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computer showing trending topics

You don’t need to be an SEO wizard to know that engaging, SEO-friendly content is the key to generating organic traffic. Here are some ways to help you stay on top of trends and produce relevant, engaging content.

Trends

If you’re already seeing lots of articles on a topic, it’s a sign you’re already too late to produce anything worthwhile. Getting ahead of a trend may seem like an impossible task, but there are many tools out there to help you. You can look at Google Trends to show popular rising searches related to your keywords. Take advantage of hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to learn about trending topics that your audience are interested in.

Look for opportunities

Creating content about trending topics doesn’t mean you have to create something totally from scratch. Look at what your audience is interested in and what your competitors are talking about. Think about what has worked well in the past and how you can link this to the trending topic.

Create engaging, shareable content

You should think about what the best format is for your topic. Think about whether your message would work better on a video, a blog or even a cartoon. If you want to create content that people want to share, you need to reach a wider audience. You want your content to be found and shared, so it needs to be optimized for both search engines and for sharing. You should follow search engine optimization best practices and make sure you include clear sharing links.

Repurpose across platforms

Sharing a link to a blog post on Facebook is great, but it isn’t always the best way to generate viral content. You should think about how you can repurpose across different platforms. Make a YouTube video summarising your blog topic, or address the article on Facebook live. You can even include it in your business’ Instagram story or share your blog to Facebook groups. Creating an email campaign with the link, or connecting with influencers are also effective ways of getting content out there.

Creating content your audience will engage with and share isn’t as difficult as you might think. Struggling and want some help? At Cloud9 Marketing, we have content wizards who will help you.

product marketing

When you have a new product, you want to make your audience interested. After the most successful product marketing campaign in history, stock prices for Apple Mac skyrocketed, with a 78.7% increase. Here is how you can successfully market a new product and how we can help you.

Tell a True Story About your Product

If you simply sell your product with benefits, features and facts and not the experience, you’re guaranteed to have a less successful marketing campaign. By telling a story, you are creating emotions that draw an audience and entice them to buy your product above your competitors.

Consider your Audience

While originality may seem like the key to success, you must be careful not to deviate from your brand. If you are a soda company, you shouldn’t use your name to market a new shampoo. Your audience will expect the shampoo to have soda features, or even taste or smell the same.

Be better than your Competitors

If you want to stand out from the crowd, you really need to think outside the box and be prepared for things to not always work every time. Nike, after many failed marketing campaigns, was the first company to use celebrity endorsements. You may be thinking that your small business can’t afford this. Being the best doesn’t necessarily mean spending the most money. Nike today are doing campaigns centred around Middle Eastern woman in sports. Think of something original and you’ll notice the results.

Market to your Existing Customers

You may remember one of the most successful marketing campaigns of the 90’s – The Got Milk? campaign. Rather than trying to make a necessary and not so interesting product into something it’s not, MilkPEP, appealed to the existing audience and created a campaign around the fact that milk is something people forget to buy.

New Brand Name from New Products

Your product doesn’t have to be marketed with the same brand name as your old one especially if it’s completely different. Instead of worrying about losing an audience you’ve already created, think of the positives. You will be able to evaluate what worked and what didn’t from previous campaigns. You can build a stronger campaign and not leave your audience confused by inconsistencies. P & G have 55 different brands including Oral-B, Febreze and Pampers!

Product marketing can be fun and exciting and when you get it right, you can quickly see massive results. Got a new product and need help devising a marketing campaign? At Cloud9 Marketing, we know what it takes to make your product stand out.

content marketing

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already sold on the idea of using content marketing to benefit your business. However, you may still be looking for ways to get the most out of your content marketing endeavors.

Here are four suggestions for making your efforts more worthwhile:

1.    Post content that your customers want: You might think that you should write your blog about your business; after all, a lot of people do just that. However, you need to remember that customers really don’t care about you as much as they care about themselves. You can actually take advantage of this by providing customers with content that they want and getting their attention in exchange. You can post any type of content that you believe will help you achieve this goal. The content might be a video, a how-to article, or a detailed guide, but it should be something that will draw customers to your site and make them more likely to become interested in your business.

2.    Mainly write content that is for the benefit of your customers and only promotes your products occasionally: People are interested in reading articles that benefit them. They do not find posts that praise products particularly appealing. If you provide customers with content that they want to read 9 out of 10 times, you’re more likely to create a reliable target audience.

3.    Post “cornerstone” content on your site: This type of content is categorized and archived in such a way that customers will have no trouble finding it. It also remains valuable for extended periods of time. KISSmetrics provides cornerstone content with its marketing guides, Copyblogger provides it with a sidebar, and River Pools and Spas exemplifies it with its Pool 101 content. Cornerstone content brings you excellent ROI (returns on investment) because it benefits you over time.

4.    Look at  other sites to see the types of content customers want: Visit the websites of other business owners in your industry to get an idea of what people seem to enjoy reading. You can find out how many tweets and shares certain types of content get to figure out what is popular. You should also be aware that creating posts about Twitter or Facebook is sure to get you a lot of shares. Although you shouldn’t limit yourself to writing exclusively about these subjects, doing so on a regular basis will definitely increase traffic to your site.

Contact us to find out how Cloud9 Marketing can help you develop a solid Content Marketing Strategy.