Insights

It’s a word we hear every day in the digital marketing community; content. Everything is about your content and the audience you’re promoting it to. We are living in the greatest technological revolution in human history, where anyone with an internet connection can make a living strictly online. It truly is remarkable. Where most online enthusiasts go wrong in regards to promoting their business is getting potential customers interested. They don’t understand the problem or concern their target audience has, therefore they don’t provide an adequate solution in their messaging, even if their product actually does solve the consumer’s problem.

There are a variety of options when it comes to the type of content you can produce and promote. PDF documents, instructional videos and blog posts are just a few examples of valuable pieces you can provide your audience with. The key is knowing where each one fits into the puzzle. Let’s take a deeper look into these kinds of content and how you can leverage them into your digital marketing strategy.

Blog Posts and PDFs
One of the easiest forms of content to produce is a blog post that solves a problem or provides the reader with some kind of value. The key messaging here is “solves a problem” or “offers value.” Not understanding these two points is what can steer you off course. What may be valuable to you may not be valuable to your audience. Neil Patel does an exceptional job outlining how to write the perfect blog post in this article here.

We are HUGE fans of downloadable PDF files. Reading and staying up to date on the latest strategies and trends in the digital marketing industry are essential for our success. There are a number of companies who make these available across a wide variety of topics such as SEO, Google Adwords, and other content marketing ideas. Checklists, cheat sheets, and instructional documents are all examples of PDF’s you can make available to your visitors.

Videos
More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube alone, everyday. Let that sink in for a minute. 500 million hours in one day. Most marketers agree that video is the future of marketing right now. There are so many different ways to go about incorporating video into your strategy, you’d be foolish not to start right now. Whether you decide your video content will be more instructional or entertaining, there are advantages to both directions.

An example of where a video might fit in is after a consumer has taken prior action on your website. Let’s say they’ve downloaded a PDF that contains a checklist for social media marketers. Now we’re going to retarget them with a step-by-step video that walks through the most effective tools for social media marketers and how to use them. If you effectively target your audience, the likelihood of those in the digital marketing community taking interest in your video significantly increases.

Make sure you’re incorporating a variety of video concepts to ensure that your content doesn’t become stagnant. The more video, the better!
(P.S. Check out Gary Vaynerchuk’s social media pages for some amazing video content!)

Free Trials/Discounted Products
Once a visitor has engaged with your brand multiple times, now is the time to hit them with some kind of offer. One of the best tactics for getting consumers to take action is by giving them something for free, such as a limited-time trial. If my company sells personalized website analytics software, potential customers need to time to study and understand all of the components of the dashboard. Before going for the hard sell, give them 30 days of limited access. This will allow them the opportunity to learn the software before they make a purchasing decision.

Another option for content toward the bottom of your funnel is a discounted price on a particular product. If we use our website analytics software example, this could be in the form of offering consumers 50% off the first 3 months of their agreement/contract. These kinds of incentives are what entice people to take action, increasing your overall conversion rate and sales.

These are just a few of the MANY forms of content you can offer to your followers and target audience. What are your favorite types of content?