There’s no way around it, if you want to publish content that truly works for your online presence. Long-form content is more valuable, more exciting, and more relevant to readers than shorter-form content. It’s also less common.
While it might sound insane to start creating long-form content while we’re living in a world of increasingly short attention spans, swimming upstream is sometimes the only way to the goal.
Here’s some real inspiration for you on the subject. Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, and a leader in content marketing, wrote this in an exclusive CMI subscriber email this month (read the actual email here via PDF):
“…Nearly every marketer we talk to has run to shorter posts, shorter social media updates, shorter videos, shorter podcasts … thinking that audiences don’t have the desire to invest themselves in content for a longer period of time. But they absolutely do … if the content is worthwhile. Those marketers who take a longer form approach can immediately position themselves and their stories as differentiated simply because of the length. When all your competition is going small, maybe it’s your time to go big.”
In the same email, Pulizzi points out that:
Huffington Post has recently doubled down on its efforts to create long-form content.
All-star Youtubers are creating videos that are 10 or 12 minutes long.
Tim Ferriss’s recent bestselling book, Tools of Titans, is a whopping 671 pages.
Today, long-form content is the best way to stand out online.
But why, truly, long-form content–why does it work?–and how can you create it for your brand?
Let’s discuss this timely topic.
[bctt tweet=”Why, truly, are we pro long-form content for a strong online presence? Why does it work? And how can you create it for your brand? Read @JuliaEMcCoy’s guide ? ” username=”ExpWriters”]
Long-Form Content, by the Numbers
Long-form content isn’t just important because it’s different – it’s important because it works.
By providing more space to include relevant information, and giving audiences a chance to settle in and get comfortable with your brand, voice, and content, long-form material manages to convert at higher rates, provide a higher ROI, and earn more engagement. Here are a few fast stats to prove it:
The average length of posts in the top 10 spots of Google is 2,000 words. While it’s possible for short-form content to rank well, long-form content is the winner when it comes to front-page results.
Long-form content gets people to stay on pages 40% longer.Kissmetrics reports that, in addition to staying on their long-form pages longer, people exposed to long-form content also viewed 25% more pages than other visitors.
Long-form content earns more social shares. When it comes to social media, long-form content earns more shares and engagement than standard blog posts.
Longer content helps position you as a leader in your industry. It’s tough to bluff your way through 10,000 words, and readers know that. When you create quality, long-form content, you position yourself as a leader in your industry, standing out even further from your lazy counterparts who would rather get by with 300-word blurbs.
The Long-Form Guide Revolution
One great place to see the power of long-form content is in guides. Today, long-form guides are doing incredibly well. While it’s tough to earn great results if you’re not writing specific, targeted, honed guides, ultimate guides are another thing.
Instead of rambling and losing readers, these guides target in on one topic and dominate all facets of it. Covering things like InDesign and landing page lead generation, these guides are killing it in the online world right now.
Because they’re extensive and in-depth, these long-form guides have longer lifespans than other forms of content. This is because they can be reused again and again. After they’re researched and published online, it’s easy to make a large book from them, for example, or break them down into a long-form SlideShare presentation.
Need a real-life example?
Consider Joanna Wiebe, who wrote a guide to copywriting formulas. It’s called “The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever).” The piece sits at 5,000 words and takes more than an hour to read! It also includes a table of contents to follow:
Useful, extensive, and helpful to readers, this piece has earned more than 6,000 shares and 151 comments. It also ranks well at the top for “copywriting formulas” in Google.
5 Examples of Bloggers Rising Above with Long-Form Content
Now that you know why long-form content is so critical, let’s take a close look at a few prominent bloggers who are putting out excellent long-form content today.
1. Tor Refsland
Tor Refsland, the face behind TimeManagementChef.com, has been featured on top sites like Lifehack, JeffBullas.com, Ahrefs, Post Planner, and Blogging Wizard.
On his own blog, he’s famous for consistently publishing 10,000-30,000-word monster blogs. Thanks to the time, energy, and effort these blogs take, he’s been recognized as an award-winning, top blogger who was first invited to speak at key events just 18 months into blogging.
For an example of what Tor Refsland is capable of with a blog, check out this piece, titled “Business Coaching, 20x My Revenue and Being Slapped by Frank Kern.” It clocks in right around 13,000 words and features so many segments and sections you’d think you were reading a novel!
While the piece is long, though, it manages not to be overwhelming. This is because Refsland does a few things beautifully. For one, the entire article is broken into highly digestible segments and short paragraphs, so you’re never faced with a brick wall of text. Example:
He’s also funny, and his humor feels like a trail of bread crumbs, leading you through the story step by step. He’s a pro at using punctuation, formatting, and headlines to help usher people through these monster blogs, so you never get bored or discouraged.
Try this post: How To Attract the Right Clients By Doing Business Nude.
It’s seriously funny.
Tor’s incredible copy is a large reason he was on my podcast last year!
2. Adam Connell
The founder of Blogging Wizard, a site that helps people learn to grow their sites “like magic,” Adam Connell has made a name for himself in the world of long-form content.
For an example of what he and his team create, check out this recent blog, titled “How I Got 8k Followers on Tumblr in 5 Months Without Logging in Once.”
Written by Eli Seekins, this blog is just about 3,000 words long. While this piece isn’t as massive as Refsland’s aforementioned blog, it’s no less important.
Here are a few things this blog does right: It visualizes almost every step.
If I had to guess, I’d say this post has an image every 300 words or so. In addition to the custom cover they’ve created for this post, the piece is also littered with in-depth screenshots,
overviews,
and tutorials.
