What’s worse than stagnation? Even if you have a bad idea, hey, it’s still an idea. You’re still innovating, even if it’s a lousy innovation. But stagnation means nothing is going on. Things are dull and inactive. And in the context of the business world, stagnation means sales are flat – and friend, there’s no business model where that’s a good thing.
If you find your content marketing strategies becoming stagnant, don’t worry; you’re far from alone. Inbound marketing is a strategy that continues pressing forward, and you have to keep uploading new blog articles every single week. And eventually, that’s going to lead to some stagnation.
So how can you shake off these doldrums? Here are three ways to keep your content marketing strategies fresh:
Look for new and interesting ways to present content offers
Content offers are such an integral part of the inbound marketing formula, because they allow us to convert website visitors into leads. However, for the most part, businesses rely on simple content offers like eBooks and white papers to accomplish this. And for the most part, they’re pretty effective.
But we’re not talking about basics here – we’re trying to innovate. So if you’re tired of those content offers and want to change it up, consider a new format. Perhaps an infographic? Or a podcast where you interview a special expert guest related to your field? In the end, the format is irrelevant – all that matters is that your visitors like the content offer and want to download it. Play around with some ideas and see what your audience responds to.
Test, report, rinse, repeat
I’m a huge fan of testing, and not just because I tend to do things via trial and error. Within content marketing, testing is incredibly important, because we’re dealing with the internet – things go wrong here all the time. With any technology, testing is vital to ensure your visitors are experiencing your site the way you want them to.
But aside from testing, we also have to evaluate and constantly seek reports on the performance of our campaigns. The key here is to garner knowledge: through testing and analytics, we will learn a lot about our campaigns. And if we’re constantly evaluating this information, then new courses of action will make themselves clear. For instance, has your blog traffic stagnated? Keywords could be to blame. Change them up and then test out the results. And once we get that information, we can use it for even more changes. It’s a continual process, and it will keep your methods fresh.
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box
Let me preface this by saying I really enjoy writing articles here. However, after a while, it can get a little stale and redundant. Within content marketing, it’s typical to write several derivative articles that state similar things. So how can you keep it interesting? By writing about interesting stuff! The bottom line is, these blogs can have different tones and sometimes can be more entertaining rather than only educational. Why not include a personal anecdote? They should be informative, but they don’t have to win a Pulitzer. There’s no Content Marketing Police that will issue you a citation. I’ve written about Steph Curry, professional football and movie quotes on this blog. Does that have much to do with inbound? Not necessarily, but I find the connections. Plus, it’s more fun to write and probably more interesting for you to read. And it will keep your content writers sane!
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