3 Content Marketing New Year's Resolutions to Make in 2020
3 Content Marketing New Year's Resolutions to Make in 2020
By Stephanie Wells, founder of Formidable Forms
As we enter 2020, businesses are gearing up for the new year. That means it’s time to evaluate strategies, keep what works and change what doesn’t.
For content marketing, it’s especially important to check in periodically to ensure it’s performing well with your target audience. If there’s anything that’s going to organically drive traffic to your website, it’s content. When it offers value and is written for the correct audience, it generates leads, sales and much more.
Your content is a vital part of your business success, and if it doesn’t live up to users’ standards, you won’t see the results you’re hoping for.
So, if your business is looking to revamp its content marketing strategy this year, here are a few resolutions to consider.
Refine your content strategy.
If your content isn’t bringing you the results you hoped for, then it’s time to reevaluate your strategy. It’s what takes your process from point A to point B. If you fail to create a solid content marketing strategy, you’ll also fail to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, grow your email list and more.
Track your website’s analytics to see what content boosts engagement and what content drives users away. Pay attention to the following metrics:
Session length.
Number of unique visitors.
Number of returning visitors.
Top organic keywords.
When you know what you need to improve, it’s easier to create a content marketing strategy that’s well suited to your business. It’s also easier to set goals. Without documented goals, it’s easy to lose sight of where your content is headed and what the next step is. Goals are essential for any business to prosper, especially in terms of content.
Create a content calendar to stay on track to achieving your goals and sticking to the strategy. When you have something to look at, it’s easier to plan your strategy out realistically. You can give yourself and your team enough time to create a plan that makes sense for your brand.
Pin down your target audience.
You wouldn’t set content marketing resolutions if you didn’t expect to encounter problems with the results. Something marketers must consider when creating content is the audience they’re writing for. It’s impossible to keep your readers interested when you don’t know what they want or need.
Get to know your audience better by creating buyer personas that outline the important details, such as location, age, income, buying behaviors, pain points and more. Customer personas are crucial for any brand to develop because they tell you what will keep your audience coming back.
If your content struggles to engage your visitors, then get to know them better. Have them fill out a customer feedback form or survey about their experience with your brand and its content. Ask them where you could improve and what would entice them to continue engaging on your website.
Spice up your content.
Perhaps the reason your content marketing efforts go unnoticed is that it isn’t up to standard. Whether it’s the way it’s written or its lack of varying mediums, your audience notices the little details. They know right away when they’re engaging with content that doesn’t interest them.
So, it’s important to refine your content by including various mediums. People don’t want to only engage with text. They also expect visual content that will pique their interest and keep them scrolling on your website. You want them to spend time browsing your content as long as you can. The more invested they are in your brand, the further down the sales funnel they’ll go.
It’s no secret that video marketing is popular among viewers and drives positive results for businesses both big and small. By 2022, video will represent more than 80 percent of all internet traffic, according to Cisco forecasting. When walls of text can’t keep readers on the page, videos will. Along with video, images play a huge part in improving your content strategy and garnering more visitors.
It’s important to set actionable goals for next year’s content marketing strategy so your business is on top of its game and gets closer to positive results. That means understanding who you’re writing for, including different mediums and creating an overall better strategy.
How will you improve your content in 2020?
Stephanie Wells is the founder of Formidable Forms, a drag & drop form builder for WordPress that empowers freelancers to create form-based solutions.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Disney+ content is already starting to disappear, and fans are freaking out
If you’re a Disney+ subscriber and have been planning to use the still relatively new streaming service to re-watch the original Home Alone, since the streamer had been carrying the beloved holiday classic since its launch in November, you’re unfortunately too late. With the start of the new year, both Home Alone and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York were pulled from Disney+ (along with other content likewise quietly pulled) in a style reminiscent of the ongoing content removal that Netflix subscribers are pretty accustomed to at this point. With the start of each month, new shows and movies get added to Netflix’s already insanely massive library of content — while other shows and movies likewise roll off the service, in a steady ballet of addition and subtraction that’s partly the result of Netflix dumping content that’s not watched as much anymore as well as a function of licensing deals that mean a half-life gets baked into every show and every movie we stream.
