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Winning With Niche Content Marketing
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JUNE 2017
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Is content creation your top marketing strategy? You are not the only one acknowledging its power. 53% of marketers have made blog content creation their inbound marketing priority. In these circumstances, your only chance to be successful in your content marketing campaign is to rise above your competitors and provide readers with everything they could want through niche content marketing.
In 2015, BuzzSumo and Moz teamed up and analyzed 1 million articles to figure out what type of content attracts the most links and shares. They concluded that readers appreciate opinion forming journalistic articles, backed by research, longer than 1,000 words, containing quizzes or videos.
According to HubSpot, 47% of buyers read 3 to 5 content pieces before engaging with the sales representatives. At the same time, 96% of B2B buyers appreciate content with high input from the thought leaders of the industry.
What does this say? Buyers are no longer satisfied with brief, informative articles and “how to” posts. They want researched, reliable information directly from credible sources, in a complex yet easy to grasp format.
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If you want to earn their trust and money, it’s no longer enough to be the nice entrepreneur in the neighborhood, ready to give them useful advice and answer a couple of question. You need to read their mind and show them you are the leader of your industry, an expert in what you do, a trendsetter and a problem-solver.
You need to be the source people come to when they don’t know what to do, what product or service to choose, or how to make the most of their investment. In order to become that source, you need to focus on what you do best, do it right, and put it in writing. You need to focus on a specific content niche and stick to it.
3 Steps to Targeting a Specific Content Niche
If you’ve been doing it right, your content marketing strategy should target a specific audience, present your activity, send a specific message, and provide valuable, useful information to its readers. If the traffic and sales it’s generating are dropping, or you simply feel you could do better, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been doing anything wrong.
It means the audience you’re targeting is already overwhelmed with information from your competitors, and they can no longer grasp the value of the content and, implicitly, products and services you are providing. You need to step up and do something more notable. You need to rethink your content strategy starting from the same four points: audience, activity, message, and value. How do you do that?
1. Narrow down Your Audience
Think of the content you write as a speech. The different audience segments (by age, occupation, and education) you are currently targeting speak different dialects. You address everyone using the literary form of the language. They get most of your speech, but because you’re not speaking to them in their dialect, there is no connection, and you fail to send your message and obtain the desired reactions.
It’s like trying to explain what you do to kindergarten children, their grandparents, IT specialists, shepherds, and pregnant women at the same time. Chances are most of them will not truly understand your activity, and those who do will be disappointed by your lack of professionalism and inability to communicate with everyone at their own level.
Narrowing down your audience means identifying the audience segment with the highest potential of providing paying customers and writing your speech for them. You need to use their dialect, focus on their needs, and show that you can meet them.
If you succeed, and they see you as the authority you hope to become, they will surely recommend your products or services to the other audience segments they come in contact with. Later on, once you’ve established yourself as an authority for this particular segment, you are free to target any other segment you want.
2. Write about What You Know and Do Best
Believe it or not, your audience does not expect you to know and cover everything about the industry you activate in. They just want to make sure you know what you are doing, and you are not afraid to share your knowledge with them.
So, instead of writing about products or services you don’t offer just because your target audience may look them up online, focus on what you do know and offer. Write about that, go into details, answer questions. Don’t be afraid to talk about any mistakes you’ve made and prove that you’ve learned from them.
Your content should turn its readers into specialists. If it does, and you make them feel like such, they’ll always turn to you when they need your products and services, and they’ll recommend you to others as well. In order to succeed, you need to focus on your audience and their needs and expectations, rather than on your business and goals.
Find out what they want to know and read, what they treasure and what they hate, and use those findings to guide your new content strategy. Adjust your tone and language to the specifics of your audience, monitor your audience’s reactions, and use them to improve your content.
3. Follow Each Phase of the Buying Cycle
Some content campaigns focus on drawing visitors. Others focus on converting visitors into paying customers. That’s why many companies see a gap between the number of visitors and the number of paying customers. Somewhere along the line, the buying cycle breaks.
Depending on the profile and strategy of each company, the buying cycle can have from 3 to 5 or more phases. Your content should guide website visitors through each phase. What’s the use of luring them to your website if you don’t challenge them to find out more about your company or your products or services?
Reach out to your audience through your content, and show them you are able and willing to provide what they need, and you won’t turn your back on them once they’ve trusted you with their money. Consistency pays out in the long run.
The Benefits of Niche Content Marketing
Let’s be honest: everything we do has a purpose. In this case, your purpose is a higher return on investment. How will niche content marketing help with that?
It will help you stand out from your competition. They may sell the same products and services, but you’ll be the expert, the authority, the go-to-source for your niche. You’ll be unique, therefore attractive.
It will let you charge higher fees. When you are an expert in your line of business, you are free to choose your clientele and charge more for your services. If you were an accounting firm looking to hire marketing services, would you choose a general marketing company over a company specialized in marketing accounting services just to save some money?
It will ease your work. Doing what you’re best at and writing about it is always easier than pretending to be an expert in everything. You already have the tools and the knowhow, you just have to put them to good use.
You don’t have to take our word for this. Just think of your own business, of what parts of it you know best and love more, and how easy and rewarding focusing your content strategy on them would be. If you need any help with your niche content marketing strategy, we’re here!
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Want to learn more how to leverage your online content for better results? Our newest eBook has the answers. Learn how to become a content superhero with just a few smart tricks from this imaginative collection of content marketing tips. Order one content piece today and get the eBook for free.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider admin_label=”Divider” color=”#cc4315″ show_divider=”on” divider_style=”groove” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Blog post main Section” fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”FDF3E7″ allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off”][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”https://iriscontent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Annie-smsi.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” sticky=”off” align=”right” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.0.51″ /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_team_member admin_label=”Person” name=”Annie Ianko” position=”Chief Content Officer” animation=”off” background_layout=”light” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/IrisWebContent/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/Iris_Content” border_style=”solid” custom_css_main_element=”box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0,0,0,.1);||” _builder_version=”3.0.51″]
Annie has 20 years of experience as an editor and content creator and manager. With work in television and written media, she has dedicated her past 10 years to learning the ropes of online content creation, from writing to editing, from SEO to content management.
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