There are many ways to use content marketing, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. However, for a “boring” industry like insurance or financial services, it can be challenging to develop high-quality content that will surprise your audience. That’s where the power of storytelling comes in handy. Here we’ll explore how you can create engaging stories around an otherwise dull subject by figuring out which story elements do well on social media. Content marketing is a type of marketing strategy that uses the creation and distribution of original content to attract, engage, and inform an audience. The system can be used for any industry or business, but it’s most often associated with “boring” industries like insurance or finance. You already know how successful content marketing is because you’ve seen it used by thousands of organizations. It enables them to attract thousands of visitors to their site and outrank you in search engine results. So, why aren’t you making use of it? Isn’t it because you work in a dull industry? I’m sorry to tell you this, but there is no such thing as the light industry. There are just lousy authors who lack imagination.
Ways to use content marketing in every industry, even the “boring” ones:
1. There are more possibilities in the ugly sectors.
It’s simple to use content marketing to promote themes like health, relationships, and politics. However, it is considerably more challenging to do so for banking, dentistry, and insurance. As a result, you won’t find many individuals in those industries employing content marketing as a primary approach. Yes, such markets are competitive, but you can compete with content marketing. Best of all, competing will be pretty reasonable because content creation does not have to be costly. So, no matter where you are, don’t worry; by the conclusion of this piece, you’ll be able to come up with some techniques and ideas.
2. Problem-solving.
What kind of consumer do you want to attract? First, it’s someone you’re already aware of. I’m sure you’re aware of the issues that your ideal consumer is dealing with. And I’m confident that your understanding of your consumers’ difficulties extends beyond those directly linked to your product or service to any common challenge they experience in their personal or professional life. A VP of Marketing or Director of Marketing at a software-as-a-service firm, for example, is a KISSmetrics key client. Our purpose is to assist them in resolving their analytics issues. Although KISSmetrics only provides analytics software, we help our clients determine all of their marketing issues. We achieve this by publishing SEO, conversion optimization, and general marketing on our KISSmetrics blog. SEO, for example, has nothing to do with our analytics product, but it does assist our ideal clients in solving their issues. This increases the number of people who see our ads. Some of those folks will eventually learn more about KISSmetrics and what we do. If you answer your customers’ concerns, you’ll see the same outcomes as KISSmetrics: our content marketing initiatives account for more than half of our income.
3. Relevance takes precedence over traffic.
I recall when linkbait initially gained popularity. To create links, all of the marketers would write on any subject. When I worked for Life Insure, a life insurance firm, the prior marketers would write on basic themes like computer technology or general business advice. They didn’t choose these subjects because they thought they were necessary. They just chose them in the hopes of increasing their backlinks. Although they were successful with this strategy, it was ineffective, and Life Insure experienced little to no revenue growth. So when they hired me six or seven years ago, I pondered life insurance-related content marketing concepts. As you would expect, I couldn’t think of a unique way to write about insurance, but I immediately understood that people buy insurance because they are afraid of dying. As a result, I created a piece of material titled “19 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Death.” The essay was well-received since it included intriguing information such as The typical individual stays aware for an extra 15-20 seconds after being beheaded. What a path to take. It created hundreds of relevant inbound links and, most crucially, it assisted Life Insure in moving from the 5th to the 3rd position on Google for the phrase “life insurance.” This aided the company’s revenue generation. This may be done in any industry. For example, I made a substance abuse chart for Passages Malibu, a drug recovery facility. I included a list of all of the most often abused substances and the symptoms that each drug produces, and a picture of what each pill looks like. This chart was so successful that it had over 70 links and helped Passages Malibu rank on page one of Google for the term “drug treatment” at the time. Don’t take the easy way out and write about anything that will go viral while developing content for your website. Create content relevant to your company and beneficial to your target consumer.
4. Data and complex material are popular among people.
It’s not only about making people laugh or showcasing lovely kitten images in content marketing. It’s all about producing instructional and valuable information.
