According to a recent article in Forbes, we are facing a virtual tsunami of content today. One estimate puts this onslaught at 200 million-plus pieces of content created every minute.
On the one hand, you don’t want to create content clutter — e.g., producing content for the sake of putting something “out there” for online consumption. This approach to content distribution can result in awesome, well-created pieces of content going unnoticed, which certainly won’t do you any favors.
Instead, we suggest creating “content buckets” that can serve as a reliable, relevant source of content for your target audience. Below, we’re going to focus on seven buckets of content inventory we recommend every business considers.
1. Content Awareness Articles
Content awareness generation articles can include a mix of articles of varying lengths. So, everything for this bucket doesn’t have to be the recommended article length to be useful.
The idea here is to produce content that creates awareness of your brand or business while demonstrating your knowledge of your industry or niche. However, you shouldn’t force it just to reach a certain length. Just focus on producing or presenting something meaningful and informative.
This content can be original, which can be what’s generated in-house or through freelance sources. Discovering third-party content through content management engines (CME) such as Vestorly is another smart option when it comes to distributing content that’s relevant and in line with your brand awareness goals.
If you’re going to be re-posting some of your content, add original comments. This puts your own unique impression or stamp on the content you are sharing, which further boosts awareness of your brand.
2. Content That Builds Brand Authority and Trust
Since 2018, there has been a lot of buzz about expertise, authority, and trustworthiness — what Google refers to as E-A-T. It’s a set of search quality guidelines used to assess the quality of search results.
We bring this up to emphasize the importance of content that builds trust and authority. This type of content is more educational in nature because you are providing relevant information that goes beyond the goal of boosting clicks or conversions.
This content bucket tends to be especially beneficial for B2B content needs, although any business can benefit from top-notch, informative, and educational content. As for what to include in this bucket, the answer will depend on factors such as:
• The nature of your business
• What topics or concerns are specific to your target audience
• Whether not there is a need to educate searchers on what you have to offer (e.g., having more unique services or products your target audience may not fully understand)
This content can also be created internally or come from third-party sources. Whatever the source, the content needs to be regularly updated to ensure you continue to provide relevant answers and information. Adding your insights to third-party content is also a proven method of piggybacking off the authoritative content of others.
3. Eye Candy Content
“Eye candy,” in terms of content, is anything designed to grab attention instantly. Specifically, it’s the type of content searchers tend to gravitate towards because of natural curiosity.
Lists fall into the eye candy content bucket. Let’s face it, people love lists — and they love to share and re-post them! And if you link the lists to something relevant to your brand, it can lead to a lot of extra exposure.
Eye candy content, in general, is a great way to use and leverage third-party content. Name-dropping content fits into this content bucket as well.
The thing to remember with name-dropping is not to do it for the sake of just using a recognizable name in your content. Plus, you’re venturing into clickbait territory if you do this.
Instead, drop names relevant to your business, niche, or target audience. If you work the names naturally into your content where it makes sense to do so, this technique will be much more effective.
4. Content about Competition
What you’re doing with content for this bucket is laying out your Value Proposition relative to others. In other words, you are using your content to point out clearly what sets you apart from the competition.
To properly fill and leverage this content bucket, you’ll need to have a solid understanding of who your competition is and how they are engaging the same target audience. Once you have this knowledge, you’ll be able to highlight what makes your business or brand unique.
5. Content about Market Dynamics
With content about market dynamics, you’ll be focusing on what drives or impacts pricing and the various behaviors of consumers. This type of content also gives you a chance to share and showcase your knowledge and understanding of your particular market.
Pay particular attention to shareable content that educates your audience about what’s going on with your relevant market. As with the other content buckets mentioned here, you can use original or third-party sources to achieve this goal. Also, include anything about outside factors or trends that may be impacting your target market.
6. Content Specific to Your Existing Customers (Personalization)
We’re also talking about audience education with this content bucket. But what you’re doing is personalizing content to meet the needs and expectations of your existing customers, not new ones who may not yet know what you have to offer.
This is important because most businesses make the bulk of their profits from returning customers. In fact, more than 60 percent of small to medium businesses report that more than half of their revenue comes from repeat customers rather than new ones.
Third-party content can fit into this bucket as well as long as it’s specific to your existing client base. This bucket is also important because it reinforces your commitment to keeping in touch with existing customers.
Using a content management engine, such as Vestorly, that leverages Artificial Intelligence to learn and iterates based on how an audience engages with third-party content is an efficient method to personalize your content marketing efforts.
7. Evergreen Content
There’s no point in reinventing the wheel constantly just to keep certain pieces of content up-to-date, especially anything that will always be relevant to your target audience. Ease your burden by including some evergreen content in your content inventory.
Whether you go with original or third-party content for this purpose, make sure it’s presented in a way that allows it to be relevant and shareable at any time.
The Role of Content Management Engines
Content management engines like Vestorly can help you successfully manage all the content buckets mentioned here. Top-quality CMEs are built to maximize and leverage both original and third-party content buckets in a way that allows you to focus on other aspects of your business without sacrificing online visibility and authority.
Key Takeaways
• It’s important to keep your audience engaged with a well-rounded content inventory. Include a mix of content that boosts brand awareness for new potential customers and addresses the needs and concerns of existing customers.
• Use your content to build authority, but also emphasize what sets you apart from your competitors.
• Leverage lists and other types of content “eye candy” to your advantage.
• Include evergreen content that’s always relevant and useful.