Without these images, readers would be facing a dense stream of text, which would be intimidating and off-putting. With these images, the long-form content feels like a picture book, which is welcoming and informative.
It uses catchy headers and subheaders. The title itself is a great example of this. “8k followers? On Tumblr? In 5 months? Without logging in once??” You can’t help but click once you’ve gone through that mental process. Beyond the title though, his headline mastery is evident throughout the piece. Each subheader is descriptive, succinct, and compelling for readers. This helps move people through the piece and keep them interested.
It encourages reader engagement. The last subheader in the piece reads “Over to You.” The author uses this segment to ask audiences about their Tumblr blogs, follower numbers, and actions they’ve taken to drive traffic to or from the blog. With 24 comments and more than 700 shares, the approach seems to work!
3. We Live What We Preach at Express Writers
Here at Express Writers, we’ve always been dedicated to long-form content. It’s been the name of our game since I launched the site with a $75 out-of-pocket investment, back in 2011.
Throughout the six years that have elapsed since then, content has always been the #1 source of our revenue, marketing, and leads. We’ve never invested in PPC marketing (that’s right – not once) and we’ve always created our content without a thought to a sales funnel.
As a result, we outrank all of our major competitors on Google by 5%.). We claim more than 4,100 keyword rankings in Google and have organic traffic worth about $13,200. To top it all off, we also serve upwards of 1,000 clients around the globe and write more than 300 pages each week. I broke exactly how in my case study last year:
Of the more than 785 blogs we’ve published on The Write Blog since 2011, the average word count of just one of my posts is 1,500.
Some are longer, at around 3,700, while some are shorter, clocking it at more like 800 words.
Curious about how we use long-form content to drive results? Here’s a breakdown.
Each month, we post about 32 long-form pieces across the web. It takes five people, including myself, to make that happen (myself, three of our writers to assist me with editorial deadlines, our designer, and our Social Media Manager Rachel to social share everything). That doesn’t include the writers that periodically guest blog on our blog, including my staff, like Tara Clapper. These include posts on our own blog and posts on my various guest post columns. Here are the standards that allow us to maintain that level of content:
Research. I use Quora, BuzzSumo, and SEMrush for research. I’ve even created a Twitter chat (#ContentWritingChat) to find out what people on that platform are talking about and what they’d like to see in the coming content. Finally, I always pay careful attention to the comments I receive on my blog, and the conversations I have with other people in the comment threads of other blogs, as well as the conversations I have in LinkedIn and Facebook groups. Many times, these serve as the basis of my research or learning for a coming post.
Scheduled posting. In recent years, I’ve ramped up our publishing schedule to include a blog each day except for the weekends. That’s five blogs a week. I schedule each to post on WordPress at midnight the day of, and I tend to stay one week ahead. This allows us to stay consistent and high-quality, no matter how busy things gets.
Custom images. We create custom visuals, screenshots, and GIFs for each of our pieces. As you saw in the Blogging Wizard example, lots of visuals help readers stay engaged in long-form content, so we use them to help guide people through our posts.
Content audits. Every month, I audit our content in SEMrush. If the content there is showing as low-quality or low-engagement, it gets updated and improved immediately.
While this all takes a lot of work, I’ve found that content is the single most valuable source of online traffic, and that paying careful attention to building and maintaining it is a smart way to boost your online business and earn incredible leads.
4. BuzzSumo
The BuzzSumo blog is authored by the team at BuzzSumo, including Susan and Steve Rayson, and others. What this team is great at is specificity. Unlike so many other places on the web, they consistently publish exclusive statistics, which is a fantastic way to win at blogging, as well.
They’re also great at ultimate guides.
In fact, their guides are frequently my go-to sources of research for material I publish on The Write Blog, and virtually any piece you click on has dozens of comments, and hundreds of shares. Take this piece, for example: “Ask the expert: Mari Smith Answers 56 Questions About Facebook Marketing,”where author Susan Moeller asks the so-called “Queen of Facebook” about how to increase Facebook reach and improve presence. Exhaustive, exciting, and interesting, this piece hits it home on many levels. Or, one of my frequently quoted pieces, “The Future is More Content.”
BuzzSumo levels up continually and gets hundreds to thousands of shares per post, because they’re able to add exclusive research to their content performed using their insightful software.
5. Neil Patel
Ask virtually any expert content marketer for an example of a long-form king or queen, and they’ll mention Neil Patel. His company, QuickSprout, is the online leader for super in-depth guides and his blog on this topic, why long-form content matters, is a go-to for content in general.
Within this blog, Patel breaks down why he thinks long-form content is valuable. He quotes this powerful serpIQ study:
He also breaks down how his about page is 2,000 words long, and how values like substance, style, frequency, purpose, and format all help inform his company’s long-form content strategy.
When you visit QuickSprout, here’s what you can expect from their long-form blogs:
Organization. His posts make any Type A personality happy. They’re organized, well laid out, meticulously formatted, and incredibly easy to navigate. Between his relevant headers and subheaders, and his use of bolding, italics, and bullets, you never have to worry about getting lost in one of his posts.
Information. Like BuzzSumo, Neil Patel is a great source for original information. He publishes his own research, his own statistics, and his own findings. All this contributes to a truly unique content experience readers can’t expect to find anywhere else.
Personal voice. Neil Patel is great at making people want to work through these long blogs with him because he’s so conversational and approachable. He addresses the reader as “you” and calls out their personal struggles and difficulties. He also shares many of his own!
Visuals. Patel’s blogs are highly visual-dense, featuring screenshots, overviews, and charts and graphs to help readers grasp his points and synthesize the information he’s offering.
