Stepping up your marketing game

The majority of brands are publishing content in some form or other, but in the financial services space, especially across B2B, there are still far too many PDFs, text-heavy articles, overly formal press releases and corporate videos cleansed of any personality.

The volume of content that is pushed at us today means that yours has to be particularly well produced, relevant, timely and published in the right place to even have a chance of being read. Below are a few articles that got through the noise and stood out to me. Hopefully they will help your thinking and content marketing efforts.

Try new things

One way of getting your content to stand out and engage your audience is to deliver it using the latest tech and platforms. This might include live streaming directly through a social channel, 360 degree video, and anything that offers an immersive user experience.

This article by Mashable from the beginning of the year has some interesting suggestions:

Read the article here: 4 ways content as you know it could change in 2017

Know your audience

One point in the Mashable article focuses on content needing to make a statement. Having a clear message that you want a reader to take away from your content is important but it is not easy. If you can get it right, strong messaging and defined audiences will go a long way to helping you develop a winning content strategy.

This article on Econsultancy also makes some really interesting points around tone of voice and writing style. That understanding your audience and writing for them is another key component that will help engagement.

Often the most successful companies are the ones that speak in the simplest and least-complex terms.

Read the article here: Why more brands should write like The Economist

Do your research

Another Econsultancy article highlights how insights from Google can help you create and analyse content. Discover sub-topics, see who you are truly competing with and see what types of content work best for particular audiences all by using Google’s free tools.

Google has spent close to 20 years learning how to serve up the best, most relevant content in its search results – now averaging over 3.5bn search queries a day.

Read the article here: Seven ways Google helps you unlock the secrets to creating killer content

Let us know if any articles have stood out and offered valuable insight, or if there are any aspects of content marketing that you are purposefully addressing this year to try and make it more effective. We’re always interested to hear the opinions of others – Tweet us @brandformula_uk.