Creating content that consistently performs and works as marketing is a whole other story. Here are the qualities of the most successful content marketers. A successful content marketer is a listener, using what they learn to focus the organization’s content strategy. An ambitious content marketer who’s driven by the desire to create the best content — who focuses on the needs of the customer — is going to consistently produce some amazing content. Two out of three consumers have more trust in valuable custom content over brand advertising. When I create content, I focus on the value. Kohl’s takes a similar approach in analyzing customer engagement to create focused, customized content that’s more likely to move the prospective customer through the sales funnel. The ability to tell a story Of course, you can’t just write anything and expect it to be valuable to your audience, even if the data shows it’s a topic they want. Truly effective content marketing is about storytelling. What qualities do you think make up a successful content marketer?
There are countless marketing tactics to attract new customers.
But content marketing has quickly become a widely accepted tactic with nearly 90% of marketers using it for acquisition and engagement.
For those companies already using content marketing, over 75% have increased their budgets for sourcing and producing content.
According to Smart Insights, there are over 500 hours of content uploaded to YouTube and nearly 2,500 WordPress posts published every minute.
More than half the marketers out there are creating at least one piece of content every day.
That’s a lot of content.
But smart marketers know it has less to do with quantity and more to do with quality.
Consistency is a crucial part of content marketing, but if you’re consistently putting out low-value content, you’ll struggle to see positive results.
Creating content is one thing.
Creating content that consistently performs and works as marketing is a whole other story.
It takes a certain kind of content marketer to bring that together.
Here are the qualities of the most successful content marketers.
Ambitious desire
There are two kinds of content marketers pushing content onto the web.
There are those who see content marketing as a daily chore — with tasks to be completed by the end of the day from a laundry list of tick boxes.
Then there are those who are driven by the desire to create the best content for any given topic.
Desire burns in them to become a content marketing champion, bent on positioning their organizations as the thought leaders on a given subject.
Nothing will stop them from consistently rising to be the best resource and solution for customers and prospects.
The desire to win leads to ambition.
The most successful content marketers have a desire to win and they refuse to settle for “just writing content.”
They don’t want to only be better than a handful of competitors. They want to be better than everyone currently competing for the attention of that customer or prospect.
Here’s a prime example:
Content marketers know that long-form content performs better than all other types of content and it consistently ranks higher.
While a lot of marketers have written at length about page speed, Kinsta desired to be better. When everyone else wrote long content, they produced a 10,700-word resource guide.
That’s the kind of effort and ambition that will make you rise to the top.
Laser Focused
In order to stand out in any industry, a content marketer has to rise above the noise.
And there’s a lot of it out there.
With tens of thousands of pieces of content rolling out every minute, you can’t afford to be a generalist.
There’s no room in your market for a content creator talking about whatever they think might be relevant in order to fill the editorial calendar.
You need to create specialized content with a purpose.
Content with no direction is why only about 42% of B2B marketers feel their organization’s marketing is effective.
Every content marketer should strive to create the leading trade publication in their industry. That’s how you become the expert.
Not by assumption, but by understanding your audience and focusing on the content they need and want.
Because if you’re writing content for everybody, you’re writing content for nobody.
To get laser focused, you need to listen to your audience. Their needs aren’t just embedded in customer service submissions. They live in dialogue and questions often overlooked by all but the most watchful content marketers.
For example, Zapier created a guide to Google Hangouts.
That post quickly became one of their most popular posts. It was born from overhearing a customer asking how to fix video quality during a buggy hang-out session.
A successful content marketer is a listener, using what they learn to focus the organization’s content strategy.
Value focused
You can start to see how these qualities tie into one another at this point.
An ambitious content marketer who’s driven by the desire to create the best content — who focuses on the needs of the customer — is going to consistently produce some amazing content.
At least that’s the plan.
A good content marketer also needs to be value focused and have an eye for quality. They’re not just listening to identify the pain points of the audience, though.
That top content marketer is empathetic, putting themselves in the shoes of the audience and truly understanding their needs.
Research has proven that the audience’s perspective is what drives the success of your content strategy.
Data compiled by Dragon Search in 2012 showed that 61% of consumer purchase decisions were influenced by custom content.
Jump ahead to this year. AdWeek shared research data from Time, Inc. (People Magazine, Time Magazine, and Sports Illustrated) that 90% of consumers prefer custom content from the brands they follow.
That’s a huge jump.
In the same study, 92% of respondents feel that brands are able to add more value to content when they’re topical experts.
When there’s real value to the content, it keeps them coming back and it wins the trust of the audience.
Two out of three consumers have more trust in valuable custom content over brand advertising.
When I create content, I focus on the value. If there’s a lot of value to be shared, I go for the super-long-form post so nothing is left out.
Like my guide to online marketing.
Or my guide to building your personal brand.
These are the types of guides that may have cost upwards of $30,000 to produce, but they’re given away for free because they provide tremendous value to my audience.
One of the best habits you can develop as a content marketer is to ask yourself multiple times from ideation through completion: Does this content provide value?
Look at the content through the lens of your audience, from their perspective.
The best content:
- Teaches something
- Enlightens the reader
- Entertains the audience
- Provides actionable takeaways
- Inspires change
- Encourages the reader to share
Good content is not an advertisement.
It’s a means to connect with your audience, provide value, show that you value their time, and proves your desire to delight the customer and leave them satisfied.
Creativity and imagination
If content were about quantity, every company would turn into…
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