysing the questions your customers have asked you previously related to their projects.
Find the right platforms
Distributing content in an even manner is a challenge faced by a lot of marketers. Its importance can't be overlooked because it plays a major role in creating brand recognition. Separating content for different platforms is one of the best things to increase retention and attract more traffic. Publishing same content on different platforms does just the opposite of retention and recognition, it gets monotonous and loses its importance over a period of time.
To make use of the correct platform analyse each platform you've chosen to publish your content, work upon your way around them and understand the kind of posts your users like. For example, Twitter is the first place for publishing news and exciting content for big corporations like 'Google, Netflix and Amazon.' Facebook has one of the highest engagement rates and Pinterest is attracting traffic faster than any other image sharing platform.
While these are the top traffic referral sources for websites today, websites like Quora and Reddit are a few more notable names which can help you market your content well.
Create content which can be shared
Your users time is the most valuable resource for you. Value their time and provide something useful through your content. A user rarely comes back to a post if they haven't shared it with someone already. Understand their needs and solve problems for them. Transparency increases trust and confidence, build on that, create content which is simple yet very resourceful. Get deep into the challenges your customer faces today to help them get out of it and provide with answers.
Overall, we feel that there are a lot of things out there which can be done in order to market your content but it's more than content now, it's about the context and the story behind it. Creating content will get difficult by the day. But having a correct value system in place will ease the difficulty and help you create some awesome content for your users which will help increase your traffic and your conversions.
