Our last post on content marketing provided tips for making content—but that’s only the first step. Next, you need to promote your content and then measure your results, according to Andy Crestodina, strategic director of Orbit Media Studios.
Just like the real estate adage “location, location, location,” good content marketing is just as much about promoting, promoting, promoting your content as it is about producing it. Over two presentations at the 2016 Senior Care Marketing Sales (SMASH) Summit, Crestodina shared lots of tips for max reader engagement.
To compliment the 9 tips provided in our first post, here are 11 ways to implement the next steps of content marketing:
Promote Content
Tip 10: Capture interest. Your content can be the best in the world—but it’s worthless unless you’re grabbing people’s attention and getting them to read it. Headlines are crucial, and there are several rules for creating good ones:
- Make your headline explicit and concise.
- Don’t give away the whole article in the headline. At the same time, don’t hide what the article is about.
- Trigger curiosity. Appeal to emotions.
- Use numbers or percentages when possible.
Tip 11: Know how to generate traffic. Send out an email with your article and promote it on social media. Putting your content directly in someone’s inbox is an easy way to reach them, while posting content on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn makes it easy for people to share.
Tip 12: Add tools to your arsenal. Use tools like Buffer to share content efficiently. Buffer allows you to queue up content you want to share on social media and then spaces out when that content is released throughout the day.
Tip 13: Be a big fish in a small pond. Don’t view the fractionalized senior living market as a threat. View it as a marketing opportunity to specialize in a niche.
Tip 14: Don’t date yourself. When publishing articles that aren’t news-oriented, don’t include the date. With information that’s useful no matter when it’s posted, including the date may discourage someone from reading it as time passes.
Tip 15: Connect with everyone on LinkedIn. It’s a content sharing platform—treat it as such. Content marketers benefit from connecting with each other.
Tip 16: Be a fount of information. Content marketing is a test of generosity. It costs nothing to give away your best advice and knowledge, and that’s how you’ll win the relationships that give you the links, the authority, the rank—all leading to getting qualified visitors on your website.
Measure Your Results
Tip 17: Use data to your advantage. How much authority does your page have? Find out with tools like Google Analytics. Make use of available data, and adjust your content accordingly.
Tip 18: Focus on what matters. There’s a very long road between getting a “like” and making money. A very low number of social media interactions convert into leads. Your website is much more likely to get a visit from a Google search, so put the bulk of your energy into where you get the best results.
Tip 19: Share content people want to see. Look at what’s getting shared and clicked the most. Use Google Analytics to find the articles that will get people to subscribe to your newsletter. Put these items on your sharing list.
Tip 20: Know when to share. Track your web traffic and email click-through performance to find out when people click on your content. Generally, 11:00 a.m. Central is a good time to share because both coasts are up and running.
Remember, when it comes to content, it’s all about relevance and authority. By making content, promoting that content, and measuring the results, you will master the content marketing game and get found when prospects are looking for answers.