The following are some of the most compelling pieces of content you can create:
- Infographics — displaying data-rich statistics in an easy-to-understand visual style will often attract thousands of visits and hundreds of links over time. We got 2,512,596 pageviews, 41,142 backlinks from 3,741 different sites, 41,359 tweets, and 20,859 likes from 47 infographics at KISSmetrics. Follow these steps if you want to learn how to make a viral infographic.
- People like data, even if it isn’t presented in a visually appealing manner. For example, take a peek at OK Cupid’s intercourse blog article. They received 26,000 Facebook likes and 4,285 tweets from that one blog article. You should have no trouble generating momentum if you can gather meaningful data and share it with others.
- People like reading blogs, even if they don’t look attractive to most people. Tumblr would not have sold for over a billion dollars to Yahoo if they hadn’t. Creating evergreen content is the key to generating blog entries that attract visitors over time. This may be seen in articles like “Lists” and “How To” instructions. When compared to news-related information that is only hot for a week, such sorts of content pieces are often still worthwhile to read even if they are five years old. Follow my methods here if you wish to mimic my approach to blogging.
5. Remember to guest post.
It’s not just about producing material on your website for content marketing. It also entails using all of the blogs in your industry. You should spend 20% of your time focusing on getting your material published on other blogs. This article will show you how to submit guest pieces for publication.
And if you’re looking for something to do with the remainder of your time… 40% should go into developing content for your site, and 40% should go toward promoting the material on your site and your guest articles.
Keep these three things in mind while guest posting:
- First, only guest posts on sites related to your business; will help you get relevant backlinks and visitors. Visitors are also more likely to become clients.
- Use rich anchor text sparingly — connect back to your site when it makes sense, and avoid stuffing the link with it. Put yourself in the readers’ position if you’re unsure. Add a link to your site if you believe it would assist them.
- Link to your internal pages – most individuals utilize guest articles to increase the popularity of their homepages’ links. When you look at significant content sites like Wikipedia, you’ll notice that they all have one thing in common: most of their connections go to internal pages. For example, only 6% of Wikipedia’s links go to their main page. Linking to internal sites can assist you in enhancing your long-tail traffic and increase your authority.
6. Using tools to produce ideas.
Last but not least, you’ll need to develop some content marketing strategies for your company. But don’t worry; I’ll show you how to generate ideas for any business quickly.
Using a few tools and websites to generate ideas is the most straightforward approach to do so:
- Portent provides a handy little application that can automatically create blog post titles for you. Enter terms relating to your industry into our tool, and it will generate a list of possible names for you to utilize.
- Twitter search – Twitter is the simplest method to check what others are talking about in your industry. It’s real-time, and there are millions of individuals discussing a wide range of issues. Type terms relating to your industry into Twitter’s search box. If you see many people tweeting about the same item, you can write about it. This will enhance the chances of your content being tweeted.
- Quora questions — there’s a strong possibility your consumers are learning on Quora. Use terms relating to your industry to search Quora to discover what your target market is attempting to learn. Feel free to make a blog post if you encounter any excellent queries that might be converted into one. You can also link to it from Quora, which would help you get more visitors.
- You may locate all of the prominent blogs in your area using blog search, ranging from Google Blog Search to Technorati. But, first, examine their websites to see which pieces of content are receiving the most attention, such as social shares and comments. This should give you a good notion of what others in your area desire to read.
You’re ready to apply content marketing now that you know how to come up with content ideas.
Conclusion
There is no such thing as a “boring” sector; thus, content marketing should work for every firm. It’s not a difficult task. All you have to do is be willing to put in the time and effort. And before you criticize your actions, allow yourself at least six months to create high-quality material before you start using it. You won’t notice results right immediately, but after six months, you should be able to keep going ahead. Finally, creating quality material isn’t enough. You won’t get fantastic results if you don’t advertise it appropriately. As a result, devote 40% of your effort to promoting your content.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you write content for boring industries?
A: I use a variety of techniques to create captivating content. One strategy that is safe for me to use in an industry like this one, which is highly dull and not very interesting, would be using the five senses to engage with my audience. So, for example, if you’re writing about the food, you might include smells or sounds from preparation processes and taste experiences when reading recipes or cooking instructions.
What industries use content marketing?
A: The publishing industry uses content marketing and the entertainment and advertising industries.
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