How to Turn Content Marketing Into a Flawless Habit

Written by: Kerrie Sydee

It’s been exactly 20 days since you resolved to go to the gym six days a week and replace your lunch with a grimace-inducing green smoothie.

According to Dr Maltz, it's only one more day of pain until your body snaps into line and turns those grievances into habits. Or is it? Because I’ve got some bad news for you. New research shows that Dr Maltz’s 21 days is really 66.

On the plus side, unlike a scrupulous health regime, maintaining your 2016 marketing resolutions needn't end in carb-starved rage. The Content Marketing Institute’s 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report, which surveyed 146 Australian for-profit marketers, will point you in the right direction.

It showed that while most Australian marketers recognise the importance of content marketing, only 28% reported that their campaigns were as effective as they'd like.

So, what are the top content marketing priorities for 2016 and how can you turn them into flawless habits?

For Australian marketers, the best place to start is by tackling what 84% of survey respondents acknowledge as the greatest challenge: producing engaging content.

Having a better understanding of what content is effective and finding better ways to repurpose content were also high on the list at 55% and 53% respectively.

For financial services marketers, these priorities ring true. The continually shrinking media landscape means creating engaging content that ensures your brand is out there in the marketplace and in front of the right audience is more important than ever before.

So how can we ensure that our 2016 marketing resolutions aren’t packed away with our Nutribullet?

There’s no magic bullet (Nutri or otherwise) for making your content more engaging. But there are three steps you can take to increase your engagement with audiences in financial services marketing.

1. Create objectives and understand what your audience want and need

Understand the purpose of your content – do you want to increase traffic, increase page views or boost brand awareness?

What are your competitors doing? What can you tell your audience that they can’t?

Know your audience better than you know yourself – develop in-depth prospect personas that help you plan your content

2. Embrace context marketing

The Internet gives marketers endless free customer date, so embrace this data and use it to deliver the right message , to the right person, via the right medium at the right place and at the right time

Develop a process to connect with prospects based on their behaviour patterns; understand what motivates them

Move beyond campaigns to interactions – slick consumer campaigns no longer convert customers like they used to. Take the time to interact with your prospects. If Westpac can tweet back, why can't you?

3. Don’t be afraid to explore new types of content

Use the content format that gives you the best platform to get your message across

Consider what content format/s your audience will wantand don’t be afraid to give your audience more than one option

You don’t need to be a designer to create an engaging infographic; take advantage of free services like Canva to put a new spin on your content