But wait, you’re probably asking. What’s with this happening to Disney+’s library? If the streamer was launched in the first place as a home for content from Disney’s myriad brands like Marvel and Star Wars, why would stuff they own ever get pulled in the first place? Because it’s not like Netflix originals like Stranger Things or The Crown get pulled, just the stuff that Netflix licenses like The Office and Friends, right?
It’s actually a little more complicated than that. The long and short of it, however, is that this is still, by and large, the exception to the rule at Disney+ and should affect a far, far smaller slice of its library of shows and movies compared to Netflix. Not that that’s stopped fans from freaking out that this is happening with the new streamer that’s quickly attracted millions of users since its launch on November 12:
Disney Plus is really removing titles from their service already. Disappointing.
— Gary Newsome Jr. (@gnews64) January 1, 2020
I thought the whole point of Disney+ is that they wouldn’t be like other streaming companies by removing content and instead have it available from then on. That’s why many people signed up—eliminating the vault and access to content you couldn’t get anywhere else. What a bummer.
— Alyssa ♥️s TROS (@songbirdonfire) January 1, 2020
A Disney representative told BGR pre-launch that a small fraction of Disney+ content will roll off the service as a result of licensing deals that pre-date the streamer, so this comes as no surprise. Indeed, other films like The Sandlot and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides have also rolled off the streamer, and according to Bloomberg if existing agreements stand then major Disney films like Star Wars: The Last Jedi are also due to roll back on to Netflix starting “around 2026” (we say “if” those agreements stand, because there’s always the possibility both streamers could reach a new accord).
Again, though, it bears repeating that the vast majority of what’s on Disney+ now is not (and will not) be going anywhere. Some subscribers took to social media to also say they were miffed Disney didn’t issue any kind of statement about this content removal, the same way Netflix is super-clear and upfront about everything that’s coming and going each month — trumpeting it on social media, and emailing every media outlet under the sun with the latest lists. Disney didn’t do that in this case, however, because — again — that’s not what this was. As the streamer put it in a statement to Comicbook.com back in November, there won’t be a “rotating slate” of licensed movies from one month to the next.
That’s not the same thing, however, as saying pre-existing deals won’t mean a small number of movies here and there are pulled as a result. But c’mon — you didn’t think you owned any of this content and got to watch it all in perpetuity, right?
By Stephanie Wells, founder of Formidable Forms
As we enter 2020, businesses are gearing up for the new year. That means it’s time to evaluate strategies, keep what works and change what doesn’t.
For content marketing, it’s especially important to check in periodically to ensure it’s performing well with your target audience. If there’s anything that’s going to organically drive traffic to your website, it’s content. When it offers value and is written for the correct audience, it generates leads, sales and much more.
Your content is a vital part of your business success, and if it doesn’t live up to users’ standards, you won’t see the results you’re hoping for.
So, if your business is looking to revamp its content marketing strategy this year, here are a few resolutions to consider.
Refine your content strategy.
If your content isn’t bringing you the results you hoped for, then it’s time to reevaluate your strategy. It’s what takes your process from point A to point B. If you fail to create a solid content marketing strategy, you’ll also fail to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, grow your email list and more.
Track your website’s analytics to see what content boosts engagement and what content drives users away. Pay attention to the following metrics:
Session length.
Number of unique visitors.
Number of returning visitors.
Top organic keywords.
When you know what you need to improve, it’s easier to create a content marketing strategy that’s well suited to your business. It’s also easier to set goals. Without documented goals, it’s easy to lose sight of where your content is headed and what the next step is. Goals are essential for any business to prosper, especially in terms of content.
Create a content calendar to stay on track to achieving your goals and sticking to the strategy. When you have something to look at, it’s easier to plan your strategy out realistically. You can give yourself and your team enough time to create a plan that makes sense for your brand.
Pin down your target audience.
You wouldn’t set content marketing resolutions if you didn’t expect to encounter problems with the results. Something marketers must consider when creating content is the audience they’re writing for. It’s impossible to keep your readers interested when you don’t know what they want or need.
Get to know your audience better by creating buyer personas that outline the important details, such as location, age, income, buying behaviors, pain points and more. Customer personas are crucial for any brand to develop because they tell you what will keep your audience coming back.
If your content struggles to engage your visitors, then get to know them better. Have them fill out a customer feedback form or survey about their experience with your brand and its content. Ask them where you could improve and what would entice them to continue engaging on your website.
