Content Marketing: Effective Ideas to Improve Your Business
Given the extremely competitive environment that nowadays characterises most of the industries, standing out and succeeding can be sometimes very hard. That is why offering your audience consistent, high-quality, and engaging content can really make the difference between your business and that of your competitors (Riserbato, 2021). To invest in and improve your content marketing strategy has many benefits (Baker, 2020), such as:
- boost conversions
- build brand awareness
- increase customers loyalty
- it’s cost-effective
This article is aimed at travel related website that want to boost their business using content marketing. It presents a few ideas of different types of content to take inspiration from for a new strategy. All the examples are taken from both internationally established and more niche travelling websites.
1)LIVE CONTENT: it is one of the biggest trends at the moment. It is extremely engaging as it connects you directly with your audience and it also increases your audience reach (Restream, 2020). For example, since 2020 Trip.com has launched “LIVE for Trip”, a campaign to boost again the travel industry after the pandemic. These live streaming were a huge success (Trip.com Group, 2020) and here are their best practices:
- choose the right tool (like Facebook Live and YouTube Live)
- promote the live content in advance on social media or your website
- Include CTAs to encourage viewers to make a purchase, visit your website or subscribe to a newsletter
2)PODCAST: they are definitely getting more and more popular — in 2020 over 155 million people listened to a podcast every week (Ben, 2021). The website Marriott Bonvoy Traveler offers its audience good quality podcasts as they have:
- welcome and send-off phrases
- a familiar intro in each episode
- a consistent publishing schedule
- great quality audio
- an optimal length of 15 to 30 minutes
- they are well promoted on social media
3)INTERACTIVE CONTENT: this content is usually more suitable for social media platforms, where users are more active and looking for interactions. Examples can be quizzes, surveys, direct questions (EZMarketing, 2019). Lonely Planet -one of the most popular for the travel industry- posts every day this type of content on its social media platforms.
The above post (fig. 2) is an example of interactive content best practise:
- it is engaging but simple at the same time
- it has a friendly tone, so it is adapted to the target audience
- it is meaningful to its industry
- it is posted daily and on different platforms
At this link you can find other examples of effective content and their best practice, such as blogs, traditional video content, or email newsletter.
However, I believe the 3 examples presented here deserve special consideration as they are in trend at the moment -especially podcast and live content- and they definitely win in terms of originality and engagement.
For video pitch: https://youtu.be/-q3NsPfuaMw
For slide share: https://www.slideshare.net/secret/DMiwfSjNJuIjhg
REFERENCES
Baker, K. (2021) “The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing in 2021”, HubSpot. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing [accessed 10 Oct 2021]
Ben (2021) “Why are Podcasts so Popular in 2021?”, Brandastic. Available at: https://brandastic.com/blog/why-are-podcasts-so-popular/ [accessed 14 Oct 2021]
EZMarketing Team (2019) “Best Practices for Awesome Social Media Content”, EZMarketing. Available at: https://blog.ezmarketing.com/best-practices-for-awesome-social-media-content [accessed 17 Oct 2021]
Restream (2020) “Why live streaming should be your focus in 2021 with Neil Patel”, Restream Blog. Available at: https://restream.io/blog/importance-of-live-streaming-in-2021-with-neil-patel/ [accessed 25 Oct 2021]
Riserbato, R. (2021) “10 Benefits of Consistent, High-Quality Content Marketing”, HubSpot. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/benefits-high-quality-content-consistency-brand [accessed 15 Nov 2021]
Trip.com Group (2020) “Trip.com LIVE series revitalizes regional markets, boosting global travel recovery” Trip.com News. Available at: https://www.trip.com/newsroom/trip-com-live-series-revitalizes-regional-markets-boosting-travel-recovery/ [accessed 25 Oct 2021]
FIGURES
Fig. 1, Thought Catalog (2017) No name, Unsplash [online] Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/505eectW54k [accessed 14 Nov 2021]
Fig. 2, Screenshot (2021) Lonely Planet Official Account, Twitter [online] Available at: https://twitter.com/lonelyplanet [accessed 30 Oct 2021]
