One of the most sought after marketing skills in 2022 is Content Marketing.
Brands, regardless their size, are always in search of better ways to spread their marketing message to the world.
If you can do this – curate content that builds conviction and compels action – you are lethal.
If you can’t, you might be thinking it is one of those hard-to-figure-out skills or those skills that requires you to have a professional writing background or expertise.
No. Far from that.
Effective Content Marketing hangs on four basic rules
And if you apply these rules in your content, you are sure to create magic for your clients.
These four rules are what I call the ‘ABCD’ of Content Marketing.
In this article, I will show you what these rules are and how you can apply them to your content.
1. A – Content Marketing Must Attract and Keep Attention:
Every content you create must be able to stop your target audience in their tracks and drag them to view the content.
If you can’t get them to pay attention, you can’t get them to pay money.
This is one of the golden rules of marketing.
You have to master how to attract attention, especially with how short our attention span as humans have become.
Two things you must focus on when creating content is your Headline and your Hook.
Now, what do I mean?
The first part of your marketing message that your audience sees is your Headline and your Hook.
If you miss it in your headline, there is an 80% chance that you have missed 80% of your target audience.
How to Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines:
1. State the value you are offering in your Headline:
If your target audience don’t understand how your content helps them even before opening it, they most likely won’t.
You mustn’t leave that to chance.
For example, from the headline of this article, you knew that you were going to learn the basics of effective Content Marketing.
Anybody who wants to understand Content Marketing is likely to open this content, just like you did.
Not just because of the quality of the content, but because they knew the value they are going to get from the headline.
2. Use numbers:
The use of numbers in headlines makes the content look easy to understand.
‘5 High-Paying Digital Marketing Skills You Can Master in 3 Months’ will definitely get more views than ‘Top Digital Marketing Skills’.
Numbers show that the content is specific and explains the solution well.
For your next content, look for a way to include numbers in your headline, if it works for the type of content you are creating.
3. Use catch phrases:
‘See the Lead Generation Strategy that Tony Robbins Used to Get 100,000 Leads and $5,000,000 in Sales in 90 Minutes’
Take a look at that headline for a second.
There are four catch-phrases that are bound to attract attention.
‘Lead Generation Strategy’, ‘Tony Robbins’, ‘100,000 Leads’ and ‘$5,000,000 in Sales’.
Look for catch-phrases in your industry that will attract attention.
It might be a leading industry expert’s secret.
Or the result everybody wants to achieve in that niche:
‘3 Steps to Relocate to Canada without IELTS in 60 Days: Strictly For Middle-Income Earners and Students’.
Are we good?
4. Make it simple:
Now, your headline doesn’t have to be stressful or too difficult to read.
Difficulty in understanding is not a proof of expertise.
In fact, it shows that you don’t understand it enough.
There is a popular saying that, “If you can’t explain it to a five-year-old, you don’t understand it.”
‘Economic Woes Befall the Circumference of the Russian and Ukrainian Border’ vs ‘5 Ways the Russian Economy was Affected by the Attacks on Ukraine.’
Which is easier?
Which do you think will get more views?
But it is not enough to attract attention.
Of what good is attracting attention if you can’t hold them down to keep up with your content until they see your message?
You have to master how to retain attention.
That leads us to the next rule
2. B – Content Marketing Efforts Must Be Valuable to the Target Audience:
Most content marketers keep making one mistake:
Creating headlines that don’t match their content!
Nothing hurts your content creation effort like doing that.
You might get people to open your content, but once they see that you were dishonest in your approach, they will leave immediately.
This ‘bouncing’ hurts your website and SEO effort.
How do you avoid this?
You must understand that your headline is a promise.
Your content must show a step-by-step guide to achieving the results you promised in your headline.
That is the sure way to keep your viewers glued to your content.
They must feel carried along.
Your content must be able to take your viewer from Point A to Point B.
Where you fail to do this, you will hurt your effort.
Your content must have solutions that can be applied immediately and produce results.
To achieve this, you must do proper research, content development and come with simplified yet effective solutions for your audience.
After you must have created your powerful and relatable content, what next?
Do you just start sending it out?
No.
There’s one thing that must be included in your content to shorten your viewer’s journey and boost engagement.
What is it?
3. C – Content Marketing Must Have a Powerful Call-To-Action to Improve Engagement:
What is the relevance of powerful content if it doesn’t lead the viewer to take an action?
Yes, you provided help for the viewer.
NJ doubt, your content was valuable.
Of course, you deserve applause for that.
But what next?
How did you benefit from the powerful content you shared?
And I’m not talking about sales or selling, although that is a part of it.
Every piece of content you share is a tool to spread your brand message and services.
But there’s one thing you must understand about we, humans.
We might not agree, but it is true.
We are more likely to do things when we are asked to than otherwise.
Yes, you want your powerful content to be shared everywhere.
Yes, you want people to like and comment on your content.
You want them to purchase your offer.
You want them to click links, give you their information, answer questions and do other things you might want them to do.
HOW TO BOOST ENGAGEMENT ON YOUR CONTENT:
ALWAYS INCLUDE A CLEAR, POWERFUL CALL-TO-ACTION IN ALL YOUR CONTENT.
It mustn’t be something grand.
It can be as simple as asking them to leave a comment or share the content with other people.
So long as your content attracts and keeps attention, provides valuable and actionable solutions, this should not be a big deal.
Something as simple as,
“Our goal is to raise 100 Expert Content Marketers by June, 2022.
To achieve this, we have created a free online mentorship academy where we teach and share resources and opportunities for our students to become the best in 3 months.
Does that look like something you would like to do?
A platform where you get to engage with mentors and other Digital Marketers , get job opportunities and improve your skill?
Then the LBDIGITAL Digital Marketing Academy is where you should be.
Join the academy now, and get access to recordings of the previous sessions.
We have limited slots available.
Click the link below to join.”
How about that?
Just something to get your viewers to take action.
The more they take action, the more they become loyal to your brand.
Now that you have your content ready:
1. The right headline
2. Valuable content
3. Powerful Call-To-Action
There’s one more thing you must do to leverage your powerful content.
That leads us to the last rule of Content Marketing in this article.
4. D – Distribution:
Now, your content is ready.
You have to put it out in a way that creates the effect you want.
One thing you must understand is how to leverage your platforms.
Posting video content on Twitter wouldn’t be as effective as posting the same content on Instagram.
Even amongst video content, you have to understand what works for Instagram and what works for TikTok.
You must know how to repurpose your content for the various platforms.
Your written content can be expanded into a blog post or an article for Facebook and LinkedIn.
The same content can be converted into a thread for Twitter.
You can repurpose it as carousels for Instagram.
The point is: your content needs to be distributed on several platforms while sticking to the unique strategies that work for each platform.
Do you get it?
That’s the way to make the best of your content marketing effort.
Now, let’s go over the four rules again:
1. Use attention-grabbing headlines
2. Create valuable and actionable content
3. Use powerful Call-To-Action
4. Work on effective distribution
Try out these rules in your next content and share your feedback in the comment section..
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