Blog posts, videos, starting a podcast (you’ll need separate podcast hosting), infographics—they all have their place in your content strategy and it’s up to you how you use them. What’s non-negotiable, however, is that they tell a story.
"Marketing is the act of telling a story people want to hear." - Seth Godin
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As Seth Godin says: “Marketing is the act of telling a story to people who want to hear it. And making that story so vivid and true that the people who hear it want to tell other people.”
To hit that mark, Godin says there are 4 qualities your content needs to have:
Emotion: What emotion do we want people to feel?
Change: How are you changing people with your product or content? Does that emotion change them in a way that helps your brand?
Alert: Once you’re changed someone, how do you build the privilege of being able to tell them when you have something new?
Share: How can you get people to tell each other?
With that in mind, let’s look at the specifics of putting together some of the most popular content formats: blog posts, videos, and podcasts.
Blogging in Your Content Marketing Strategy
Blog post ideas are a great place to start with your content marketing strategy creation, as publishing blog content has some of the lowest barriers to entry, by far.
You don’t need a designer or special equipment. Just start writing and you’re ready to go.
"Blogging is essential to content marketing because it has a b2b email lists poland barrier to entry and high returns."
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Here’s how Single Grain CEO Eric Siu explains how to build a blog post in Content Marketing: Blogging for Growth:
Start with an outline: Start with just a skeleton of what you want to say. This means having a few lines for your intro and why people should care about your topic, as well as outlining the main points or sub-headers you’re going to use throughout the post. Read through this. Does it make sense? Does your outline quickly answer What, Why, How and Where?
Add the meat: These are the details, the statistics, quotes, images, or case studies. If you’re making claims in your post you need to back it up. Use Google to find statistics around your topic (like these blogging statistics). And when you link out to studies or references, these are great people to reach out to later on when you’re distributing your content. (You can set up a Google Alert for regular updates on these topics too).
One-up the competition: At this point you’ve got a good post, but not a great one. Take the next step and see what the competition is doing. What’s the #1 result for your topic and how can you make yours better? Can you go more in-depth? Add more images or resources?
Write a great headline: The last, and almost most important part is learning how to write a headline for your blog posts. You only click on things that catch your eye when you’re scrolling through social media, and your audience is the same. Check out my guide that walks through 26 blog headline writing tips to perfecting your titles.