With everything going on in the world, you may have missed our #HITMC twitter chat last week. We understand. It’s not easy to juggle working-from-home (WFH) and everything else you have on your plate while trying to keep your kids busy. If you did miss it, the chat focused on the question of “Is Content Still King?”
For this summary, we decided that since many of us may be focusing on creating content during this uncertain time, that we would put together all the great content tips that we learned from the community.
Let’s dive in.
Tip #1 – Content is still king
We kicked off the chat asking the community if content was still relevant and what benefits they all saw from it. This answer was definitely unanimous. Everyone in the community still is using content as part of their strategy and considers it an integral part of their marketing mix.
Content isn’t just king, it’s the queen and court too. With compelling thought leadership content, companies can drive the conversation and create market preference for their solutions. #HITMC https://t.co/OyF7fhjIKy
— Aria Marketing (@AriaMarketing) March 17, 2020
Tip #2 – Listen and target your ideal audience
Before you can give your audience the content it craves, you have to know as much as you can about them. Before creating a bunch of content, it’s imperative that you identify your proper audience and then listen to what that audience wants at the different stages of their journey. Here is what the community had to say:
T4: Listening has to be the key to content development. Listening is king, content is output! #HITmc
— burtrosen (@burtrosen) March 17, 2020
T4: Perhaps the most important skill of the marketer is LISTENING. Tap into insights from the target audience. Let them inform what you do. How often do we forget to take this step in the process? Too often. #hitmc
— Dan Dunlop (@dandunlop) March 17, 2020
We have a content audit matrix where we classify content based on target audience, stage of journey, etc. Being strategic is a must, or you will lose people out of the funnel. #HITMC ~Beth https://t.co/ltuZemQaSV
— KNB Communications (@KNBComm) March 17, 2020
Tip #3 – Creating quality content over quantity
When building content it’s important to be strategic. Start with some great evergreen pieces that can be reused down the road. Or focus on developing some larger whitepaper or video pieces that can be broken up into other bite sized shareable pieces. Check out these awesome tips from the community:
Bonus #HITMC: I’d also recommend to start small. 1 set of a few coordinating, evergreen content pieces for a few points in the buyer’s journey, then expand from there. quality > quantity https://t.co/1JGEVNl32M
— Hannah Ehnle (@hannahehnle) March 17, 2020
Bonus: Then, I’d start with a meaty white paper. You can carve that puppy up into lots of formats. 🍗#HITMC
— Stacy Goebel (@stacygoebel) March 17, 2020
Bonus: I also think video is a critical format. Get an SME roundtable together. Make it a webinar. Chunk it up into soundbites. Turn those into social graphics. And so on and so on… #HITMC
— Stacy Goebel (@stacygoebel) March 17, 2020
Do a listening tour and understand where your customers are struggling. I use 3 questions: Whats keeping you up at night, what trends do you see coming that you aren’t prepared for, what do you wish you were doing but aren’t. answers to those will give you content ideas! #hitmc https://t.co/XnXOUiTYDp
— burtrosen (@burtrosen) March 17, 2020
Tip #4 – Set goals. Measure effectiveness. Adapt if needed
Once you have created your content be sure to set attainable benchmarks for these pieces. Then start to measure how effective it is in the market. You may need to adapt or alter pieces that may not perform as well as others. A top notch marketing automation tool can help you track the data you will need to accomplish. See some of the community comments below on how to make sure content wins:
T3 We are also on HubSpot and love their tools, but one thing I am increasingly interested in is people who I can’t track in any way other than they were forwarded an email/article from a colleague. I use it as a proxy for word of mouth/brand awareness #HITMC
— Hannah Ehnle (@hannahehnle) March 17, 2020
Overall, yes. I’m not going to lie, we have had some pieces of content that were stinkers. Upon review, it’s usually an issue of the content missing the mark in terms of what our exact audience would find helpful. We chalk it up to learning our target better. #HITMC ~Beth https://t.co/sUu0EM2UrJ
— KNB Communications (@KNBComm) March 17, 2020
It’s an uphill battle convincing someone who doesn’t believe in content marketing that it’s a winning strategy. However, the best practice is to align with your execs on their goals and establish useful/reasonable benchmarks to measure our results against those goals. #HITMC https://t.co/rPhZgXLRT7
— Aria Marketing (@AriaMarketing) March 17, 2020
Tip #5 – Keeping your content fresh
Generating fresh and engaging content time and time again can be tedious, but it is well worth the effort. Check out some of the ways that the community is hoping to keep their content fresh in 2020:
T2. While keeping an eye out for fresh topics and new angles on existing topics we focus on, we’re really exploring new channels and content types to keep things fresh in 2020. Always have to ask: how can we engage with people in a new and compelling way? #hitmc
— HealthSparq (@HealthSparq) March 17, 2020
T2 We’ve updated a lot of our best performing pieces to be more relevant to today. We’ve also branched out into podcasting to go beyond marketing topics. The conversations provide excellent source material to tie in to our overall content marketing approach. #hitmc
— Michael W. Roberts (@michaelwroberts) March 17, 2020
T2: We’re using a ton of video content to address the top issues of the day. We find that video feels more compelling, credible, and memorable – and it’s just more interesting. #hitmc
— Dan Dunlop (@dandunlop) March 17, 2020
For more content tips, check out the full chat transcript.
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