The Best Ways To Benefit From Content Marketing In Your Industry

Stand Apart From Your Competitors With Fresh Content Marketing For Your Business

Most businesses understand the importance of content marketing – no matter what industry you fall into you, you will always be a part of the never-ending race to prove how your product or service is different, or better, than your competitors. Just because you know it’s important doesn’t mean that it is always easy, in fact, in the hustle and bustle of it all, it’s easy to become complacent with mediocre effort and results and forget JUST how much we can benefit from content marketing in our companies with just the help of a few new creative ideas. We want to provide you with a couple fresh content marketing ideas to shake up the mundane and explain just how they can benefit you in YOUR industry.

Content marketing takes form in many ways over the various spectrums of industries, marketing goals, and brands – but content marketing doesn’t have to be stale, in fact, the most beneficial content marketing campaigns are ones that keep consumers, buyers, and businesses on their toes. The ones that have people laughing, entertained; and the ones that make you feel good as a human, stimulate your senses, keep you informed, and build community.

Blogging: Make it relate-able, shareable, and buy-able

Blogging is one of the widest used and popular content marketing strategies today. Yet it also can be the easiest to let go stale and take the back burner. We have three rules to live by as you use blogs to market your products, make your content relatable, shareable, and buyable. Blogs should not only connect to your audience, but it should keep them informed, giving them valuable knowledge so that they leave your site a better, smarter, more intelligent human. This is the type of content that people come back for – you want them to be so hooked on your information and brand that they continue to come back, trusting your resources repeatedly and share it with their friends. This, in turn continues to build that relationship of trust. Keeping your blog content buyable is business 101 – make sure you are putting in your calls to action, don’t oversell your services, but don’t let anyone leave without informing them of what you CAN offer up to them. When these three aspects are continually done well within a brand, your blog will rarely if ever become stale and stagnant. (Need help fighting writer’s block? Check out this blog).

Be Remembered Through Humor: It's OK to be funny

Memes, one liners, and short comic videos can go MILES with your audience. Many companies today shy away from using humor to market their products, or brand because they don’t believe that it takes away from the professionalism of who they are or are trying to be. We need to break down this belief that a company cannot be professional and fun. We could give you hundreds of examples of companies that do humor well, but one of our favorite examples is Amazon’s recent Superbowl video “Not Everything Makes The Cut” this video leaves you smiling as it depicts the various items that could be made into an “Alexa object” and how they could go wrong – not only making you laugh but also realizing on a new level why Alexa is so great, and how you could use it in your house. Another great example is as simple as Burger King’s many tweets – at times they will poke light fun at their various fast food competition, and other times, they are just making witty remarks about YOLO(you only live once) or eating chicken fries during a job interview. This humor is relate-able, entertaining, and fun to read, watch and share. Making people laugh and is always a good idea, no matter what company or industry you are involved in.

Utilize Social Trends: Capitalize on already viral or popular content

The internet has given the world the ability to create new viral trends what seems to be weekly. A recent trend across all platforms is the legendary “Git Up Challenge” where people post videos of themselves dancing a specific routine to the unique and recently released song “The Git Up” by Blanco Brown. Instantly you had everyone from cowboys to news anchors doing the git up challenge. The Mobile Police Department of Alabama decided to join in by recreating their own version of the already viral trend, click here to watch the video. This video has over 25,000 Facebook shares and 3,000 comments within the short time that it has been posted. Not only has this department made themselves accessible, but these officers won the hearts of their community and country just by being willing to join in with a trend and having a good time with it. Capitalizing on trends doesn’t have to be hard, it could be posting a company update sharing a fun trending video, or you COULD go as far as to make your own remake or even a “response” video to the trend. It could be just a meme or posting a blog that uses word play to reflect the movement. It might be true that these little inserts might not automatically drive your sales up, but rather, it allows for brand recognition, larger product audiences going forward, and the ability for your company to step to the same level as the people you are trying to reach.

Personalization

The share a coke campaign is probably the most widely recognized content marketing campaign, and quite possibly the longest running. Coca-Cola company started the campaign in 2011, over 8 years ago in Australia. The idea was so well received they put implemented it throughout the world. You can buy a coke with your name on it, as well as buy a coke with your friend’s name on it, to share with them (which is the whole idea behind the campaign). You can go as far as to order a personalized coke bottle with your name off the Coca-Cola website; getting a discount if you buy an entire personalized pack. Personalize your product if you are able, make it something that people not only want to buy for themselves, but they want to buy and share it with all their friends.

Invest in Visuals: video, photography, etc.

Let’s be honest, good content marketing can go a long way without flashy videos, fun graphics, and perfect images…but they sure help!!! Set your business apart from your competition, by investing in yourself, investing in your services, and your business. Hiring a professional to create visuals that will accurately represent your company as it is now as well as where you want to go. We all know that humans are visual beings, and having content that assists, promotes, and maximizes on that specific element of who we are will only help your business grow.

Make it Community Oriented: Leave people feeling good about buying your product

TOMS is a well-known apparel company that offers a “One for One” project. For every pair of shoes that you buy, TOMS will donate a pair of shoes to someone who is in need – this campaign is not only extremely positive and aimed at giving back, but it’s the perfect “feel good” motivation for someone to pay the few extra bucks to buy themselves the new pair of shoes they’ve been wanting while still giving back to the

community and world. This could be adjusted personally to your business however you like, if you are a coffee shop you could give 10% of each cup of coffee bought to an animal shelter, or if you are a mechanic you could choose a charity of your choice to come set up at your shop all day and make donations for every oil change, tire rotation, or new tire job that comes in. The possibilities are endless for any company.

Give something away for FREE

This is a no brainer, but we want you to expand your horizon of thinking…don’t limit your giveaways to your goods or services, these are good and you should facilitate giveaways of your goods and services, but think about giving away some company merch or better yet, put together themed giveaways. Here is a great giveaway we saw put on by Patriot Jack’s Outfitters on Facebook. They put together an awesome “sweet summertime” giveaway with a yeti cooler, a watermelon yeti cup, hat, and air fresheners. They had over 21,000 shares, 26,000 comments, and 23,000 reactions. Think about the audience they reached and the exposure they received just for putting together a simple little basket worth that was most likely valued at less than $300. Put your own twist on it, do a spring, summer, fall, and winter giveaway – the options are endless when it comes to your own creative mind.

So, there you have it, we just gave you SEVEN different ways to make sure you’re benefiting from content marketing in your industry. Completely boiled down, a successful content marketing strategy is all about getting creative. It’s standing out from your competition in a way that helps people remember you. No matter what industry you are in, or what your company values are, there are ways to make your business one to be remembered.

Content marketing isn’t easy for everyone, getting the right content in front of your audience that really helps portray your company in the best possible way can be hard – let us help! We offer services such as blog management, content writing, social media management(like all to pages) and more to ease up some of the pressure when it comes to content marketing for your business. Contact us today to learn more about what marketing strategies we can put into place for you today!