Users do not like advertising: they install AdBlock, close emails, and skip videos. In such circumstances, how do you promote your website, company, or product? How can good writing services assist students with their everyday assignments and reputable online electronic stores sell their tip-top gadgets? Content marketing is gaining great influence, as it helps you not only present information to the audience, but also find customers’ opinions and build brand loyalty. You should know the following facts:
- Most companies actively use content marketing.
- Half of the published messages lead to the audience’s response and interest.
- Only 5% of the posts evoke real actions: linking to the site, registration, and other targeted actions.
It turns out that 95% of the created content is money and time wasted! We set a goal to understand why this happens and to develop truly working recommendations to improve the effectiveness of content marketing.
Readers like longreads
Back in 2016, SMM experts claimed that due to a lack of time, users would prefer short and capacious posts. In 2020, statistics show the opposite: articles with a volume of 3 to 10 thousand words bring 77% more responses, reposts, and clicks on the links placed in them.
Conclusion: write elaborate, informative longreads on topics of interest to your target audience.
Ideal post lengths
Despite the fact that longreads are 77% more attractive to users when it comes to publications on social networks, you should not create articles longer than 2,000 words. If you promote the campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest, then your ideal text length is from 1,000 to 2,000 words. When this threshold is exceeded, the interest of users and the likelihood that they will perform the desired target action gradually decreases.
Conclusion: the optimal length of a post on social networks is between 1,000-2,000 words.
Users do not link to content
For successful SEO-promotion of a site and a company, external links are important. Content marketing can’t fully solve this problem: according to research, only 6% of the world content contains external links. Posts are popular within social networks and blog platforms, but they are not referenced from other resources. This has a negative impact for the promotion of goods and services.
The content manager can try to improve the situation if he or she agrees with friendly sites to place links to the generated content. But it is better to implement an integrated approach to promotion and make content marketing only part of an internet marketing strategy. It is equally important to generate truly high-quality and interesting publications.
Conclusion: for content marketing to help in promoting the company, it must be combined with other internet marketing strategies: SEO, SMM, and contextual advertising. It will not be superfluous to create your own blog.
Viral articles can bring up to 75% of all profits
Only 1.3% of published posts become viral, but they are the ones that can bring up to 75% of profit (not only direct sales, but also other targeted actions – subscriptions, retweets, and so on). Therefore, the main goal of the content manager is to create viral content. It is not so simple to do this, but the main recommendations are still there:
- Follow current trends in social networks and don’t forget to adapt publications for them.
- Take into account the tastes and interests of your target audience: this helps to analyze the popularity of previously created content.
- Diversify content: publish posts of different lengths and add unique photos and videos to them.
Various collections of useful life hacks, quotes from famous people, promotions, and sweepstakes work well.
Conclusion: to get the maximum response from your audience, try to create viral content.
Long headlines work better than short ones
The long headline is better than the short one. The optimal length is 15-18 words – it is these headlines that cause the greatest interest for the audience. Headings that contain a question mark work well too.
Some time ago, content managers sought to cut headlines to the possible minimum. But this approach did not pay off. The research company BuzzSumo studied more than 100 million headlines and came to the conclusion that posts with long headlines are more interesting to readers than their short counterparts.
There are two reasons that explain this phenomenon:
- Long headlines contain more information: it is easier to encourage the visitor to follow the link and read the article (or watch the video).
- Headings with a large content of words are popular with search bots, and they are easier to optimize, so they occupy the best positions in the ranking.
Conclusion: create long headlines by testing their appeal with special services or focus groups.
Best day to post
Content managers have been arguing for a long time about what day of the week to post materials for the maximum response on social networks. But the latest statistics show that a better day simply does not exist. User activity studies show that, for example, on a Saturday your post will be read by as many users as on a Wednesday.
But there are reservations: despite the fact that there is no better day for publications in general, better times can be found for a specific niche. SMM professionals know that their audience is active at certain times. Analysis of groups on social networks helps to identify these days and hours.
Conclusion: the best day for publications needs to be selected for a specific niche.
Content marketing efficiency for B2B and B2C
For a long time, content marketing was perceived as a promotion strategy only for B2C clients, while the B2B segment was practically not represented on social networks and did not work on creating a blog and communicating with potential buyers. This approach is wrong: the content is no less attractive and profitable for B2B than for B2C.
Despite the fact that there is still more B2C content on the Internet than messages and posts about B2B companies, they bring them an equal response and stimulate the target audience to take certain actions. For more on B2C content marketing, this article is a helpful resource.
Conclusion: B2B companies should pay more attention to the use of content marketing, as it brings them tangible profits and helps in the promotion of goods and services.
Conclusions
If you want content marketing to bring tangible results, consider the following:
- Readers like longreads more than short articles.
- Optimal content length for social networks: from 1,000 to 2,000 words.
- For successful promotion, it is necessary to combine content marketing with SEO and other strategies, since users do not link to content.
- Viral articles can bring up to 75% of all profits.
- Long headlines are more attractive than short ones.
- There is no better day to post articles, but you can find your publishing algorithm for a specific niche.
- Content marketing is effective for both B2C and B2B.
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Interesting related article: “What is Digital Marketing?”