Every content creator faces the same two dilemmas: When your audience is disengaged, how can you bring them back? And when your audience is paying attention, how can you keep them interested?
The answer might seem obvious: Surprising, intriguing and genuinely helpful content will always be timeless. If you consistently produce high-quality content, audiences are much more likely to remain engaged.
But in reality, quality isn’t the only factor. It’s also important to adopt a multichannel approach that optimizes your content to engage audiences on the many platforms they use. If you’re feeling stuck, read on for inspiration you can use for seven key marketing channels.
Effective social media marketing will spark conversation not just among your followers, but within your industry. Strive to split your focus equally promoting new content and publishing original content created just for social media.
Popular examples of shareable, social media-exclusive content include:
It also pays to keep an eye out for opportunities to leverage your archive. When timely news breaks, be sure to promote links to any existing content that might be relevant.
It’s far too easy for webinar audiences to zone out or surf the web. But a great webinar can spark new ideas and inspire better strategies.
Keep your webinars concise and attention-grabbing. A minimal slideshow highlighting key points will help audiences focus and a tight, logical outline will leave little opportunity for their attention to drift.
You can even provide a note-taking sheet designed to accompany your webinar to further focus audiences’ attention on the most important insights you hope to convey.
Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing channels available. To earn the privilege of a consistent open rate, your newsletter must be essential to subscribers’ overall media diet.
Start by making your newsletter a consistent part of subscribers’ routine. This begins with a steady publishing schedule at the same time and day each week. Next, incorporate thoughtfully curated links to other sources to help readers cut through the noise.
Finally, don’t overlook the power of segmenting. Publishing several newsletters with small but highly engaged audiences is more effective than amassing a giant mailing list that rarely bothers to engage.
Search for any keyword and you’ll quickly discover a wealth of forgettable, shallow blog posts that are clearly designed for SEO. By contrast, posts that earn the top spots on Google play by a different rulebook: They provide genuinely helpful information with depth, clarity and expertise.
Build enough time into your content strategy to go the extra mile in your blog posts. An additional half hour of research can yield the statistics, quotes and insights that will add credibility and help your content stand out.
Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Along with writing about relevant data, create infographics that provide a digestible alternative to an article. Work smarter by creating social media-friendly images from smaller blocks of information, and be sure to include summary text below the infographic to retain the SEO benefits.
You don’t need to be a filmmaker to make great videos. Today, there are plenty of tools that can help you turn your insights into video content.
For example, consider turning your infographics into animated, typography-driven sequences that highlight a statistic or two. You could also pair existing podcast commentary with an illustrated quote slideshow to promote existing content.
Before investing in video content, make sure it can be used in multiple contexts. By formatting your content for a variety of social media platforms and creating a video library on your website, you’ll get as much mileage out of video content as possible.
If your organization invests in a print magazine, you’ll want to make sure it ends up on as many coffee tables as possible. Along with timely, essential industry news and analysis, it pays to invest in an on-trend, eye-catching design. Large photographs and a clean, modern look will help your print magazine stand out — and even turn it into a status symbol for industry insiders.