We know what you’re thinking. How the heck am I supposed to stream content? “If creating content was as easy as binge watching Stranger Things, I’d be down in a second.”
Hold your horses, John Wayne.
A content marketing strategy isn’t as simple Amazon Prime—at least for you. The strategy is to get your content across the Internet to your audience next door. By making it addicting, easy to read, and better streaming.
Streaming Content: From Music to Marketing
According to sources, “Streaming revenues amounted to $2.9 billion” in 2015. Internet users are more inclined to stream than they are to leave their 450-square foot studio to see a movie with a friend, much less go and buy toilet paper. (Did you know you can buy toilet paper in super bulk via Amazon? It’s changed my life.)
You will find more statistics at Statista.
Streaming has become so relevant that even the not-so mousy conglomerate Disney streams their content. People—and businesses—cannot ignore the efficiency and convenience of streaming video content.
How can we learn from streaming platforms and apply it to our content marketing strategy?
How to Do Content Marketing: Key Elements
Netflix ended 2016 with about 94 million subscribers, and they’re still growing. Seems like they’re doing something right. Here are a few content marketing lessons you can learn from Netflix and all those addicting video marketing campaigns out there.
Watchability
We could watch Gilmore Girls a million times. That’s why they brought it back. The show is relatable and its dialogue delectable. The same could be said for Firefly. That show had everything. (Moment of silence for our canceled TV shows.) Netflix is incredibly watchable because of many reasons, one being its automatic “Next Episode” option. You LITERALLY don’t have to lift a finger to continue watching.
User experience in content marketing strategy means less work for the reader and more value to the reader.
If your video marketing is easy to watch AND you learn something, people will watch your whole YouTube playlist on cat facts. (However, you shouldn’t falsely bring in your audience with cats when you’re a CPA firm. It does not end happily for you or the cat fanatic.)
Content strategy homework: What problems does your customer face? Provide them with the solutions or tools to overcome those obstacles for FREE.
Approachability
Your nieces and nephews watch YouTube and Netflix. They can ALWAYS find something to watch that entertains them while you’re trying to take a nap. Sometimes they find something that’s not appropriate for their age group, but that’s why they invented parent controls, right?
Your audience will overlook content that’s over their head.
Your nieces could start watching Criminal Minds, but it won’t keep their attention. Approach your audience and your content strategy the same way you would approach your niece or child: with ice cream and Mickey Mouse. In other words, something you know they would like, which very may well be something sweet and something Disney.
Content strategy homework: Look at the lingo on your site. Can you make the language more relatable and less jargon-y? Bankruptcy sounds scary; don’t make it scarier by adding jail pictures and longtail phrases no one outside your firm can understand.
Readability
Reading?! People still read?! Stephen Fry said it best: “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” The same holds true for long content.
You can’t film a movie without a script, and you can’t have a website without keywords.
Words—witty or few—are the lifeblood to a successful content marketing strategy framework. Whether it’s for memes or for captions, content will always be relevant. So, learn how to write.
We’re not asking for you to learn calligraphy. Hire an English major. (They’re probably working at your local Starbucks.) Read a book. Seriously, it helps. The more you read, the more readable your content will be.
Content strategy homework: Read a book for goodness and your customer’s sake. Any book. Even a comic book. Newspaper headlines don’t count.
Availability
By a show of hands, how many of you use Spotify? Apple Music? According to the statistic above, “The global music industry finally returned to growth last year.” This is largely due to the fact of convenience.
The key is convenience and personalization.
Pandora has some benefits if you like a little chaos in your life. But if you’re like me, you have a thousand playlists and a bunch of bands and artists you want to listen to. What you like will differ from what your spouse or mom wants to listen to in the car. Having so much good content available is not only convenient but allows for more personalization.
Content strategy homework: Do your syndication. Post to your social media profiles about your most recent harangue on gluten-free, free range pizza. Don’t expect your followers to just know about your stellar blog post or video blog. Do the work to make it easily accessible to all.
Novelty
If you had to choose only one streaming service to use and watch for the rest of your life, five bucks says you’ll choose Netflix. What makes me so sure? Simply because they regularly supply their users with novel content no one else can.
Your content must give users what other companies don’t—or can’t.
Netflix has been killing the streaming game with their Original Series. Shows like Black Mirror, Orange Is the New Black, Stranger Things, and loads more make their streaming service way ahead of the curve compared to others. They give you access to series you’ve already watched and loved on network television, but they pack in an added punch by giving you new material to binge-watch every month that no other service has.
(And if I do say so myself, I indulge in Netflix Original Series way more than Hulu Originals for the variety, quality, and freshness.)
Content strategy homework: Do some research on your competitors and their content. What are they providing your possibly shared audience? What is it they lack that you can make up for?
Share-ability
There’s nothing better than finding a new show on Netflix and telling all your friends, family members, and creepy neighbors about the show. You want to share it with the world. You want to talk about how cool it is. And I still can’t get over the fact that they canceled Limitless, yet Vampire Diaries is still. Going. On. I mean really. They’ve had to suck the life out of the vampire craze.
Your content marketing strategy must, in the end, be worth sharing.
If it’s not worth sharing, it’s not worth its weight in precious digital marketing gold. We always share articles we find funny or invaluable around the office. And, retweeting a clever article makes us feel like we demonstrated our own cleverness.
Content strategy homework: What is your audience sharing now? This might take a little online stalking but who knows your customers better than you?
Streamlining an SEO Strategy
Content marketing and SEO take time to show quality results. Now that you know the elements to the content, it’s time to start typing. The thing about strategizing is simply starting.
Steps to Streamlining a Content Marketing Strategy:
- Take your content strategy solutions/homework.
- Implement them into a three-month content series.
- Evaluate the success (or failure) of your content marketing strategy.
AKA: Implement the Post Launch Marketing Process.
- Research + Setup
- Strategy
- Execution
- Analysis
- Reporting
- Wash + Repeat
Search engines must consume content, and those searching for an answer need content. Make it addicting, easy reading, and better streaming.
Start streaming (and succeeding) today.