Because of these things, Patel has consistently stood out as a leader of long-form content, and he continues to dominate the web. A great person to look toward for an example of why long-form works, or how much it matters, Neil Patel promises to continue his charge as a leader in long-form.
How to Create Long-Form Content
So, long-form content matters.
It converts better, differentiates you from the competition, and puts you in the ranks of some of the best bloggers out there. But how do you create it for your site? While the task may seem daunting, long-form content isn’t as tough as it might seem. You simply need to have a plan of attack.
Here’s a detailed outline to help you create your own long-form content in the coming year.
Step 1: Define your mission
Think of long-form content like a long, long sailboat trip. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to wind up somewhere you don’t want to be. More specifically, you’re going to wind up wasting time, money, and lots of effort, without anything to show for it. With this in mind, you must define your purpose first.
To do that, answer this simple question: Why are you writing the long-form content?
Got an answer? Good – now get more granular. Who is it for? What will “success” look like? What goal does this material need to achieve?
Once you’ve hammered these things out, you’ll have a functional roadmap with which to begin the long-form journey.
Step 2: To gate or not to gate? That is the question.
Long-form content basically comes in two varieties: gated and ungated. Gated content requires readers to give you something in return for the content, like an email address. Ungated content comes for free, on your website or in the form of a download.
Gated content helps you learn about your readers by collecting relevant information, like their names, ages, job positions, and email addresses. It also helps you build your email list and introduce people into your sales funnel.
Ungated content, on the other hand, may encourage more engagement since it comes with less commitment. Both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks, and the next step in deciding whether to gate your content is simply evaluating rather its smart for you.
Different influencers have different opinions about this. CrazyEgg, for example, advocates for un-gated guides, since they can help you build relationships without a “catch.” The final decision, however, depends on your business, goals, and outlook.
Step 3: Create a topic and reinforce it with keywords
The biggest battle in the process of creating long-form content (aside from the actual writing) is deciding on a topic and keyword strategy. Remember that long-form guides can be 5,000, 8,000, or 10,000 words, so it’s critical to pick a topic that leaves you plenty of room to run.
Having trouble with this step? Here are a few tips:
Pick a topic that allows for simple keyword optimization. You want to be able to align your long-form content with keywords people are searching for. Bear this in mind as you research and develop your topic.
Check out your Q & A section. If there’s a certain question customers ask repeatedly, consider expanding it into a long-form guide or post. This can kill two birds with one stone: providing an in-depth answer to the question and giving readers a place to turn before they ask it.
Do your research. As I mentioned before, I use sites like Quora and BuzzSumo to do the research for The Write Blog, and these are great resources to tap into. Look for trending content, questions your readers are asking on Quora, or any unmet needs your target audience may have.
Step 4: Write it out
Next comes the biggest part of the entire process: writing. Writing a long-form guide can take weeks or even months, depending on your purpose and channel, so it’s essential to leave yourself enough time to execute this properly. If you rush it, you’re going to wind up with unsatisfactory material that doesn’t fulfill its purpose.
If you don’t feel up to the task of writing the guide yourself, consider hiring someone to do it for you. A freelancer or content agency like our own here at Express Writers can manage the entire process, taking your material from outline to final draft in a reasonable timeframe.
Once you’ve gotten the guide written, you’ll also want to invest in design services to make it visually appealing, no matter how you intend to distribute it.
Long-Form Content: The Most Important Type of Content to Create in 2017
As 2017 wears on, long-form content becomes more and more critical. In addition to helping brands stand out from the content sea, long-form ranks better, earns higher ROIs, and gives you a chance to solidly position yourself as an authority in your niche.
While it may seem counterintuitive to create long-form content in a time when attention spans are shorter than ever and mobile is king, readers are hungry for something that provides them with real value, real passion, and real effort.
Long-form content is one of the only things on the web that provides all of this, all at once.
Do yourself and your readers a favor, and commit to long-form content in 2017.
You’ve likely heard of the phrase “above the fold,” if you’re even slightly into internet marketing and copywriting.
According to collective wisdom, we’re supposed to top-load the content that appears “above the fold” if we want to succeed.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “fold,” it essentially means the place that a reader would have to scroll to see more content or the bottom of the visible page.
For years, this has been a battle cry in the world of SEO, and it’s one that’s rung loudly with writers, web designers, and others. But what if that call is wrong? What if “the fold” has fallen out of vogue and, today, it’s nothing more than a myth that you don’t need to worry about quite so much. Today, we’re going to dig into this, and help you understand why “above the fold” could be a dead term.
Read on.
What “Above the Fold” Content Looks Like
Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen above the fold content. You can find it on virtually any small software company’s website.
It looks like this:
On the FreshBooks website, which sells small business accounting software, the viewer gets a visual, a headline, a few sentences of text, and a call-to-action button – all without having even to touch their mouse.
That’s it. You can’t scroll down.
Let me take this moment to say that there’s not anything wrong with this layout. The website is visually appealing, uncluttered, and compelling. That said, though, there is something wrong with the intense declaration that every call to action on every web page in every industry must exist above the fold.
This has been going on for a few years – this insistence that everything should be above the fold. In fact, Kissmetrics explored it in a 2012 article:
Kissmetrics question to their audience is:
“What if the premise is wrong? What if calls to action below the precise work better?”
Let’s explore why that may or may not be true, by today’s standards.
Death of the Fold: The Real Benefit of a Below-the-Fold CTA
CTAs tucked into the bottom of pages may perform as well if not better than their above-the-fold counterparts. In fact, a page with a CTA tucked into the bottom footer of the page out-converted (by 20%) a page with a prominent CTA positioned above-the-fold (Unbounce).
