The five big drivers of content marketing success

Content marketing is no longer the new kid on the block. Today it seems every man and his dog is out there attempting to produce ideas and content that truly grab audience attention. The problem is now that everyone is doing it, it’s easier than ever to get lost in the crowd.  

Marketers today are under intense pressure to produce and distribute more content, so the temptation to get out there and start saying something is acute. But, if the content isn’t up to scratch, the best thing that can happen is simply not getting noticed. At worst poorly conceived content can damage your brand and send potential customers looking elsewhere. Our recent blog documents some of the main reasons for content failure.

The important take away here is that content isn’t a volume game – potential customers won’t be beaten into submission, they will simply switch off. With so many brands vying for attention, a clear strategy is more important than ever, as is ensuring your ideas and content are better than the competition’s. To help marketers get their content engines firing on all cylinders, we’ve boiled-down what we see as the five biggest drivers of success. So step back, take a breath and read on:

1. Marketing in the driving seat: While great ideas often emerge organically, content strategy shouldn’t come from a spokesperson’s latest musings. Content should directly support broader marketing plans and, in-turn, the overall business strategy.
2. A finely tuned engine: It’s easy to get lost in your own content, unable to see the cumulative message your content is conveying. If you start with a compelling theme and idea in the first place that your audience actually cares about, every piece of content can support and convey the story you want to tell.
3. Consistent performance: Content today spans multiple formats and channels in an effort to catch the audience at the right time in the right way, but this can create a disjointed approach. Every piece of content should be seen as an opportunity to further convey your message and build your brand in a consistent and cumulative way.
4. A united team: Too frequently we see content being produced in silos, with marketing having little say or control over what is created. If you want content to drive commercial results, then marketing, PR and sales must all have a stake in the strategy and ensure it meets their needs.
5. Pleasing the crowd: There is often a lot of internal pressure to create reams of heavy-weight content, but time-poor audiences rarely have the time or inclination to read such content until they are truly interested in you. The best content strategies show an understanding of what audiences are interested in and how they consume content, as well as what they might want at each stage of the buying process.

It’s all very well telling you what a good approach looks like, but how do you actually get there? Thankfully our content elves have been slaving over their keyboards to produce No Contest, our latest hands-on guide to winning the content race. The document covers both the theory and a host of useful tools to ensure your content does exactly what you want.