Content marketing has exploded into new avenues: Social networking, video marketing, mobile, and blog marketing. Finding an agency can be easy, but how do you know you have a top-notch one?
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by new technologies, but the best content marketing agencies use them to support your message, not obliterate it. When looking for the best content marketing agency available, stick to the fundamentals of great marketing, but make sure that they also understand the newer technologies.
Why content marketing hasn’t changed
Content marketing is still about persuasive copy that gets people to purchase a product or service. It’s not about the best animation or the shortest tweets. However, content – whether it is video, audio or text – has to also be wrapped around these new technologies in expert ways. Here are five ways to spot some of the best content marketing agencies out there:
- Top-quality content – Quality content should be engaging and insightful. It should pull the reader in and persuade them to take some action. However, a good content agency also has to take into account Internet search strategies and use technologies like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to embed keywords in the copy that will make it search-engine friendly also.
- Podcasting – Audio content works well with Apple iPods. They can be yet another way to gain an audience for your products. It can also be a great way to market your products to a younger audience by providing free downloadable files with your company’s branding.
- Video marketing – If you would rather use video to market your content, make sure that the company you hire is knowledgeable on how to market your video online. The best companies might include technologies like animation or scribing on whiteboards. However, like article marketing, the quality of the content comes first. See: Video SEO
- Social Networking – If you want to hire a company to manage your social network accounts, they should be savvy enough to get your multiple friends and followers to share your content online. They will know how to build an audience with your brand in mind by generating status updates and tweets that create interest in your brand.
- Mobile Marketing – A new marketing arena coming into its own is mobile marketing. Savvy content marketing campaigns will be able to create content in a variety of formats, including mobile, which will allow users to access it via their smartphones. This is particularly useful for small businesses that rely on local visitors. These are the ones most likely to be looking for local venues via their smartphones.
Content marketing is still about getting top quality content in front of your customers, however, in todays modern there is more than one way to do that. In addition, content has to be available in multiple formats for a variety of platforms to be accessible via different technologies. Content, must not only be engaging to human readers, but it should also be computer-readable so that it can place higher in Search Engine Page Results (SERPs).
Today’s modern content marketing agency is much more of an entire theatrical producer than in days past. They must know where the audience congregates, how to reach them, and then create content that is likely to go viral. Most content marketing agencies will specialize in only one or two ways to create your brand and promote it. The best content marketing agencies will start with a simple, yet elegant, campaign, but be able to expand it vastly with Internet technologies that broaden your reach dramatically.
As a local SEO consultant we always advise or help produce content that intersects your consumer during their purchasing phase, giving your business greater visibility and opportunity.