While it may seem contradictory that a CTA tucked down low on a page (where presumably nobody would see) it could out-perform a CTA placed in the most prominent portion of a page, it’s true. I know, it seems even more unbelievable when you consider that the majority (80%) of people read headlines, while only 20% click through to read body content. So, what’s this fascination with below-the-fold content?
The answer comes down to a few things and, surprisingly, the fold isn’t one of them.
At the end of the day, the all-powerful fold is just a technicality in the content conversion process.
Here’s why: users are happy to keep scrolling to reach your CTA, if the material they see above the fold interests them enough.
In other words, the conversion rates of above- versus below-the-fold content has less to do with the actual position of the CTA than it does the quality of the content on the page. In other words, readers will keep going if they feel motivated to do so, and this has nothing to do with the position of the CTA. Instead, it has to do with how motivational your content is and how much it drives your reader toward your CTA.
According to the aforementioned Kissmetrics article:
“Higher conversion rates have nothing to do with whether the button is above the fold, and everything to do with whether the button is below the right amount of good copy.”
How Much Copy is Enough Copy?
Now that you know why the fold is a myth let’s talk about how much copy you need to provide your readers with “good copy.” Of course, there’s no one-size-fits all rule for this, and the answer depends on your various audience segments. Assuming you’re dealing with calls-to-action on landing pages or websites, here’s how you should arrange your content to appeal to each different audience segment:
1. Leads who are ready to buy.
These people get it. They know what you’re offering, and they know why. They also know they want it. They’ve read enough of your content to feel compelled by it and convert at the highest rate if you stick your CTA at the top of the page.
2. Information-gathering prospects.
These leads are relatively familiar with your company, and they just need a bit of a nudge to hop in and convert. For best results, give them a bit of educational text and a prominent CTA. This isn’t so much about positioning your CTA above the fold as it is ensuring that the content you offer them is prominent and educational enough to convince them to dive in with your company.
3. New leads.
If you have someone who is brand-new to your landing page or product, you’re going to need to do more legwork. This will mean that your CTA coincidentally falls below the fold, although, again, this has less to do with placement than it does the amount of content you’re offering before the CTA. To hook these readers, give them a solid value proposition, well-written educational copy, and a precise definition of benefits, costs, etc. A compelling CTA at the end of all of this will help seal the deal.
Why Scrolling Isn’t so Bad After All
Today, people scroll almost intuitively.
Think about it: we scroll in everything we do. We scroll through the contacts on our phones, our text messages, our music libraries. We scroll through books and magazines on our Kindles and scroll down product pages to locate what we’re looking for online. Scrolling is second-nature, and people aren’t nearly as afraid of it as they once were.
Because of this, people aren’t automatically turned off if they need to scroll to locate your CTA. In fact, they may be more automatically turned-off if they navigate to a top-heavy landing page that’s apparently been designed to cram everything into the top six inches of a page!
Still not convinced that people don’t mind scrolling? Here are some stats to help you get your head around it:
According to Chartbeat, 66% of people’s attention on webpages is dedicated to the content below the fold.
76% of people scroll on web pages, and 22% of people scroll to the bottom of a page, regardless of how long it is.
50% of mobile users begin scrolling through a page within 10 second of landing on it
Apple removed their visual scrollbar from their Mac OS X software in 2011, proving that people of today are scrolling natives, and don’t need to be reminded to do it.
The Death of Above-the-Fold Content is Upon Us
While it used to make sense to position content above-the-fold, the rise of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets has changed the way that people interact with web content. It’s also changed the way they think about scrolling. Today, scrolling is natural, and most people don’t bat an eyelash at the thought of doing it.
As such, it doesn’t matter where a CTA lives (as long as you’re taking your various audience segments into consideration as you lay out the page) or how long the page is. Instead of seeing a CTA crammed into the top of a page, people only want to see some valuable content they can interact with. By delivering this, you can easily grab your readers’ interest and keep it, regardless of where you put your CTA.
That said, don’t discount space above the fold. It still matters! It just doesn’t matter as much as people once thought it did. Instead of seeing all your content crammed into the top few pixels of your site, readers want to land on a site that is laid out according to their stage in the buyer’s journey. They also want to feel as if a page is dedicated to featuring valuable and informative content, rather than just focusing on stacking all of a its content into the top few inches.
Death of the Fold: Let us Know what You Think!
So, there you have it: while above-the-fold content served a purpose once, it’s less important today.
Right now, readers are looking for value and relevance rather than SEO tricks. If you create great long-form content, it will still get read. If you put your CTA at the bottom of the page, it will still get clicked.
With that in mind, ditch your concerns about staying above the fold and focus on being informational and valuable through your content, instead. Readers will thank you and your conversion rates likely won’t suffer!
What do you think of this not-so-new-trend? Let me know in the comments!
Will content marketing be a hot form of marketing, more so than ever this year?
The answer, in short, is YES!
According to a hot 2016 BuzzSumo content piece, the future of content is more, not less. Platforms like The Washington Post publish thousands of posts each day, and Google increases its number of indexed pages by the millions each year. It’s clear that content is booming, and that it shows no signs of slowing down in 2017.
If content is growing this fast, though, what will content marketing budgets look like–and how do you set yours?
It’s a big point to discuss, and it’s one we’re going to dive into in today’s post. Infographic from our design team below – and beneath it are all the live links for the stats and data we pulled. Enjoy, and don’t forget to share and pass the love or leave us a comment if you found this useful!
