With over 4 billion active internet users producing nearly 83,000 blog posts every hour, finding innovative new ways to stand out from the legions of online chaff has become imperative for content marketers across all industries. New techniques such as visual storytelling and interactive content have risen to the fore as creators have been forced to adapt to the new realities of the digital landscape.
If you’re worried about what concrete, actionable steps you can take to elevate your content in an environment that’s noisier than ever, this guide is for you. Attracting and retaining the attention of your target audience has become the new gold standard for online content creation — and while it’s harder than ever — successfully accomplishing this can supercharge your marketing strategy into something that can reliably drive and convert leads to your sales teams.
Marvin Pranger is all about creating & consuming snackable content at Maglr. Marvin firmly believes that memorable content experiences are key in effectively informing, engaging and convincing your audiences. His mission? To replace all static content that is living online.
Piper Thomson works with G2 as a Content Marketing Associate. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, they graduated from Kenyon College with a degree in Sociology. Their interests include podcasts, rock climbing, and understanding how people form systems of knowledge in the digital age.
Dive straight into the leadings trends. This guide is more than just a simple overview of the shiny new toys. We'll show you why you should be using interactive content and how to best leverage it in your digital marketing strategy.
Remember the old days? Companies were confined to tools like PowerPoint, PDF and printed brochures to share their story.
Much marketing and sales content still are distributed as static content to date. In addition, it's never very mobile-friendly in terms of design and use. And that, of course, does not fit in with the experience that brands and companies want to communicate. You want the content experience to be right from start to finish.
The benefit of social media is that everyone has been given a voice. The downside of social media is that everyone has been given a voice.
It changed the way how we currently distribute and consume content. As snackable content. Bite-sized content snacks that quickly satisfy our hunger for information and entertainment.
Before the usage of mobile devices and even for social media, websites and forums were the way to distribute content. Websites were crammed with static pages full of texts and images. Information was sent to you as a Word, PDF or PowerPoint file.
But as our screen became smaller and the way we started consuming content changed, so did the way we had to communicate. Everything became more visual and faster.
4G Internet: kickstarting internet usage on smart phones
Instagram Stories. A new way to share visual stories wrapped in seconds
When information is cheap, attention becomes expensive.
We're living in times of a content overload
Our time online and attention is scarce. So it's time to give back more attention to..well, our attention. How? By offering better context experiences. Everyone and everything is connected. Brands and companies are competing to win over our (digital) attention. So it's time to look into how we are delivering content.
Nothing has changed!
With all of the changes in technology and consumer behaviour, companies still keep pushing content that is static, unreadable on mobile devices and unattractive to read. So....
This playbook will show you how to turn static content into engaging experiences. How? By adding more interactive elements to your sales & marketing content.
We’ve come a long way from the mommy bloggers of the early 2000’s. Nowadays there are dozens of content vehicles you can use to reach new audiences. Even if you’re not ready to try something totally out of the box like starting your own podcast, there’s plenty you can do to create content that stands out.
It’s an indisputable fact that the omnipresence of the internet has fundamentally altered the way humans interact, and by extension, changed the way they market their businesses to one another. However, the ascendancy of the online world has led to a strange tension within the discipline of marketing, and content creation is at the forefront of this.
Sold yet? It’s only good sense to investigate the data behind such bold claims about the efficacy of a particular strategy. After all, going down the wrong path could have disastrous consequences for your business.
At this point, you’re probably chomping at the bit to get started with interactive content. Well hold your horses, cowboy! As we mentioned before, interactive content has a high start-up cost associated with it: money if you have someone make it for you, or your own time if you do it yourself.
Rushing forward without thoughtfully considering how best to leverage dynamic content can be just as ruinous to distinguishing your brand as publishing nothing but dry whitepapers for the next 300 years. There are several types of interactive content, and each have specific uses that are tailor-made to accomplish specific initiatives at different parts of the marketing pipeline.
Regardless of which trend you decided to home in on for your content marketing strategy, one rule remains the same: make sure your content is engaging.
Ask yourself this question: would you want to share or re-read the content your team is putting out? Is there something compelling in your content that provides value other publishers don’t?
If not, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and start creating more snackable content. Are you working up an appetite yet?
These days, content creators are having difficulties in choosing between creating short-form or long-form content to beat the content overload. Even more when they have to take into account the quality, consistency and time it takes to make quality content. And at the same time we are told that our digital attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Nonsense! We still determine for ourselves where, how and when we want to consume content. But it helps when it is delivered in a bite-sized format.
Finding innovative ways to stand out from the legions of online clutter has become imperative for content marketers. And when it comes to sales & marketing content, nothing much has changed over the past 20 years. Until this day, companies are still using tools like PowerPoint and PDF while consumers demand mobile-friendly, visual and engaging content. Therefore, attracting and retaining the attention of your target audience has become the new gold standard for online content creation.
Content that is fit for 2020
Content marketing is making forays into several new forms of content. And one of the most notable trends today are interactive content and visual storytelling. Interactive content allows users to more easily form a connection with a brand by engaging with the information they need. Visual storytelling has become a vital part of the execution of contemporary marketing endeavors, because if you can’t display your content as understandable snackable content, you will lose your audience.
There’s data to prove it
Content Marketing Institute’s report discusses additional benefits, stating that 79% of respondents to their report found interactive content to be far more flexible than static content. Interactive content does have a much higher up-front investment to create than a plain old white paper, true, but the ease with which it can convey information allow it to be translated across channels far more effectively than the written word.
How-to: interactive content
Interactive content enables you to deliver engaging, educational, differentiated content experiences. Content that will help you nurture your target audience from mere brand awareness all the way to the sales pitch. From informative infographics at an early stage to configurators to help your prospects at the final stage; one rule remains the same: make sure your content is helpful and engaging.
Back at the menu: snackable content
We know that it can be hard to stand out with your content. But it helps when it is delivered in a bite-sized format. Make it snackable! Create visually engaging and interactive pieces of content that will invite your audience to take another bite. And once you know what they like, it is much easier to retain your happy consumers.
So what type of content do you want to serve your audience?
We hope you've enjoyed reading this playbook. Please feel free to share it with your colleagues or friends via mail or social media. We would only appreciate it! Thank you for your valuable time!
G2 and Maglr have joined forces in this playbook to show you how interactive content offers an opportunity to differentiate your brand and engage your audience.