The game of poker is filled with many complexities, opportunities and luck of the draw. Content marketing follows a similar theme and can lead to big winnings or high losses.
If you want to be a key player in the content marketing game, it’s time to up the ante. In 2015, only 30% of B2B marketers believe that their content marketing initiatives are successful. With the overwhelming amount of content created these days, the stakes are high and competition is fierce.
What can you do to walk away from the table better off than what you started? It’s all about playing the game the right way.
Plan for the Buy-In
The buy-in is considered the minimum that is required to play a game of poker. Content marketing is only one element of your digital marketing program and should at a minimum align with the following initiatives:
- SEO
- Paid Search
- Social Media
- Influencer Marketing
Skipping any one of the elements above leaves room for your competition to be servicing your customers in ways that you cannot. The rule is, you’ve got to pay to play.
Understand Your Hand
Based on your current investment, staff and skill-level of team members, you need to determine what you have to work with. While your competitors may be creating interactive digital marketing assets that are awe inspiring, you may not be able to dive that deep at this point in time.
No matter how much you have available to invest, always ask yourself:
- Do I have a firm grasp on who my customers are and what they care about?
- How can I use content marketing to better service my customers?
- What types of marketing assets will have the biggest impact on customer needs?
- Are my digital marketing strategies optimized to create a good user experience?
Sometimes you get dealt a hand that may not be be the best, but it’s all about how you play with what you have.
Blinds & Betting Basics
To stay competitive in the digital marketing game, there are some investments that have to be made. An investment of course can be a monetary amount, resources or time.
“The best investment you can make in marketing is the quality and experience of your “product”. – Lee Odden
Invest your time and resources into:
- Making content buyer centric
- Connecting with influencers to co-create & promote brand content
- Creating modular content & repurposing
- Keeping content accountable
Avoid betting all of your “chips” in one hand and instead focus on consistently creating content that is visually stimulating, creative and filled with helpful information for your customers.
Don’t Ever Bluff
Content marketing is one game where bluffing never pays off. In fact, one of the worst things you can do as part of a content marketing program is bluff. An example of a bluff might be promising your customers a certain experience and then failing to deliver.
The user experience should always be one of the major objectives leading your strategy. User experience accounts for many things including:
- Is your content (email or web-based) optimized for different devices?
- Are your content assets delivering on promises made in search of social ad copy?
- Do social messages promoting your content accurately describe what the reader will find?
- Are marketing, sales and operations aligned to clearly describe and deliver on products/services?
Folding Some Hands is Ok
In tandem with knowing when to bet is understanding when to fold. What may start out as a great content marketing concept, can sometimes not quite meet expectations in delivery.
However, if you’re considering giving up on content marketing completely, I’d strongly urge you to reconsider. Perhaps you just can’t seem to find the right talent in-house or are struggling to determine exactly how much to invest in content marketing.
Agencies like TopRank Marketing can work with you to determine how to get the most return out of your content marketing budget. Sometimes a phased approach is needed, while other times the opportunity is ripe to move forward.
How to Get a Content Marketing Royal Flush
A royal flush is the best hand that anyone can get in a poker game. But like content marketing, it all depends on how you play the hand that you are dealt. One way to set yourself up to have the best possible outcome is to start with a comprehensive content marketing audit. Contact TopRank Marketing today to see if you have the right cards, and what you can do to ensure that you are the content marketing pot winner.
Images via ShutterStock: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 6, Image 7