The Big 2017 Content Marketing Spend: Content Budgets by the Numbers, & How to Set Your CM Budget (Infographic)
10 Stats About the Inflating Nature of Content Budgets (by the Numbers)
Here are a few stats to help you understand how (and why) content budgets are increasing this year.
According to MarketingMag.com, content marketing will be a $300 billion industry by 2019 – this means it will more than double in under four years.
Google’s number of indexed pages has grown from 1 trillion to more than30 trillion in the last seven years alone!
2015 was the sixth consecutive year that the content marketing industry enjoyed double-digit growth.
B2B content marketing accounts for 7% of the revenue in the content marketing industry.
The US enjoyed $12.11 billion in content marketing revenue in 2014, which made it the world’s largest market for content.
MarketingProfs reports that the most successful B2B marketers dedicate at least 39% of their marketing budgets to content.
The average marketer spends 29% of their total marketing budget on content.
37% of marketers who aren’t successful with content marketing say it’s because they the content budget is too low. What’s more, 27% of marketers who have seen a decrease in the success of their content strategies say it’s because of inadequate budget or budget cuts.
70% of B2B marketers plan to create more content in 2017 than they did in 2016.
39% of marketers expect their organization’s budget for content marketing to increase in 2017.
5 Key Reasons for the Upward Trajectory of Content Marketing
2016 was a banner year for content, and 2017 shows no signs of being anything but a continuation of that trend. Here are a few of the top reasons this is true:
1. There’s not much to abate content growth
Right now, it’s tough to even track the number of new blog posts and articles publishers put out every day. What we do know is that Google has seen a more than 29-trillion page increase in indexed content since 2008 and that WordPress alone is publishing nearly 2 million new posts every day. As it stands now, there’s virtually nothing to abate the rapid growth of content. Self-publishing is easier than it’s ever been before and about 40% of the world’s population has access to the web. As such, content continues to grow, virtually unfettered.
2. Content is the most functional modern form of advertising
While outbound marketing has fallen out of vogue in recent years, content has risen to take its place. Less expensive yet more effective than traditional advertising, content serves the purpose of making an emotional connection with readers while also driving sales. When you think of it this way, it’s the perfect type of marketing!
3. Content automation is accessible and cheap
Another factor contributing to the rapid growth of online content is content automation. Today, content automation has drastically lowered the cost of content production. It’s also made it easier to schedule and promote content without a massive hands-on effort.
4. Global literacy rates are increasing
While a mere 12% of the global population could read and write back in 1820, all but 17% of the world’s population is literate today. Global literacy has exploded in the last twenty years, and the upward trend will only continue in the coming years. This increase in universal literacy creates more people to read, write, and interact with online content.
5. High-volume content strategies are driving massive success
In addition to all the other factors driving the increase in digital content, it’s also worth noting that high-volume content strategies are incredibly lucrative. As such, they’re being adopted by publishers around the world. The Washington Post, for example, managed to grow its visitor rate by 28% between October and December 2015, all by creating more content.
What Does this Growth Mean for the Future of Content Marketing Budgets?
As content creation budgets uptick, content marketing budgets will, as well. As content forms ranging from search marketing and social media to display ads, and email marketing gain prominence in coming years, firms will increase their marketing budgets to match.
According to a 2014 Forrester report, the firm will allocate 35% of their marketing budgets to content by 2019. This is as opposed to the 29% the average firm dedicates to content today.
Budgeting for Content Marketing Will be Critical in 2017
According to a 2016 Curata post, marketers spend an average of 38% of their content budgets on curation and aggregation, 35$ on creation, and 29% on content workflow.
Despite those large numbers, however, not all companies have defined content marketing budgets. In fact, only 64% of companies with a content strategy also have a content marketing budget. This can create significant challenges for companies.
Because of these things, and the fact that the prevalence of content will explode in the coming year, and the years after this, it’s critical to develop a content marketing budget for 2017. This is often easier said than done, though. Larger companies might have a tough time securing executive buy-in for a content marketing budget, while other businesses might mistakenly believe that content is an overnight ROI producer, and slash the budget when that dream doesn’t come true.
Instead of taking that approach, marketers who want to succeed in 2017 and beyond need to take a strategic and intentional approach to the structure, contents, and timeframe of content marketing budgets. By considering variables like content goals, target audiences, distribution methods, and more, it’s easy to create a functional and long-lasting content budget to guide your content strategy in the coming year.
4 Fast Tips to Develop a Functional Content Marketing Budget
If you want to develop a content marketing budget, but you’re unfamiliar with the process, here are the four steps you’ll need to follow to succeed:
1. Think about your content staff
One of the first things you’ll need to consider when developing a content marketing budget is your staff. If you don’t have a content marketing executive in place (only 43% of all organizations do), do you need one? If so, what will that cost? Do you have writers, social media experts, or content strategists you need to pay? If so, what are those salaries or monthly costs?
Because your content staff is one segment of your content marketing program that’s entirely non-negotiable, it’s critical to consider these fixed expenses first. If the costs associated with this staff is making you squirm a bit, there’s always the option of outsourcing some or all of your content creation, especially if you don’t have any content staff, but you need some additional help.
Firms like Express Writers specialize in content creation and can help you manage all your various social media, marketing, and native content. It might even save you some money in the process.
2. Factor in your content marketing tools
If you’ve been doing any content marketing so far, you’re likely using a few tools to help facilitate posts and content distribution. Things like KWFinder, Buzzsumo, and even Copyscape all come with some associated monthly or use-based fee, and factoring these things into your overall marketing budget is a critical step in ensuring the final number you come up with is the right one.
