How do I create enough interesting content for my audience?
According to Social Media Today, more than three fourths of CMO’s think custom content represents the future of marketing…how are you shaping your message for 2016.
1. Know your audience.
It’s silly to jump into content marketing without first decoding the behavior of your target audience, understanding what would be useful to their lives and discovering how they would like to consume what types of content they prefer.
It’s also important that you also know how they search for information. What their process is. Remember, it’s always about them-not you. So, are they starting on Google and then hitting the review sites or are they asking their friends on social and then going directly to your property site? Knowing the path they take before they get to you is essential.
2. The old blog and chain
Are you guys tired of hearing me talk about blogs yet? Yes, blogging is a commitment and an investment. But so is every advertising dollar you spend. So is every minute your leasing agent spends answering questions that they get asked 10 times a day {by both future and current residents}. Here’s the deal. A blog is an easy way to create content for all of the other social media channels you are probably on. It also an easy, non salesy, low barrier way to get prospective customers onto your site….based on what actions they take once they get there, you can start to qualify them and determine how you want to remarket to them.
3. Go Green-reuse & repurpose
As I said above, a blog isn’t just a blog. You can glean tasty nuggets from your blog and create awesome pins or slide shares. You may create a complimentary infographic or how-to video. It allows your consumers to, well…consume your content in whatever fashion is most comfortable for them. It also, obviously, extends the life of your content. The half-life of a tweet is like 3 seconds, but the half-life of a pin can be three months.
4. Save the sales pitch for the leasing office
Be useful. No one is out there typing into Google, “I really want to read an apartment sales pitch.” But people are searching and researching up a storm. So, the more helpful your content is, they more likely they are to return to you over and over again. Remember, we are creatures of habit and comfort. If we know we can rely on a site to deliver what we are looking for, they’re going to earn a spot on our favorites list….AKA brand loyalty.
5. Nerd out
While I am not a believer in absolute digital attribution, I am a data junkie. So it goes without saying that you need to consistently evaluate the response to the content you are producing. What is getting results? {Driving traffic, what’s being shared, what’s being read?} If no one is sharing the content and you aren’t getting any new subscribers, chances are, you need to change your content.
6. Avoid over-optimization.
SEO cannot be your north star. It’s a benefit of content-not the reason for content to exist. I heard someone say recently, “Content is the reason search exists in the first place”-not the other way around.
7. Learn from the best
We can’t all be content machines like Buzzfeed and PureWow, but take a cue from what they are producing. I don’t go a day without clicking on at least one link from these sites. Ask yourself what is attractive about what they are doing, what you can take away from that and how does it apply to the information you have to offer.
8. If you don’t have anything nice to say…
Your customers are going to look for consistency, but don’t publish something of awful quality just for the sake of hitting a deadline and getting a blog out the door. We tend to keep a couple ‘pocket pieces’ of evergreen content that we can publish in case of emergency. {Think green cleaning tips or how to fold a fitted sheet} If you have a couple of ‘life hack’ blogs completed, you can always drop them into the calendar if you come down with a serious case of writer’s block.
9. Nothing is an overnight success
Building an audience takes time. Look at it as a long-term investment. It took us a year to grow our Park Chelsea blog to 1000 subscribers, but for the first 5 months we had less than 200 people. It wasn’t that the content changed in any way. It was about building a loyal following and a library of decent resources. Once you start to grow your audience and people are liking and sharing your content, you’ll see your audience grow. But here’s the thing…you don’t need 1000’s of subscribers if you have 500 loyal readers of your property blog, you have an audience that is begging to know more about your community and neighborhood story.
10. Give’em something to look at
Images are crazy important. Our society is becoming increasingly more visual. Webster Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ is an emoji for cryin out loud! With this in mind, obviously you will want to create or invest in awesome visuals. My team uses Unsplash for free stock photos and Canva for editing most of visuals.
11. Video….it’s a thing
So we’ve all heard it for a while that video is another required focus. BUT I think we get it in our head that it has to be live action. It doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be gimmicky either. An example of a really useful video for your residents? Use ScreenFlow {it records the actions on your computer screen} and demonstrate how to reserve an amenity space via your resident portal. How-to videos are always a win. But keep it short! Aim for two and half minutes or less.
12. The New first screen
Finally, make sure your blog/email is responsive. 80% of email is now opened on a mobile device. We’ve taken to designing for mobile as our first screen and desktop as the second screen.
Hope this has inspired you to get started! Want idea for your first 3 months of content? We’ll be brainstorming all types of sweet ideas on our next #MintyMastermind call. Want to get in on that? Subscribe to Apartminty and join the fun! Learn More.