If content cannot be found, it will never be consumed. Even if found, it will not be consumed unless desirable. When consumed, marketing objectives are not achieved unless valuable to the reader. These are the fundamentals of all content and of special importance to marketers.
CONTENT MUST BE FOUND
A renowned heuristic in networking is the value of a network is equal to the square of its nodes. Especially true for small networks. However, the value of a network does not increase unless resources are known.
Telephone networks had directories, the Internet has DNS, and for content, we have web crawlers, search engines, and search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is the way of indicating to search engines / web crawlers that content includes phrases that are commonly searched on. The goal is to be highly “ranked” in key search phrases, so search engines will show a company’s content first, in search engine result pages (SERPs). There are nuances in this process, for example, it may be better to be highly ranked in the second or third most searched phrase. This has to do with the economics of being the highest ranked in the most common/relevant phrase.
CONTENT MUST BE DESIRABLE
A company has been successful in having content returned upfront in SERPs. The issue then becomes, does the information being displayed look desirable enough to click on / request retrieval.
The nuance here is you don’t want a title to be classic click bait – a highly desirable title that leads to unrelated content. Click bait can get a company into trouble with search engines. It also does not help build brand either. For legitimate B2B marketing efforts, click bait is to be avoided.
There is art/skill in designing appealing titles and abstracts that lead to related and desired content.
CONTENT MUST BE VALUABLE
Content is made available by marketers so that it is read or to evoke action. Great content is a core marketing responsibility, and what most people expect marketing to do.
Content style depends on the targeted audience, however, in general, the modern consensus is content is as short as possible, gets straight to the point, articulates a compelling potential buyer pain point, and implicitly or explicitly paints the picture of a solution. Even more powerful if told as an actual customer case.
CONCLUSION
There are many nuances and skills to the above three areas. However, the point of this article is to outline three important aspects of marketing content. The content must be found, it must be desirable enough to be retrieved and consumed, and it must be valuable. If a marketer can achieve all three, then the marketer has gone a long way towards achieving desired outcomes.
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