By Amy DeWolf
In a recent post in Forbes, Jay Baer discusses the secrets to great content marketing. For government, getting your information in front of an audience is important. The more information you can provide citizens in an easily accessible manner, the better. For private organizations, great content marketing translates to dollars.
1) Is your content marketing useful?- There’s a lot of information in our world today and a lot of places to access that information. Sometimes government agencies provide information that can be found in other places. According to Baer, “”the secret to effective content marketing is to make your messages truly and inherently useful.” You don’t need to be louder than the rest, you just need to provide the most useful information. It sounds simple but good content is the key to good content marketing.
2) Are you a digital dandelion? USC’s Center for the Digital Future announced recently that 80 percent of Americans’ online time is spent at 15 or fewer online destinations.This, as we know, means it’s likely people are not going directly to your website for information. This is where “create once, publish everywhere” comes into play. Getting your content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc is critical to it getting seen by more people.
3) Are you the best solution? Similar to your content being useful, Baer notes that good content marketing occurs when you provide the best information. Whether it’s a travel app, or information obtaining a license, you want to be the best place to get the information (again, this only applies if there is a choice). Often in government, there’s only one place to get certain information. This doesn’t mean we should be complacent, however, as the alternative to being the only solution is being just don’t look at your information. You want people to come back to your site, sign up for your alerts, and continue to be engaged. The best way to do this is to provide the best content possible.
What else would you add to the list?