Now that the holidays have passed, marketers must look to the new year for inspiration. With so many goals to be achieved, businesses must have clear objectives and resolutions to find greater success in 2013. Brafton has compiled a list of 10 New Year’s Resolutions that every marketer should set his or her sights on over the next 12 months, as these goals can help any brand perfect its content marketing strategy.
1.) Defined goals
B2B brands set an average of nine goals for their strategies, but measure success using an average of 14 benchmarks.
Marketers must define their strategic goals and then measure success accordingly. If a brand wants to improve website traffic, but measures the success of its content initiative by evaluating social mentions, there’s a clear disconnect.
2.) Consistency
Seventy-three percent of entrepreneurs want to see custom content from brands they connect with on social media networks at least once a week or more.
An effective content marketing campaign shows consistency. High-quality content grabs readers’ attention, but if a company doesn’t produce enough interesting media to retain leads’ attention, the brand’s competition will capitalize on the misstep.
3.) Diversity
B2B and B2C brands use an average of 12 tactics to communicate with prospective and current customers.
Marketers discovered that when they engage with prospects in a variety of ways people tend to recall products and services more clearly. Content campaigns must become diverse enough to reach all audience segments on the web.
4.) Teamwork
More than 70 percent of businesses look for external help with their web marketing efforts.
Businesses that lack the internal resource may struggle to develop consistent, diverse or high-quality content for their websites. It’s important to understand when it’s time to outsource to experts.
5.) Calendar
Data shows the industries with the most advanced content marketing strategies are the only sectors to have editorial calendars.
No matter who’s in charge of executing a content strategy for a company, brands must develop editorial calendars. These resources plan out topics, due dates, resources and audience targeting goals in advance, so nothing gets overlooked, runs late or misses the mark.
6.) Video Content
It would take more than 6 million years to watch the volume of video content that will cross global IP networks each month in 2016.
Video continues to become the most influential and attention-grabbing content type on the internet. With so much visual media on the web, brands should take advantage of the latest marketing trend to engage their audiences and promote sharing.
7.) Analytics
Forty-three percent of marketers don’t measure or track content ROI. How many marketing budgets are wasted on ineffective content?
Brands have to set concrete goals and evaluate metrics that track success toward specific objectives to see what drives campaign success.
8.) User-generated content
Eighty-three percent of consumers say user-generated reviews impact their purchase decisions at least sometimes.
Marketers who effectively convince customers to blog or update their social accounts about positive experiences may see an uptick in readership, sales and brand awareness. Brands that convert one lead into a happy customer may also gain access to that shopper’s own network of friends and family.
9.) Social Care
Americans use social networks to rant and rave about companies, and they want brands to be accessible. Forty-seven percent of internet users want customer service through social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Brands that create custom Tweets, Facebook posts and other social updates to address fans’ (and skeptics’) feedback strengthen bonds with an active consumer base.
10.) SXO
Matt Cutts’, Google’s distinguished search engineer, suggests brands should consider search experience optimization as part of their overall SEO campaigns.
Publishing high-quality content to branded websites can increase on-site transactions, but the best writing won’t keep readers around if the overall page layout makes finding content difficult. Keeping every other resolution in mind, marketers must look at the whole picture in 2013 and make SXO a top priority.
