By Pete Winter

The 12 Days of Content Marketing – A tip-a-day for success in the new year and beyond

Don’t settle for any more turtle doves! Find out what to ask for this Christmas for a more successful content marketing strategy in 2018.

The 12 days of inbound marketing: A marketer’s Christmas list

All you want for Christmas is content marketing success, so here’s a day-by-day tip list to hand over to your true love (marketing agency!) to ensure you’re able to sing about your ROI this Christmas.

Day 1: BE Strategic

The Content Marketing Institute found that success in content marketing lies in changing your views on content from it being a marketing tactic to a strategic business activity. This strategic content can then be used for a purpose, to build a subscribed audience, create brand loyalty and eventually evangelism. So don’t just create content for content’s sake!

Day 2: BASE EVERYTHING ON DATA AND RESARCH

Lack of data was cited as one of the main reasons why content marketer’s don’t differentaiate in the 2017 B2B Marketing Report on Content Differentiation. With over 40% saying they find it ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to access data. We say there is no excuse! Plan it in, to both budgets and timelines and the rewards will pay off in the long run.

Day 3: BE VISUAL

Videos, graphics, interactivity – it’s what the people want. And if you give it to them, you’re likely to be rewarded – 85% of businesses now have in-house staff to produce video so the trend has caught on! Make sure your new year’s resolution is to get rich, quick. As if it wasn’t already.

Day 4: BE CHANNEL SPECIFIC

It’s easy to create one asset and push it out via all your marketing channels STOP THIS PRACTICE NOW! Followers who like your brand enough to follow it on multiple channels will see the same messages repeated everywhere. This will prompt your audience tune out. Today, channel-specific content is a cleaver marketing practice as it shows respect for the way your audience uses email, social media other channels.

DAY 5: OPTIMISE FOR SEO

An oldie but a goodie just like ‘Lil Drummer Boy’. But Search Engine Optimisation is still key for any content marketing. New kids on the block in the SEO world are ‘topic clusters’. Get these into your content plan for 2018 and you will be singing all the way till next Christmas!

Day 6: BE DIFFERENT

The battle to be different in B2B marketing is on! But being different is not just about being the most creative. You can be different by doing more planning, by knowing your audience, by understanding your channels, by digging into data, with thought leadership and with brand consistency. The challenge is what to do first?

Day 7: HAVE A LOGICAL NEXT STEP

Call to actions are a B2B marketer’s brandy butter (I mean bread and butter!) But when creating high quality content your customer experience should be considered at all times. Take our CX Audit in time for New Year and see where the cracks are forming.

Day 8: SOLVE PROBLEMS

Content that solves problems is useful FACT! How-to-guides and tips and tricks may seem like old ‘christmas’ hat but they consitently have top viewing metrics. So don’t just report on Santa being stuck up the chimney – give him 7 tips for getting unstuck for next year!

Day 9: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

The first step in constructing compelling content is knowing who your audience is and where they hang out. Creating persona’s is the best way to optimise your content to target and engage your potential customers.

Day 10: MAKE IT SCALEABLE

Planning to grow your business in 2018? Wow us too! But what you are planning for your content now might not work in 12 months. When creating your content plan try and make it scaleable. You do this by concentrating on the mission of your content, followed by the pains its solving. Do this and you will be able to scale up or down.

Day 11: TEST AND OPTIMISE

You don’t always cook a turkey right on your first try! Same with content marketing, some will resonate with an audience and some won’t. Don’t let this get you down. If your content is based on data and research you may only need to tweak the copy or think about updating the CTA for the contacts to come flying in.

Day 12: GO CRAZY!

It’s Christmas, the time to wear a garish jumper, a neon paper hat. Why not experiment with something new in your content marketing in 2018 and BE DIFFERENT.