Author: Rohan Ayyar / Source: Jeffbullas's Blog The landscape of online marketing is becoming more competitive by the hour. To survive,
To survive, every company needs to have an edge of some sort. Small businesses need an edge just to make a name for themselves. Big enterprises need an edge to win over more customers and retain existing ones.
The harsh reality is, it takes a lot more than a great product or service to succeed. So what do you need? A strong content marketing strategy.
It’s a golden opportunity to show off your unique voice and demonstrate how you can improve the lives of your customers.
Here are four ways you can use top-notch content to push past your competitors.
1. Do your research
There are many ways to keep tabs on your competitors. For starters, follow them on social media, sign up for their newsletters or set up Google Alerts so you can know what they’re doing. Every successful content marketing strategy starts with due diligence.
You can also see what type of content works best for them with an all-in-one SEO suite like Ahrefs:
Ahrefs is great at digging into your competitor’s site and identifying their top-performing content by analyzing important web and social metrics:
- Content that has the maximum number of links
- Content that has attracted the most links lately
- Content with the top number of shares across social networks
Breaking down your competitors’ metrics will give you a better idea of what readers and consumers within your industry are interested in, so you can create your own material accordingly.
It’s extremely important that you don’t try to imitate your competitors approaches based on your research. Instead, learn from their strengths, and use their weaknesses to your advantage.
2. Have a clear brand voice and personality
What makes your brand different from the next one? What precisely does your company stand for? Perhaps one of the biggest factors in the task of setting your business apart from competitors is having a clear, defined voice to supplement your brand’s personality.
General Electric is well-known for their clever personality. For example, their #GEInstawalk campaign gave influencers the opportunity to visit GE facilities and share their experiences on social media. By creating an engaging call to action, they provided consumers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at their operations. In turn, they conveyed a strong image of transparency and professionalism, along with a hint of wittiness.
At the end of the day, your brand personality is what makes you seem human and forms the foundation of building trust for new and potential customers. People want to know that you go beyond just products or services.
Before you get the creative juices flowing, ask yourself:
- What will the content you create sound like?
- Will your tone be casual, informative, funny or authoritative?
- What is the emotional reaction you want from your audience?
When regulating your brand messaging and voice, always…
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