4 Underrated Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing

Over the years, content marketing has somehow become a templated, predictable process.

Everyone is blogging. Everyone is posting on social media. Everyone is writing ebooks.

There’s really nothing wrong with this. There’s a reason these content marketing tactics have been around for years: they work!

However, it also means increased competition and possible desensitization among content consumers. Because of this, content marketers are finding it more and more difficult to stand out online, with everyone doing the same thing and sharing the same information. 

It’s Time to Shake Things Up

I’m not saying that you should totally reinvent the wheel and ignore time-tested content marketing strategies. However, if you really want to stand out, get more traffic, acquire more leads, and increase your content engagement, you need to explore untapped content types and strategies to supplement more traditional content marketing tactics.

Here are 4 underrated ideas to add some originality to your content marketing to get better results.

1. Maximize Video Content Across Multiple Platforms

You’ve probably heard of this already, but I’ll reiterate: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, behind only Google. It processes more than 3 billion searches per month—more than the number of queries done on Yahoo, Bing, and AOL combined.People’s appetite for videos shows no sign of slowing down either.

Cisco estimates that by 2021, online videos will account for 82% of all global IP traffic. 

It’s been repeatedly said that most people are visual consumers of information and this is evident in the uptrend of video consumption in the last few years.

Image Source - The Broadcast Bridge

We’re no longer just talking about YouTube, either. Video traffic will dominate across multiple channels such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and all other platforms with video sharing capabilities.It would be unwise for any content marketer not to have a video marketing strategy in place.

To start, we recommend the following steps to harness the power of videos for your content marketing:

• Create a business profile across all platforms with video sharing capabilities: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and yes, even TikTok.
• Perform an inventory of your existing content that can be converted into video format (e.g. a how-to blog post can be transformed into a short explainer video.
• Take advantage of live video content (e.g. Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and TikTok Live) for engaging video content that requires minimal production resources.
• Repurpose the content you create for one platform into another. For example, you can download your Instagram Reels using this handly free tool by Veed and upload them to Facebook. Use a tool like VEED to automatically convert your content into different formats and sizes, add subtitles, and translate your videos (if necessary).

2. Create Segmented Content Based on Content Personas

The one-size-fits-all approach to creating content is no longer as effective as it once was.

When it comes to cutting-edge content marketing, there’s a new golden rule: The more targeted the content, the better

One key way to address this is by creating content personas and developing content specifically tailored to them.This methodology is more effective in the long run because it allows you to take a proactive approach in appealing to your target audiences.

“Without personas, you may only guess what content your audience wants, which means you are more likely to revert to creating content around what you know best (your products and company) instead of around the information your audience is actively seeking,” explains Jodi Harris, director of editorial content and strategy at the Content Marketing Institute.

If you don’t already have your content marketing personas laid out, here are actionable and immediate next steps to get started:

• Envision your ideal audiences. What are their wants, needs, and pains? What channels are they using? Who are the people they trust?
• Identify the information they’re seeking depending on where they are in their journey. Are they looking for more information about their problem? Are they searching for possible solutions? Are they already comparing specific products or services?
• Create topics for each of your main personas. For instance, for problem-unaware personas, educational content would be the best route to go.

3. Leverage E-learning Sites to Generate Content Topics

Even the most seasoned and talented content creators have creativity dry spells where their well of ideas runs dry.

When this happens one of the best solutions is to use e-learning sites such as Udemy, Coursera, and Lynda as research tools to find relevant topics that people love.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re a content marketing agency. A quick search using the keyword “content marketing” on Udemy returns the following results:

The above screenshot shows the most popular content marketing courses on Udemy. When you click “Copywriting secrets - How to write copy that sells”—the most popular course based on the number of reviews—you will see the following course outline:

Each content section can be expanded to reveal sub-modules. This gives us a wealth of content marketing topics that we can write about. For instance, we may be inspired to create content about:

• How to Create Marketing Personas for a Consistent, Targeted Voice
• The Role of Emotion in B2B Content Marketing
• 10 Ways to Create Great Headlines

Remember, you are already looking at topics that have appealed and resonated with people who are similar to your target audience. So, you can be fairly confident that these topics will be relevant, useful, and interesting to them.

4. Involve Your Audience in the Discussion

Aside from educating your audience, providing entertainment, and proposing solutions, one of the hallmarks of great content is whether it can inspire meaningful discussions on a topic that people care about.

This is an area where content marketers can take a page out of the playbook of social media influencers.

Influencers are very good at starting conversations on social media. It literally takes seconds to set up a poll or a one-question survey on Facebook or Instagram. The key is to put out a question or topic that’s stimulating or provocative enough.

Here’s an example from the World Health Organization:

Using social media poll and survey features enable marketers to create conversational content, collect ideas from their audience, and inspire meaningful conversations. (Image source)

From here, if the WHO were doing content marketing, they can easily cull user-submitted content about mental health from this simple Instagram Story. Plus, one of the great things about these channels is they allow you to instantly interact with your audience.

Think Outside the Blog

People’s content consumption behaviors are changing and your content marketing should evolve with them.

While tried-and-tested content marketing tactics will always have a place in a successful content marketing strategy, content marketers should actively experiment with alternative channels such as the examples discussed above.

This will allow you to build a solid audience, increase engagement, and by extension, hit your marketing and business goals.

This is a Guest Post by Prafull Sharma of LeadsPanda. While we believe this topic is of interest to you, our dear readers, Brandkit is not affiliated with LeadsPanda in any way and the thoughts/idea expressed above are those of Prafull Sharma and LeadsPanda, with no input from Brandkit.

Author Bio: Prafull Sharma is the Founder of content marketing agency LeadsPanda.com and author of the One-Page Content Marketing Blueprint. He shares tips to 2x your content marketing results on LeadsPanda blog. Connect with him on twitter @prafullsha.