The Time is Now for Purposeful Content & Brand Integrity

With businesses of all sizes struggling to adapt to a rapid change of pace and shifting consumer needs, marketing teams are faced with the challenge of deciding where best to apply their efforts and budgets. Now more than ever, the saying ‘Content is King’ rings true. It’s vital that you keep up engagement with your customers and that your brand offers up digital content that is unique, meaningful and above all useful for your audience.

Brands will be judged by the way in which they communicate during this time of crisis, so a well thought-through and sensitive digital content strategy is absolutely vital for keeping your valued customers on-side.

1. What do you really want to say?

Take a step back and think about the message your brand is putting out into the world and your digital footprint. Are you communicating your services effectively and with integrity? Is your content purposeful and does it inspire engagement? Is your tone of voice consistent and truly reflective of your values?

Now is the perfect time to review the content of your website and ensure that it is still meaningful for your users as their world view and buying behaviours continue to shift.

Above all, avoid content that is self-serving. Your users want to know that you stand by their side during these complicated times and any ‘hard sell’ is bound to go down like a lead balloon. 

Additionally, do not fall into the trap of thinking your content needs to be crammed full of keywords. It doesn’t. Keywords can help define the topic, however your content should be written with the reader in mind – not search engines. If the article is well written it will be shared, linked to, liked on social media and this is how content campaigns drive SEO value.

2. Build your online community

With people spending even more time scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, they are bombarded with negative messages that build stress and anxiety.

As a respectful brand, you need to show your customers that you will stand by their side through thick and thin. Post useful, insightful content that gives them hope and reassurance. How can you apply your particular knowledge or expertise to help your audience navigate these uncertain times?

Leveraging Social Media will no doubt be key to continued customer engagement, but avoid self-serving posts at all costs. Take this opportunity to build up an online community of loyal followers that believe in the integrity of your brand.

3. Keep ’em coming back

Invest some time in carrying out a full review of your website’s analytics and identify trends in user behaviour:

• How have people been interacting with your content?
• Which areas of your site are the highest-performing?
• Where are people dropping off?
• What content drives the most engagement?
• What content has attracted the most backlinks?
• What are your competitors doing well?

Maintaining a strong understanding of these areas are crucial to running successful content campaigns.

Think also about your keyword strategy and how to increase organic traffic to your website. Having your site appear on the top positions of the first page of Google when markets recover will be vital for keeping a step ahead of your competitors. By supporting your core landing pages with optimised blog content, and by building a strong backlink profile to the website, you’ll help your pages climb the rankings.

Whilst traditional marketing budgets have been significantly cut over the last few weeks and months, now is the time to ensure your digital presence is leading the way and your website is easily found in organic search.

4. Develop your creative roster

Make the most of this time to build up your bank of creative content. Design impactful digital brochures, banners, or even carry out a full website redesign; anything that will help you to effectively communicate your brand values and prepare you for when things inevitably bounce back.

Think about where you stand in relation to other businesses in your market. If your digital content is lacking impact and purpose, now is the time to invest some time and make sure you stand out from the crowd.

5. Plan for the future

This won’t last forever. Spend some time now to think ahead – what will be the need for your products or services in 3-6 months’ time? How do you want your brand to be positioned in the market when consumer behaviour regains some degree of normalcy?

If you’d like to talk to a specialist, get in touch below and we’ll schedule an hour long consultation with one of our Content, SEO or Social Experts, from which we can get an idea of your pain-points, current marketing activities and most importantly, your short and long term goals. From this we can put together an action plan identifying the low hanging fruit, as well as laying out a longer term strategy for continued success.