To keep things organized, create an Excel spreadsheet with spaces for each tool you use and its monthly cost. If this number gets higher than you’d like, look for cheaper (or free) alternatives, or one-stop apps like Buzzsumo, that allow you to do things like keyword and influencer research in one convenient place.
3. Think about your promotion and measurement tools
Promotion is a critical part of content creation, and technology is often the simplest and most efficient way to do it. While there are dozens of different ways to promote content, both manual and automated, factoring in promotion and measurement expenses is critical to developing a marketing budget.
If you use a tool like Buffer to schedule and promote your content, add its monthly cost to your spreadsheet. If you use a human team to post, share, re-use, and promote your content, you’ll need to figure out how much those efforts cost you and factor it into your spreadsheet, as well.
If (gasp!) you don’t do any content promotion, now is an excellent time to allocate a budget toward it. While many people have a hard time justifying the expense associated with content promotion, the content you work so hard to create will perform better when you promote it, and this is one simple step that’s worth taking.
Once you’ve come up with the numbers for your promotion expenses, it’s time to think about what you’re spending (or should be spending) on content measurement. If you’re not analyzing critical metrics on each piece of content you publish, it can be virtually impossible to determine what’s working and what’s not. This, in turn, can result in you blowing through your marketing budget, publishing unpopular content without even knowing it!
With this in mind, invest in a measurement tool, or develop a staff that can track key metrics (like social shares, site visits, comments on your blog, and even the quality of the leads generated) to help you get an idea of what’s productive and what you can improve.
4. Adjust as needed
Once you’ve developed a content budget, keep in mind that it’s not set in stone. It can (and should) grow as your company gains more resources and customers, and should account for things like changing target audiences, additional audience segments, and new content types.
When you adjust your content marketing budget accordingly, you stand a better chance of staying afloat on rapidly shifting trends, and ensuring that your content strategy is always up to par with what the digital marketing world demands.
5 Smart Reasons to Develop a Content Budget NOW
Still not sure you need a content budget? Here are five smart reasons to jump on the bandwagon for 2017:
1. There’s no way around developing a budget
You can avoid a content budget for as long as you want, but content marketing isn’t going anywhere. Again, the future of content is more rather than less, and flying in the face of that will only land you in a place of financial hardship and irrelevance.
2. The potential ROI is huge
If you invest in content marketing, and develop a content marketing budget to reflect that, you stand to enjoy a highly attractive ROI. As it stands today, the content marketing industry is worth a staggering $300 billion – and that number will only grow in the coming years. With that in mind, now is the time to get abreast of content marketing, and doing it can represent a massive payoff for your company.
3. Content marketing channels are always changing
According to a 2013 Custom Content Council survey, print (both physical and electronic) is growing rapidly. Inherent within this rapid growth is a great deal of change, and it’s only companies who are intentional and calculating about their content marketing that will stay on the bleeding edge of that change.
Since the distribution of spending in areas like social media, pay-per-click advertisements, content creation, and video recording are always changing, developing a budget that allows space for these fluctuations is critical.
4. Content has become inter-departmental
Today, “content” isn’t delegated to an anonymous room of writers and never thought about again. Instead, it spans all departments of a given company and has major repercussions for each. By investing and measuring the return, you can get smarter about the allocation of your resources and grow your company.
5. Embracing budgeting is just good business
You have a budget for your personal monthly expenses, right? So why not develop a budget for your content marketing, as well? In addition to allowing you to allocate funds more intelligently, a content marketing budget is just good business, and it will benefit your company both now and in the future.
Content Marketing is Here to Stay
The future is bright – and filled with content! In light of this, it’s critical for companies of all shapes and sizes to develop functional, actionable, and flexible content marketing budgets that help them plan for the inevitable future of content, and how it will interact with the various segments of their companies. After all, content is the way of 2017 and beyond!
Need a team of writers that won’t destroy your content budget? Contact Express Writers today to learn about our various content packages and select the one that best suits your needs!
Press releases are a critical part of online marketing. Businesses use them, individuals use them, and big enterprises use them. Today I want to cover how to write a press release for music.
One use of press releases that people commonly overlook, however, is music.
In the music business, press releases are a standard tool to showcase new artists, albums, or partnerships. Unfortunately, most musicians and people in the music industry do not know how to write a press release for music. Luckily, it’s not nearly as hard as it sounds.
To learn how to write a press release for music, read on.
How To Write a Press Release for a Music Release: 6 Critical Points
Learning how to write a press release for music is simple. Just follow these six steps:
1. Know when to use a press release.
The first step in learning how to write a press release for music is simply knowing when to use a press release. You can write a press release anytime you would like to notify the media about something that is happening. Common uses for press releases include album launches, new gigs, label signings, or upcoming tours. Remember that the purpose of a press release is to publicize something that is newsworthy, and while there is some free rein to that definition, it’s still smart to use them sparingly.
Your personal use of press releases will depend in large part on your media contacts, the types of content you typically produce, and your level of recognition within your community. Anytime you want to use a press release, be sure to do a bit of research to find out what the media outlets you are targeting cover and how commonly they pick up press releases. This will help to make each press release you publish more lucrative and compelling.
2. Include relevant details.
Press releases are not a place to focus on branding. Instead, they’re a place to offer the bare-bones details of your newsworthy topic for journalists. With this in mind, be sure to include all of the relevant details in your press release.
For example, if you are writing a press release to bring publicity to an upcoming tour, you will want to include the start dates of the tour, some of the main cities visited, any tour mates, and any major sponsors or bands.
