Happy Friday, content marketers! Would you say you have a mature content strategy? Are you able to craft highly relevant, curated and interactive experiences for your buyers as they venture along their decision-making journeys?
Here are some great articles that will help you take an in-depth look at your current processes and find some new ways to improve your content and step up campaign performance:
- What does content marketing maturity look like? This is something that puzzles a lot of people. And rightfully so. We may not always see eye-to-eye on what makes for a mature content strategy. To ensure success, we need solid benchmarks and characteristics that define the different stages of maturity. Luckily, our friends at Ceros have provided a great overview of the different stages and what they entail. Using this article, you’ll be able to answer a few quick questions about your current strategies, execution processes, promotional tactics and lead gen. Then, you’ll be able to see how your brand stacks up, identify areas that need improvement and set some short- and long-term goals.
- Does fear-based marketing work? The fight-or-flight response is innate. It’s how we immediately react to danger, fear or stress of any kind. But does it apply to how we communicate with and market to our buyers? Understanding buyers’ needs and motivations is key to building an effective content messaging framework. This article from Skyword, however, also notes that we need to understand and apply what they And fear can have many layers. It may be a simple case of “fear of missing out,” fear of loss, fear of being unprepared or fear of being outpaced by competitors. This is an extremely interesting piece, because it shows how our deeply rooted emotions and tendencies impact how we consume and respond to content.
- Curate a stellar content experience: Curation is not a new concept. Consider how museum curators stage vignettes: It requires a lot of thought, consideration and understanding of what will resonate with visitors at a specific point in time. The same could be said about content curation. A content curator selects items based on points of interest, organizes them in an appropriate order, provides narrative around the themes and shares content with different audiences. This article highlights the value of content curation, the key characteristics and skills of curators and how these things impact content reach and value.
- Get your content shared, stat: You may have an extremely powerful piece of content in-house, but it doesn’t mean anything unless you promote it effectively. A successful promotion strategy should combine a variety of paid, earned and owned tactics. There are also a number of best practices you should apply during the content planning and creation process. This article provides a great overview of the types of content that are shared most, including infographics, lists, interactive content and influencer-driven pieces.
Have you followed the best practices or embraced any of the trends discussed in these articles? We’d love to hear your stories, so please share them in the comments section below!
