All marketers around the world spend a great deal of time, money, and effort to create great content. Customers want value, and their demands change over time. They become more specific in what they want, which makes things a bit more complicated. Creating unique content is becoming increasingly difficult because of the higher standards. Another thing to have in mind is that it is not only enough to create content that will add value to your customers. You also need to know how to deliver it. Otherwise, your customers will not even know it exists. That is why we want to share an efficient guide on how to create and distribute great content. Stick around to find out more!
How to create valuable content?
There are five golden standards for creating valuable content. Those standards are:
Target the customers’ needs
Always be authentic
Maintain consistency across all aspects of content creation
Distribute the content across all channels
Regularly do a content audit
Let us learn more about these 5 stages, and why they are so crucial. If you understand these elements of the content creation process, you will be able to produce something that will add value to your clients.
1. Everything revolves around customers’ needs
You should never create a piece of content that does not add value to your clients. Think about what you are doing here. Why are you making this content, and for who? What should this content achieve? Why would anyone want it?
All of these are fundamental questions. There would be no reason for any business if there were no customers. That is why it is crucial to always have customers’ needs in mind. And what better way to address their needs than to solve their problems?
Every content should always focus on a specific issue, and it should provide the solution to it. That is what customers want. No matter your industry, you should always focus on solving your customers’ problems through your content.
2. How to create something authentic and unique?
We all know that behind every ad stands a need to promote the business. There should be no business if there is no chance to make a profit. With that in mind, how can you be authentic when solving customers’ problems if you know you are trying to make a profit?
The answer is simple. It would be best if you were honest. Yes, you are trying to make a profit. But you are also honestly trying to solve your customers’ issues. There is nothing wrong with that. The best way to maintain authenticity is to let your brand’s message speak through your content. Every brand has a goal; if your content reflects that goal, you are on the right path.
3. Always be consistent
Once your customers get used to a certain level of quality, you can only do better from that point on. You can never do worse. However, it is often very challenging to be consistent with the level of quality. One thing you can do is never focus on the quantity of your content. If you are running a blog, it is better to release one excellent article every week than 5 mediocre ones.
Consistency must also exist across all touchpoints within your brand. All of the teams must work together, and they should represent the brand in a consistent way. That is what it means to have a standard.
4. Distribute content evenly across all channels
We will talk more about the specifics of distributing content to your customers. But first, we want to show how important it is to integrate your content everywhere. If your clients do not know it exists, it brings no value to anyone.
Besides sharing content across all channels, it is also crucial to adapt it to different formats. For example, if we look at social media, every platform has a unique form of a post. You need to adapt your content to that form. Furthermore, you also need to think outside of the box. Take one piece of content and create it in different ways. One article can also become a video post, and it can become an infographic.
5. Audit your content to keep it fresh
The content becomes outdated after some time. You need to learn how to audit it so it becomes something new and exciting. It is crucial to have this strategy in mind when creating content. Think about how it will reflect on your business in the future.
You might also have to change some keywords, add more relevant material to it, or even rewrite it to give a different perspective if necessary. Content changes because customers change.
How to create and distribute great content?
When we talk about content creation, we must also think about different forms of content. We briefly touched on this subject in a previous section, so let’s take a deeper look into what that means. Keep in mind that the type of content directly defines the distribution channel.
Blog posts
Blogging is very popular today. Blog posts are the most common type of content that brings the most value, both to the customers and the company. It offers free information and educates the readers while bringing relevant traffic and SEO juice to the website.
When it comes to blogging, it is crucial to do a couple of things:
Utilize SEO elements like keywords, links, and meta descriptions to target the right audience
Be consistent in releasing new articles
Furthermore, blogs are perfect for product placement. You can use them to talk about your products, educate users, answer their questions, and invite them to make a purchase. Per Convert More, this is a bulletproof strategy to increase your conversion rate if running an eCommerce website.
Another great way to use a blog to distribute content is through a newsletter. Newsletter emails are very popular because they focus on a specific subject. Send a series of emails that will take the user on an interesting and useful journey from start to finish.
Video content
To take blogging to the next level, you need to turn it into vlogging. Create video content out of published articles, or create something completely new. Videos are great because they are fun to watch and very engaging. They have both the visual elements and the audio, so customers can listen even if they are doing something else.
Podcasts
Podcasts are very informative, fun, and engaging. People like listening to them because they usually provide verified information about a specific topic. If you can get your hands on a couple of experts in your niche, do a podcast interview and include a Q&A session with the listeners. That is a great way to create authentic, valuable content.
Infographics
Infographics are just visually stunning. They are instrumental if you want to present clean, concise statistics data to your customers. What is even more important, they do it entertainingly.
Statistics can be very dull to look at. However, if you create eye-catchy visuals and shower them in brand colors, you will achieve a completely different effect.
eBooks and audiobooks
Here is another example of how to create content that adds value to your customers. eBooks and audiobooks are fantastic sources of information. They are cheap and often free, which is something that customers like very much. On top of that, they are affordable to make.
You can easily offer a free eBook to your customers if they subscribe to a newsletter or sign up on your website. That is an excellent example of how to distribute your content, so it attracts the attention of the customers.
Success stories
Success stories are very useful because they are, in a way, a word-of-mouth advertising strategy. They are beneficial for multiple reasons. First, you get to see how your content affects your customers. Each success story means that the brand succeeds in its mission. Second, success stories are excellent for advertising the quality of your content. Others will see happy customers, and that will help them to make a decision and convert to customers themselves. And third, success stories help in telling a story about your brand. Share the success of others around you, and you will gain credibility and business character.
Case studies
A case study is excellent for providing a detailed explanation of your products. It includes a highly-detailed review, either from a satisfied customer or a niche expert.
Webinars or live events
People like to attend live events and webinars. For them, that is a great opportunity to learn more about what they are interested in. For a business, that is the perfect venue to acquire leads and share relevant content.
Types of content distribution channels
You can and should share all of these types of content across different distribution channels. We can split them into two ownership categories:
Owned channels (company website, business social media account, company email)
Earned channels (3rd party websites, backlink strategy, citations)
When it comes to paid advertising channels, you can use:
Pay-Per-Click
Sponsored content (paying advertisers, publishes, influencers, or other brands to promote your content)
Paid influencer marketing (pay influencers to create and distribute content for you)
Paid social media ads
Stay true to your customers’ needs!
This is everything you need to understand about how to create and distribute great content. It is imperative to always have your customers’ best interests in mind. They dictate the needs of the market, and the market creates businesses. Finally, remember that consistency goes a long way, especially if it is backed up by quality content!
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