When writing a press release, it’s important to be as succinct as possible without robbing journalists of the details they need to interpret your press release or reach out for further details.
3. Develop a compelling title.
No matter what type of writing you’re doing, a compelling title is the one thing that stays the same across all fields. If you’re learning how to write a press release for music, one big thing to focus on is the title. The title of your press release should provide an immediate value proposition to reporters.
In other words, they should know exactly what they will get from reading your press release, and what topics the press release covers. Focus on being straightforward and detailed in your title and your press release will stand a better chance of being noticed by the media outlets you’re targeting.
4. Proofread your press release.
If you’re not going to proofread your press release, don’t bother writing it. There is nothing worse than a press release riddled with grammatical and spelling mistakes and then pushed out to the media. In addition to being embarrassing, this is an excellent way to harm your reputation.
With that in mind, always be sure to proofread your press release before you publish it. If you’re not confident in your proofreading abilities, hire a professional editor, or use an advanced spell and grammar checker like Grammarly to help you fine-tune your press release.
5. Keep it simple.
Depending on your place in the music industry, you might be tempted to dress your press release up with elaborate colors fonts or images.
Don’t.
A press release is a professional type of content, and attempting to doctor it with glitzy elements will only detract from its authority. Keep your press release simple, straightforward, and visually appealing.
6. Avoid self-promotion.
It may sound funny to advise avoiding self-promotion in a document that is meant solely to promote an event or happening, but the tone of your press release is critical to its success.
While it’s fine for a press release for music to showcase an upcoming event or release, you’ll want to avoid being self-promotional. The reason for this is, again, that a press release is a professional document.
Think for a moment about what a journalist does. Their job is not to sell the public on a band or event. Instead, it’s to educate the public about the things that are happening around them.
Take pains to make your press release educational rather than promotional. In doing so, you will increase the chances that it will be picked up by a journalist, and decrease the likelihood that it will alienate readers.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing a Great Press Release
To turn out quality work, follow this list of do’s and don’ts:
Do’s:
Be short, precise, and to the point
Format your press release with plenty of white space and no flashy graphics
Outline the details, such as exact dates and times and other parties involved
Reach out to local news and media outlets with your press release
Proofread it before you publish it
Don’ts:
Write in a self-promotional tone
Get carried away with images, fonts, and colors
Rush through the writing of your press release
Slack on the headline
Publish a press release even when you don’t have anything newsworthy to share
A Note on Distribution
Here at Express Writers, we get asked all the time if we offer distribution services in conjunction with our press release writing services.
Unfortunately, PR syndication is dead, and you’re better off making use of localized distribution in your local media.
That said, skip the PR syndication and approach local journalists and news stations about your press release. You’ll get a better ROI, and you’ll get to skip syndication, which is one of the most ineffective channels out there.
How to Write a Press Release for Music
If you’ve never written a press release for music, don’t worry. The process, while slightly different than writing a standard press release, is very similar.
By learning to master things like headlines and press release formatting, you can ensure that each press release you publish benefits your band, release, or upcoming event.
Did you know there are over 200 million pieces of online content created every minute?
205 million emails, 3.5 million Facebook and Twitter posts, 400 hours of YouTube videos, and 1,200 WordPress blog posts later, the evidence is there. Internet users create a ton of content.
Even with so much time and energy spent on writing and sharing content, the more shocking statistic may be the amount that is not shared, clicked, or retweeted. After Moz pulled 757,000 posts for analysis, they found that half had less than 12 Twitter shares and zero external links.
That’s a scary low amount of engagement. The audience was not even there, and their disinterest showed.
So, how do we avoid making the same mistake?
It happens when we stop creating too much ineffectivecontent, and start focusing on engaging our audience based on a target persona.
In this guide, I’m going to give you an actual guide to creating a nitty-gritty target persona, four keys to talking to your target persona and reaching them with your content, then go into a guide on how to stop over-creating, and dive deep into reader-persona-tailored creation. Ready?
How to Develop a Target Persona: Your Granular Guide to Creating a Target Persona
There are so many guides out there that tell you why it’s important to build a marketing persona, without also telling you how to do it. Generalities are all well and good, but they don’t get you very far!
So, with that in mind, let’s break down how to build a customized, specific persona that helps you understand who your brand should be talking to.
To build the foundation for your persona, answer these questions right now:
Does the person tend to be male or female?
How old is he or she?
Does this person have a family? A spouse?
Where does this person live?
What does this person do?
What type of company and industry do they work within?
For example: Meet Leader Larry. Leader Larry tends to be male, he’s generally between 40-55 years old, he’s married, with two teenage children. He works as a senior manager for a major “Fintech” company.
2. Get granular with your details of the persona
You’ve got the outline, now it’s time to dive deeper with your details. Answer specific questions, like the following:
What is his biggest pain point?
What are the biggest challenges or difficulties this person faces within their job?
Is your target persona the one making the decisions or does he need to talk to upper management?
For example: Leader Larry’s biggest pain point is developing customized training and educational materials to help bring his staff up to speed on new technologies. While he’s a senior manager, he’s not the ultimate decision maker in his company, and, thanks to corporate red tape, he’s finding it difficult to create training materials and have them approved by upper management in a time-effective manner.
3. Figure out how your persona accesses and consumes content
Does your target persona engage on a mobile device or a desktop computer?
Does this person consume content during the working hours or after-hours, while he or she is at home?
How much content does this person consume? Do they want more?
Does your target persona use social networks? If so, which ones? HINT: If you have a person in mind who represents your target audience very closely, head to his or her Twitter feed to see what they’re sharing, reading, and interacting with. This will help you hone your content down the road.