Spice up your content.
Perhaps the reason your content marketing efforts go unnoticed is that it isn’t up to standard. Whether it’s the way it’s written or its lack of varying mediums, your audience notices the little details. They know right away when they’re engaging with content that doesn’t interest them.
So, it’s important to refine your content by including various mediums. People don’t want to only engage with text. They also expect visual content that will pique their interest and keep them scrolling on your website. You want them to spend time browsing your content as long as you can. The more invested they are in your brand, the further down the sales funnel they’ll go.
It’s no secret that video marketing is popular among viewers and drives positive results for businesses both big and small. By 2022, video will represent more than 80 percent of all internet traffic, according to Cisco forecasting. When walls of text can’t keep readers on the page, videos will. Along with video, images play a huge part in improving your content strategy and garnering more visitors.
It’s important to set actionable goals for next year’s content marketing strategy so your business is on top of its game and gets closer to positive results. That means understanding who you’re writing for, including different mediums and creating an overall better strategy.
How will you improve your content in 2020?
Stephanie Wells is the founder of Formidable Forms, a drag & drop form builder for WordPress that empowers freelancers to create form-based solutions.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Disney+ content is already starting to disappear, and fans are freaking out
If you’re a Disney+ subscriber and have been planning to use the still relatively new streaming service to re-watch the original Home Alone, since the streamer had been carrying the beloved holiday classic since its launch in November, you’re unfortunately too late. With the start of the new year, both Home Alone and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York were pulled from Disney+ (along with other content likewise quietly pulled) in a style reminiscent of the ongoing content removal that Netflix subscribers are pretty accustomed to at this point. With the start of each month, new shows and movies get added to Netflix’s already insanely massive library of content — while other shows and movies likewise roll off the service, in a steady ballet of addition and subtraction that’s partly the result of Netflix dumping content that’s not watched as much anymore as well as a function of licensing deals that mean a half-life gets baked into every show and every movie we stream.
But wait, you’re probably asking. What’s with this happening to Disney+’s library? If the streamer was launched in the first place as a home for content from Disney’s myriad brands like Marvel and Star Wars, why would stuff they own ever get pulled in the first place? Because it’s not like Netflix originals like Stranger Things or The Crown get pulled, just the stuff that Netflix licenses like The Office and Friends, right?
It’s actually a little more complicated than that. The long and short of it, however, is that this is still, by and large, the exception to the rule at Disney+ and should affect a far, far smaller slice of its library of shows and movies compared to Netflix. Not that that’s stopped fans from freaking out that this is happening with the new streamer that’s quickly attracted millions of users since its launch on November 12:
Disney Plus is really removing titles from their service already. Disappointing.
— Gary Newsome Jr. (@gnews64) January 1, 2020
I thought the whole point of Disney+ is that they wouldn’t be like other streaming companies by removing content and instead have it available from then on. That’s why many people signed up—eliminating the vault and access to content you couldn’t get anywhere else. What a bummer.
— Alyssa ♥️s TROS (@songbirdonfire) January 1, 2020
A Disney representative told BGR pre-launch that a small fraction of Disney+ content will roll off the service as a result of licensing deals that pre-date the streamer, so this comes as no surprise. Indeed, other films like The Sandlot and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides have also rolled off the streamer, and according to Bloomberg if existing agreements stand then major Disney films like Star Wars: The Last Jedi are also due to roll back on to Netflix starting “around 2026” (we say “if” those agreements stand, because there’s always the possibility both streamers could reach a new accord).
Again, though, it bears repeating that the vast majority of what’s on Disney+ now is not (and will not) be going anywhere. Some subscribers took to social media to also say they were miffed Disney didn’t issue any kind of statement about this content removal, the same way Netflix is super-clear and upfront about everything that’s coming and going each month — trumpeting it on social media, and emailing every media outlet under the sun with the latest lists. Disney didn’t do that in this case, however, because — again — that’s not what this was. As the streamer put it in a statement to Comicbook.com back in November, there won’t be a “rotating slate” of licensed movies from one month to the next.
That’s not the same thing, however, as saying pre-existing deals won’t mean a small number of movies here and there are pulled as a result. But c’mon — you didn’t think you owned any of this content and got to watch it all in perpetuity, right?
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