With every business from private to public to non-profit, including tourism organizations, producing more content today than they did last year, it is important for marketers to understand the difference between content and content marketing. Everyone is creating content. But with content marketing, you’re attracting an audience to a brand-owned destination versus interrupting an audience on another platform. Many businesses are creating content that supports the brand or products they sell, not because it meets the customers need. The problem with most of this content is that it isn’t created for the audience you are trying to reach, engage and convert. Stop creating content that sells. Stop creating campaigns that have a short shelf life. Start creating content that is helpful and lasts more than your traditional campaigns. Create evergreen content that can be used over time.
Content Marketing
5 Tips For A Better Business Blog
Blogging is one of the most valuable tools that businesses have to engage with their present and future customers. There are many benefits for businesses / organizations to be blogging, especially if you are a tourism organization. When I create a content marketing strategy, blogging is one of the pillars of that strategy. It provides content for us to post on our social media channels, in our newsletters, provides content on our site that helps increase our organic search, and keeps consumers coming back. It is of my opinion that organizations should publish a blog at least once a week, but realistically, I had our tourism organization publishing a blog 3 times a week. Which had a huge impact on our social media marketing, website stats and SEO. There are many reasons why blogging is beneficial for your business.
Why Brands Should Create Content Before An Ad Campaign
As you know, I am big on content marketing and believe you should create content before an ad campaign. I feel that it is vital to the success of your overall marketing plan and affects your traditional advertising, social media posts / ads, SEO and more. When I talk to people and they tell me, yeah we have content, we write blog posts, I always ask them how often they publish blogs and are they creating content on other pages of their website. When I first got started in marketing I thought I knew the concept of content marketing and what had to be done; content marketing referred to blogs and traditional marketing was everything else being TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, etc. Bottom line, I was under the impression that content marketing started and stopped with blogging, but there is much more to it than that. I then changed my strategy and started creating content on every page of the website, creating “guides” and experiential content that was both evergreen and niche targeted.
5 Reasons Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategy
Your marketing plan needs to include a content marketing strategy. The days of just posting on Social Media are over, as are the days of just refreshing your website. Whether you are a destination marketing organization (also known as a CVB (convention and visitors bureau)) or a small business, it is critical to generate content on your site. Success is having a plan behind what you publish and the right team, and brand advocates, to execute the plan.
What I have noticed in the tourism world, is that many destination marketing organizations do not have a blog where they are generating content or enough content on their website. Basically, their websites look like a phone book directory, with the name of their partner business name, address, phone number and a brief description. Tell the consumer more instead of listing all of your restaurants. What makes your dining different than my hometown? What is your area famous for? What your popular local restaurant?Also, instead of making the consumer sort through all of your restaurants, separate them out into different types of food categories, to make it easier for them to find what they are looking for. If you are a small business, tell your story. What makes you the best xyz in your industry, tell me a little bit more about you, show me when upcoming events are happening at your business. Basically, you want to keep the consumer coming back to your website. Here are several reasons why you need a content strategy for your business.
How your Content Strategy Can Help your Social Media and Traditional Marketing.
I was recently asked if I would be a conversation starter for the Social Media Roundtable discussion at the PR Council of Lake County meeting this upcoming Thursday. I use to be the chair of this amazing group of people, so it is always a privilege to share my knowledge with the group and learn what they are working on and how we can help each other. Anytime I start a topic on Social Media, marketing, blogging, etc, I always start by asking, who in attendance has a Content Strategy.
When I ask this question, I get a good feel for the attendees knowledge and expertise level, but I usually receive a 50/50 response to sometimes 3/4 of the audience saying they have one. Which is good but is it working with their social strategy is the next thing that is on my mind. Read more