Almost around 90% of the B2B companies and 85% of the B2C companies take help of content marketing strategy and this is the reason why content marketers are highly in demand for 2018.
Along with the other digital marketing strategies, content marketing has slowly evolved over the years. Evolution of technology, the introduction of artificial intelligence and changes in buying demands has led to the transformation in content marketing. With this change, it has become inevitable for content marketers to enhance their skills.
So, if you are jump starting as a content marketer or thinking about enhancing your skills pertaining to it, then here are some essential ones you need to focus in 2018:
1. Understanding Analytics
It is important for content marketers to gauge the impact of their content through data and metrics through various analytics tool. These metrics will shed light on the effectiveness of a content marketing campaign and evaluate it for better performance.
As a content marketer, you need to develop skills for interpreting these metrics to decide which strategies are best for you and which ones are not. It allows you to gain an insight into the marketing strategy and convey the same to your higher authorities in a clear and better way. So, it’s like a live example of your efforts as a content marketer.
If you are associated with a business, definitely the owners are not much interested in what you have done as a content marketer. But, they are more interested in finding out what you have achieved for business as a content marketer, that is, ROI (return on investment). So, if you have facts and figures readily available for your past campaigns through analytics then it becomes easy for you to show them the progress.
2. Writing Skills
Well, this the most essential skill any content marketer should have – writing abilities. And by writing, we don’t mean it is as simple as putting sentences together. Anyone can put sentences together. But not everyone is blessed with content writing skills.
If you are writing for marketing purpose, it should include both the quality as well as readability. The content you generate must serve as a useful piece of information for readers but it should also be simple and understandable. It should be informative as well as engaging. You see, that requires a lot of skillsets!
Another important writing skill includes creating a strong call to action through your content. A lot of content marketers fail when they don’t focus on the goal of writing. A content marketer should be very clear on this point. What is the purpose of their writing? For whom they are writing? And what actions are required from the readers? Be it a sign-up for the newsletter or just redirecting them to a landing page. If all this is clear, then you are ready to generate a useful piece of information.
3. Inbound Marketing Skills
Content Marketing is related to inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is just a broader term that includes social media marketing, SEO and branding as well along with content marketing. It runs on the principle of understanding the buyer’s journey and a content marketer needs to be familiar with this.
It involves understanding the behavior of a customer from start till the end; that is searching the product to deciding upon the product of purchase. And throughout this journey, they must be provided with high-quality content. According to a statistic, 95% of the customers are likely to choose a company for buying that offers them valuable content throughout; irrespective of the buyer’s journey stage.
Another thing that must be taken into consideration is that the customers are of different types. While some are just going through the products, there are some others who are deciding upon the company to choose for the desired product or service. They are finding the best option for them. Now, it is the responsibility of content marketer to entertain both the types of customers with relevant content.
4. Understanding Journalism
You may be tempted to ask, what is the need of understanding journalism as a content marketer? Well, you don’t have to master this skill, but at least you must know the basics. The reason is content marketers who have knowledge of journalism are proven to beneficial for the company.
Journalists have a sharp eye for ‘research’ work. They know how to search the information and use it for building great content. They also verify the source for quality. Another important skill they possess is that they know ‘how to keep their readers engaged’. They are good at generating emotions in their reader’s mind to keep them interested and engaged with their content.
You can take a journalism course and learn how to apply the basics of journalism in your content marketing projects.
5. Long-form Content Writing Skill
Back in days, there was a trend when the blog posts were limited to 500 words. However, this trend isn’t the same today. In fact, it has almost doubled. Yes, long-form content is the ‘in-thing’ and according to a study, businesses witness more credibility and success when they are writing more long-form content for their blog posts.
One important thing to care is that it is not the sole length of the content that matters; you must also concentrate on the quality of it. The content should be informative and it must provide a value to its readers. So, content marketers need to consider quantity as well as the quality of their content.
6. Communication Skills
You must be thinking that this one is absolutely ruining the list. But wait till you find out why this skill is important. A content marketer is going to share his/her content with people around the globe. And you don’t know who is going to read it.
While communicating your ideas through your content, one must pay attention to its ‘culture’ aspect. Why this is so? It is due to the fact that certain words and expressions might be acceptable in one culture but it might harm sentiments of people belonging to a different culture. For a business relationship to work with multi-culture, both the parties need to be aware of this fact and avoid sending wrong information. This is the reason why a content marketer should learn communication skills to market their content globally in a better way.
7. Organization Skills
Last but not least, a content marketer must be well aware of the environment in which they are working or going to work and be well organized with their work. They must balance their time and work to meet the deadlines of the organization and that of their clients as well. It creates a highly negative impression of your firm if you always submit your work late. Being on time without compromising the quality is the key here. So, spare some time to develop your organization skill as well.
What’s Your Take?
The list spreads light on a few of the important skills a content marketer shall need in 2018, but there might be some other skills too that you may wish to dig.
So, are you thinking about focusing on these skills as a content marketer? Mention your valuable thoughts in a comment.