With more brands focused on content marketing in 2023, it has definitely gotten harder for content to get seen and shared, but this is nothing new. More companies have been investing in content marketing each year for more than a decade now, which is what got me into SEO and marketing strategy. I realized I needed to have all those pieces in place if I wanted my content to be effective.
That is still true. It’s not enough to just create content and expect it to drive results for your business. You need to implement SEO best practices to improve its chances of getting found, as well as a marketing strategy so you know who your target audience is, where they are in the buyer journey when they encounter each piece of content, and how to lead them to the next stage of the buyer journey.
That’s a lot, so let’s start with identifying your target audience.
Table of Contents
- The Riches Are in the Niches
- How Has AI Impacted Content Marketing in 2023?
- Short Form vs Long-Form Content
- The Basics Are More Important Than Ever
1) The Riches Are in the Niches
One of the most important parts of any marketing strategy is understanding your target audience. The better you can get to know your ideal client and what resonates with them, the better your chances will be of getting your content in front of them. The days of trying to get your brand in front of as many people as possible are long gone. Now it’s all about getting your brand in front of the right people at the right time, but that means you have to know who the “right people” are.
Once you’ve clearly identified your target audience you’ll be able to:
- Cover topics that interest them
- Create the types of content they consume
- Put the content where they’re most likely to see it
- Craft a compelling call to action that convinces them to take the next step towards working with you.
Do you see how much more effective your content can be if you take the time to consider all those elements before you even come up with a list of topics, much less start writing?
2) How Has AI Impacted Content Marketing in 2023?
I wonder how long it will be before I’ll be able to create any of my own marketing content without talking about artificial intelligence? Maybe never.
I’ve played around with ChatGPT and a couple other “generative” AI tools, but I don’t use any of them to create content. At most, I will occasionally put in a prompt and use whatever content it gives me as a leverage to get myself past my writing block.
I think the rise of “generative” AI provides an incredible opportunity for those of us who are still using content as a way to position ourselves as thought leaders. AI tools don’t “generate” anything, they just take content that’s already been published online and they repurpose it for users. That’s a great way to create sub-par content that sounds just like what everyone else is putting out there.
Creating content in your own voice that either uses your own data and/or your own interpretation of the data will be much more effective both at getting Google’s attention and at convincing the real, live people who read your content that you’re the real deal.
That’s not to say you should never use AI, just make sure you’re using it in the right way.
That means using it to analyze and organize information. Use it to write the information-heavy parts of your content while you focus on writing the emotional components (including the call to action).
And don’t forget to provide your take on the information you’re talking about in your content, because that is what will set you apart as a thought leader in your industry instead of someone just regurgitating information someone else published on their website last month.
If you do use AI correctly (or not at all) you could take advantage of a tremendous opportunity AI offers: being human.
We’ve already seen that the rise of social media and the Digital Age has caused people to crave real, human contact more than ever. This is evident in the fact that social media posts that show human faces tend to perform best.
Then there was the rise of live videos, which are still extremely popular across all channels.
Coincidence? I think not.
The more people encounter AI-written content, the more they’re going to crave content that actually resonates with them. If you’re the one to create that content, you’ll stand a much better chance of standing out from the crowd, especially as more people use AI incorrectly to churn out subpar content.
3) Short Form vs Long-Form Content
There will always be a demand for long-form content, regardless of what’s happening on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
First of all, Google still prioritizes longer content because it assumes it’s more valuable. And the people who are looking to dive deep into a topic will read a long article to get the answers to their questions.
It’s also worth noting that the data shows that people do spend more time engaging with longer content, so if you think your audience doesn’t want to read a long blog post about XYZ, think again (or reanalyze your target audience.)
That said, people will scan your content to get the information that most applies to them. You can make your long-form content scannable by using subheadings to break it up into sections. At the top of the article I’ll create a Table of Contents that lists each subheading with a link people can click to go straight to that section. That way, people who are looking for something specific can go straight to that section.
4) The Basics Are More Important Than Ever
I still see a lot of brands falling flat on the basics of content marketing: they’re not consistent with their publishing schedule or their brand voice, and they focus their content on themselves and their accomplishments instead of their target audience and what they can help them accomplish.
No one cares about how much money you made last year, or how many big brands have hired you.
They care about what you can do for them.
Guess what that means?
You guessed it. Understanding your target audience and what matters to them.
If you’re starting to see a theme here, it’s because, yes, everything comes back to understanding your target audience.
If you need help identifying your target audience, creating marketing personas, or creating a content marketing strategy to target those personas, we can help.
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