You don’t need me to tell you that 2020 has been tough. In business and marketing terms, it’s been just a little challenging.
Even if your business hasn’t been impacted by COVID-19, your previous marketing plans may have been shelved. Perhaps due to budget. Or, because the tone just isn’t right anymore. That can have a no man’s land effect on content calendars, with people wondering where to go with it.
But what about the benefits of content marketing? There are still plenty, so it’s worth sweating this one out. In the long run, content will help keep your brand front of mind. And by making your content useful, you’ll be able to support your customers and grow trust.
What is useful content?
Go back to the heady days of December 2019, and HubSpot researched and published a particularly amazing report on content marketing for 2020. In it, around 70% of marketers said that they were actively investing in content marketing. Another takeout point advised companies to not, “publish content for the sake of it.”
It makes sense. I mean, every content piece has its hard objectives. Driving traffic, boosting SEO strategy, increasing revenue. There is nothing wrong with that. But this alone won’t lead to the kinds of results you want.
Put it this way, when I conduct keyword research, I’ll sense check a key phrase by simply typing into Google. Why? Because sometimes a phrase that looks great, has loads of traffic, and low competition, doesn’t pan out. People might be searching for that term, but they are not the people you’re trying to reach.
It just goes to show. Writing content for goals like driving web traffic alone isn’t the way forward. The strategy needs to centre around writing useful content. And that goes double right now. The Content Marketing Institute puts it best here: “All of us are looking for ways to adapt to the new reality.” And your content can help people in that quest.
Revisiting the purpose of your content marketing
I know, the golden rule of making content useful isn’t new. Putting your reader at the centre of anything you produce is one of the oldies. But the pandemic has redefined things somewhat. A frothy piece might not land so well now. Certain tips and explainer pieces might be needed where they weren’t before.
The Content Marketing Institute has swooped in with helpful advice for businesses during COVID, and if you’re stuck, it’s worth exploring. Or, ask a content marketing consultant to help you redefine your COVID-friendly content calendar.
Should I write unique content every time?
This is where it can get tricky. In unprecedented situations like these, what best practices do you follow? Plus, marketing teams and budgets are stretched in many cases. Things like writing unique content every time, something that’s up there when creating a solid content plan, might not be possible.
Here’s the thing. Yes, unique content is always the best way to drive traffic and to capture people’s attention. But if your time and budgets are stretched, there are ways to quickly create content with a positive impact:
Some examples include:
· Curated content – there is some contention around curated posts, and it’s not a solution for every business, but in some cases, it can give your readers top-line info on important news and issues. The bonus is that it’s relatively quick to produce articles like this.
· Optimising and updating old posts – some existing blogs, articles and the like can be reworked to bring them up to date. As an extra whammy, also optimise them for current key phrases.
· Audio transcripts – Google loves video. But although they prioritise pages with video content, they can’t crawl through videos for keywords. Adding captions, transcripts or an optimised blog around video content can help this along and put your useful videos in front of more people. The same goes for podcasts.
· Repurposing blogs as newsletters – rather than pondering over this month’s newsletter, repurpose your blogs and send them out to your readers to give them a boost of feel-good news or important information.
I know. It’s easy to get tied up in content marketing “should” and “should nots” at the best of times. But for now, take the stress out of it as much as possible. It doesn’t matter if every piece is unique, or if it’s 1500 words long as opposed to 500.
What counts is being there for your customers. Being useful, writing pieces that empathise, inform, engage, and even inspire. And if you’re ever stuck on how to do that. You know who to call. (That’s me.)
