We’re going to show you a picture that really gets to the heart of content marketing.
This is a still image from a Road Runner cartoon. (Click the link for the You Tube full length cartoon.)
Like all Road Runner cartoons, it’s based on the hilarious attempts of Wile E. Coyote to trap and eat the Road Runner, which outwits the cartoon coyote with its speed and cunning.
In this scenario, Wile E. is bungee jumping off a precarious canyon bridge after laying seed on a busy desert highway full of dangerous trucks. The results are anything but dull. Which brings us to the point of this article: How to liven up your content to drive your business stickiness.
First cab off the rank: Use pictures and videos. Most visitors to your website will hang around if they are captured by images or videos, particularly if they are entertaining. Case in point is this cartoon. If I saw this on a website promoting tips on landing business, I would probably think this company has a sense of humor.
Another relatively easy way to engage your customers is by asking them take a survey about your products and post those results. Chances are you’ll find some champions who will give you something worthwhile to publish on a blog or website that can keep first time prospects hanging around. Nothing like asking the end user what they think. And there are lots of snap survey programs out there.
Tutorials also give your prospects and clients a window into how you can use your product to best effect. This goes to the spirit of giving things away that have value. You’ll find that this soft sell approach can engage visitors with usable content and also ticks the box of a short video they can watch.
Turn inward for help in providing useful information. There’s a good chance that one of your staff members is an expert on a particular way to employ your product. Nothing like some user generated content to add veracity to your pitch.
Predictions about the future of your industry and newsletters about current trends is also a good way of promoting that your company is staying on top of the latest developments.
Content marketing can be fun to produce, give your customers updates they might want to know about, and your prospects reasons for sticking to your website. Remember that most webistes are generated by standard templates, so they all basically perform in the same manner. You really need a point of difference, and creative content marketing should be one of your strategies.