Make your content even better in 2022
I’m sure it’s not just me who feels that this year has gone by incredibly fast. It’s been another challenging one for many of us, yet totally epic for others. Our year was somewhere in between. We’re super proud of the work we’ve done for new and existing clients, secured some amazing new projects in NZ and Australia, and we’re testing the waters more in Europe, too.
My team and I are all set to help you and your business reach your goals in 2022 with the power of words. For now, let’s share some ideas on how you can use content to reach an even higher level of marketing success in the new year.
The must-do’s:
Create a purposeful content strategy
Planning, creating and distributing valuable and relevant content helps you interact and build a relationship with your target market. Through content marketing, you can create a positive customer experience and guide your ideal customer through each step of the buying journey. If your content strategy is not a priority, you’ll run the risk of falling behind.
Please note that it’s important to focus your content strategy on retaining your existing customers, not just on attracting new ones. To do this, work on your social media, keep updating your website, plan your e-news and blogs well in advance, and do what you can to develop a valuable and enjoyable customer experience.
Let me know if you’d like some help with that
Review and renew your SEO
Content that’s unique, creative, and original gets noticed by Google and other search engines and will rank higher than repetitive, low-value content. A high-quality blog on your website is an effective way to share knowledge and attract the right customers. If you generate persuasive, useful, valuable and well-written content, with the right keywords in all the right places, it’s more likely you’ll show up in the first search results.
As all digital marketing experts will tell you, users rarely go beyond the first page of Google and on social media, users scroll extremely fast. That’s why you need to stop posting stuff just for the sake of posting and make sure that all your content is relevant, attractive and fluff-free. The best way to do that is write and publish well-written, long form articles that aim to solve problems for your customers and explain clearly where your product or service can help. You can use snippets of those articles on social media and link back to your site.
Let me know if you’d like some help with that.
Personalise your content
Good content has personality. It’s as simple as that. Showing who you are and why you do what you do builds trust and helps with your brand positioning. Your personality, and where you stand in the market, is key to a great customer experience.
Write website content that speaks directly to your ideal customer and target market (for which you must first discover as much as you can about your audience). Listen to their wants and needs, offer them true value, be there when they call, and go the extra mile to find a solution. Write a good review if you’ve appreciated an experience, and always respond to the reviews you receive yourself no matter if they are positive or negative.
A hand-written note included in your parcels, a Christmas card to your most valued clients, a phone call to say thanks, or little gift to show your appreciation. Share your customer’s success on your social media, support local businesses, volunteer or make a donation to a meaningful charity. With chat bots, auto-replies, and automisation literally everywhere, nothing beats a genuine personal touch. There’s so much you can do to make a difference, and a little effort goes a long way!
Let me know if you’d like some help with that
Balance your storytelling
Just to touch on all that automation again, you do need machines and software to analyse the data that’s created by all the different consumer touchpoints. But don’t forget that numbers and data will only get you so far. You also need talented and creative people to craft stories around these insights and messages.
Successful storytelling online is done with great design, fantastic visuals and the right words. When done well, it will move people to take action.
Text is still one of the most common methods for telling stories on the Internet. Written stories (like blog posts, white-papers, articles, and e-books) are often easier to produce than other methods of storytelling such as video and podcasts. Textual content can be hugely effective, and sometimes it’s the only option that makes sense or is practical.
Let me know if you’d like some help with that
Video is the future of storytelling in marketing. It’s no wonder that YouTube and Tik Tok are so popular. Video leverages the power of sound, vision, and storytelling all in one to bring your products and services to life. According to the latest research, 90% of customers claim that video is useful in making a buying decision, and 64% of customers admit that video influences their decision to buy.
Still images also tell stories, and a picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Visuals are so effective in conveying a story because our brains can process them 60,000 times faster than text. Also, not everyone likes to read.
There are several types of visuals that can be used as web content for storytelling, such as photos, sketches, illustrations, graphs, and charts. Personally, I love a good infographic. Here’s one that stood out to me a while ago. It’s an oldie but a goodie. Let it be a reminder to you (as it was for me) to get up every now and again and move your body!
Don’t let it scare you too much or run away now, as this blog continues below.
Quality over Quantity
In a conversation with a new client a few weeks ago, it came up that their search engine results were so much better now they had a blog on their website. How awesome it was to talk to a small business owner who understands how important content is! He told me it had cost him quite a bit, but it had improved their Google ranking so he was happy with that.
Then I had a look at his blog, and I was far from impressed. It had 6 articles with lots of keywords jammed in, but reading the stories was painful. American spelling, lots of repetition, bad grammar, no images, a terrible layout, and a lot of obvious keyword stuffing. I see this too often and it hurts my creative heart.
Keyword stuffing and taking shortcuts with your content can destroy your SEO and damage your brand. Why, you ask? Because it creates an awful experience for users. Good content aims to educate, inform, engage and/or entertain your readers. When you stuff the pages on your website with keywords, you’re doing the exact opposite.
Yes, you should use the right keywords in your text. Most definitely. But you should first focus on creating useful, information-rich and high-quality content and use those keywords appropriately and in context.
Let me know if you’d like some help with that.
While risking an adverse reaction, I asked my client if he thought those articles correctly reflected what his business was all about, and if he felt it portrayed his brand the way it should be. He said he hadn’t really read them. His admin assistant had just put them online. Lucky it wasn’t a Zoom call or he would have seen me shake my head and roll my eyes.
I explained that a poor experience for his audience will increase the bounce rates, which is something Google also measures. It may have boosted his rankings temporarily, but it’s not likely that this “success” will continue. Worse so, that blog could drive potential customers straight to his competition. It’s not a good look, but we’ll fix it.
In the new year
Plenty of food for thought here for you, but for now I’d like to say that I hope 2022 is going to be an amazing year for you and your business. If you need help with your copy and content creation next year, feel free to reach out.
~ By Martine Pierhagen, Founder of Sweet Orange Copywriting & PR
~ Again, with huge thanks to the amazing photographers from around the world that generously upload their work for free sharing on unsplash.com and to to creators of that awesome but scary infographic.