Content is still king, but it’s evolving.
We’ve all heard the term ‘content is king’ before, and as we begin a new decade, the phrase is only going to become more prominent for businesses trying to grow their brand.
Content has always been an important arm in any marketing campaign, because it helps a specific brand grow without deviating from the company’s missions or goals.
It can also enhance a company’s visibility and increase trust with consumers, but in the most simplistic of terms: without it, people won’t understand what you’re providing.
The way content is handled has changed a lot over the last 10 years. To begin the decade, companies largely adopted a ‘more the merrier’ and ‘scattergun’ approach to flood our growing social media accounts and search engines.
But that’s now a bygone era as consumers became filled to the brim with content. Now, we have to be smarter about how we strategise, research, create and publish.
Quality over quantity
The economic principle of the Law of Diminishing Returns also applies to content marketing. The law states that, at some point, adding an additional factor of production results in smaller increases in output.
That means there’s a ceiling to how much of an impact you can make with a given content strategy — no matter how frequently you’re publishing new content.
You’ll be missing out on key targets if you keep pumping out articles or videos, like content quality, customer journey targeting, lead nurturing and conversion.
Adopting this philosophy and keeping quality high will also help your SEO following Google’s Webmaster Central updates in 2019. Under the ‘Search Quality Rater Guidelines’ the juggernaut mentions its commitment to reward E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
The fact that Google specifically pointed to this resource and singled out E-A-T is a huge hint. In our content, we all need to be focused on providing expertise, authority, and trust.
Website design also falls under this bracket because a well-built and maintained website will rank high in Google’s search algorithms. The reason for this: Google wants to serve its customers with what they want — and what they want now is quality content that gives them the service or the answer they require as quickly as possible.
At Metronome, delivering well-built websites with outstanding content has always been part of our ethos. For The Provincial Hotel, one of Victoria’s most iconic hotels, we integrated two booking engines – tripadvisor’s the fork for dining room bookings and newbook for accommodation – for their recent dining experience, Lola. We also delivered full listings, photography of room configurations and content for their delicious locally sourced dishes on the new menu.
What is quality content?
Now, more than ever, finding out your customers’ needs and problems is imperative. A valuable and engaging content strategy should offer educational or helpful information on solving a problem or situation.
You can advise and guide customers on what to look out for, provide valuable tips for achieving success and demonstrate how you’ve helped others in their position. There are so many formats out there, such as white papers, case studies, e-Books, infographics, research reports, FAQs, how-to guides, podcasts, videos and even press releases.
But a blog is an equally effective way of reaching customers. It’s expected that your website will convey information about your company and the products or services it offers, including materials that are geared toward sales by outlining features and benefits. But the blog shouldn’t be primarily used to promote, but rather educate.
At Metronome, we have several clients who have blogs incorporated into their websites. For Wilson Storage, one of Victoria’s largest storage companies, we regularly update their ‘tips’ section with engaging and useful content.
As well as other avenues of advertising and marketing, distributing these articles is a successful way to entice potential customers to the website. Not only that, they demonstrate personality, offer information, and show the experience Wilson has in the market.
Video and visual content
Video has been a big deal for a few years now and it shows no signs of slowing down. With the popularity of YouTube, dynamic imagery and social video, it’s no wonder this kind of content will continue to rise.
Of course, what sets apart successful video content from the rest is the quality of storytelling and the planning that goes into a shoot.
Successful brands realise that you have to engage people within three seconds, so it’s imperative the strategy behind a video is on point. Storyboarding is the first step and helps you figure out exactly what shots you need before you start filming. If the composition, lighting and acoustics on site are all taken into account, this makes the post-production process a relative breeze.
Nowadays, clients want visual content for both their website and social channels — this means the video has to be suitable for several aspect ratios and adhere to different time constraints. For the full-floor residence at Level 19, 35 Spring Street, we had to consider a variety of things.
With Instagram Stories, for example, vertical viewing is the new normal, so visually we ensured that the master long-form film was shot with the vertical format in mind. We had to ensure we could get a vertical frame out of the footage while pacing the content to match the attention span within the Instagram environment.
Consumers are after the next-level visuals in content. From entertainment to communication, people are going all-in on the power of dynamic or interactive imagery.
Consolidated Property Group took notice of this trend and created an immersive Experience Centre for an $850 million Brisbane development, Yeerongpilly Green. Here, we provided the complete technical specification for the fit-out of the Experience Centre, we also created an integrated app which controls the experience and allows visitors to view content regarding the entire project.
Visual media is going in startlingly new and exciting directions and the possibilities for integration with content will only become more bountiful. Over the next decade, expect to see more ultra-targeted, quality-driven and brand new content flooding our screens.