Who does this person see as an influencer?
What do they care about enough to trigger a purchase?
For example: Leader Larry uses a desktop computer to consume content during the working hours. He maintains a profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. He’s an active reader of industry news and updates. He participates in several relevant LinkedIn groups, where he meets influencers and consumes related content.
4. Put it all together
Now that you’ve developed an accurate picture of your target persona, it’s time to put it all together. From here, you’ll be able to identify the content types this person is likely to enjoy, the channels you should publish them in, and the pain points you’ll need to solve to earn (and keep) this person as a client.
Bear in mind that target personas may change or shift over time, so it’s essential to keep revisiting the information you’ve developed here to ensure it’s still relevant, and update it if need be.
4 Keys of Developing Content that Speaks to Your Target Persona
Next, let’s take an overview look at four keys that help you know how to create, and who to create your content for.
How to Create for Your Target Persona Key #1: Readers Are Like Celebrities, Give Them the Red Carpet Treatment
The Golden Globes recently took place in LA, and if you know anything about Hollywood awards shows, you know that the events are a big deal. From who wore what (and who wore it best) to the viral speeches, there is almost always a surprise or two that no one saw coming.
This year, the Globes averaged 20 million viewers; while that huge number could have been credited to the host or the Trump jabs (or both), it was an 8% increase in viewers over 2016.
There are some key points we can take away for our content marketing efforts and target persona development that come straight out of a Hollywood awards show.
Ready to dive in? Let’s go!
How to Create Content for Your Target Persona Key #2: Your Audience Wants Something Rich
In a fast-paced, technology-driven world, your audience doesn’t have time to sit and read long paragraphs of boring content before finally getting to the point. (Neil Patel) Rich content must be short, sweet, and relevant.
The stars don’t walk the Red Carpet in an off-the-rack dress from Target. They don glamorous designer dresses that cost a pretty penny that fit the theme of the night.
Your audience doesn’t want off-rack-content; they want rich, engaging material.
If you find that creating content rich in relevance is challenging, you are not alone—nearly half of content marketers surveyed say that their lack of strategy development is a contributing factor to their stagnant success. (Content Marketing Institute)
Whoever your customer may be, they deserve more. If what you are delivering is the same as your competitors or it lacks what your audience needs, they will move on until they find a better solution.
How to Create for Your Target Persona Key #3: Your Audience Needs Special Attention
What would be the point of a Red Carpet without flashing cameras, interviewing journalists, and a live television broadcast? The whole idea behind the opening of awards shows is to pay attention to the stars.
Your audience needs the same attention. They should be lavished with relevant understanding of their needs and shareable content that fills blog posts, social media sites, and emails on a consistent basis.
Whether they know it or not, your readers are looking for something tailor-made, something that will jump out and hit them where they need it most. And if we can’t get it to them within an average of 15 seconds (Time), we may have missed our chance.
How to Create Content for Your Target Persona Key #4: Your Audience Wants You to Use Their Name
No one wants to be just another face in the crowd, lost in a sea of generic, watered-down messages that are unfocused and irrelevant.
There is a reason the barista at your local coffee shop calls out the name of a customer when their extra-hot-soy-latte-no-foam is ready.
It’s personal.
Relevant content creation is easier when it’s written toward one particular person, which is why every writer needs to develop a persona.
3 Additional Methods to Stop Creating Content and Start Developing a Persona
Michael Brenner from CMI reminds us that when we are creating content, one problem that can arise is creating for the boss, when we should be creating for the audience we are aiming to reach, engage, and convert.
The challenge is to stop creating content, and instead focus on creating a content brand as we focus on our target persona. Let’s discuss how, in three additional nitty-gritty steps.
1. Get Personal (Human Factor)
Writing for one general group of readers misses the human factor that must be present for content marketing to be effective.
Developing a buyer persona provides us with the perspective and focus necessary to visualize that one person, that target goal, who is the reason behind why we develop content in the first place.
So how does that happen?
We figure out who our target is through customer data (Google Analytics).
We dig into social media comments, personal interviews, and surveys to find out how to develop a buyer persona (HubSpot).
2. Lavish Your Audience with Love (Engagement)
Engaging your customers means first knowing your target audience and then understanding how to reach them.
Yes, this may mean you need to move out of your comfy cozy corner of content marketing and branch out to try something new.
It means lavishing your audience with diverse, exciting content that they will engage with–created with love, just for them.
Diversified content uses infographics, videos, and relevant subheadings to draw the reader in and make them want to stay. “Scannable,” readable content is key to keep busy people engaged, so don’t forget bullet points, lists, and revising your headline till you reach perfection.
3. Show Them They’re Special (Focus)
When you make a concentrated effort to develop content that is focused on your audience, it will show. The engagement will be present, the shares will increase, and the readers will keep coming back for more.
As SmartBlogger reminds us, readers don’t want to be informed; they want to be seduced.
Don’t worry about being someone else or following another writer’s style; there are enough imitators in the world. Your unique quality content and focused voice on a topic or brand is what should shine in your content; your efforts are worth more than simply filling a page with words.
Stop Creating Too Much Content This Year, and Work On Creating the Right Content
Our challenge in this New Year is to stop creating content simply for the sake of creation.
Instead, engage your readers by intentionally focusing on their specific needs, and then developing a buyer persona so you who to focus on, help, and speak to–and watch your content results soar!
Whoever your customer may be, they deserve more. If what you are delivering is the same as your competitors or it lacks what your audience needs, they will move on until they find a better solution.
