9 Best Content Marketing Tips for 2023 and Beyond

No matter what time of year it is, you’re probably planning, creating, or sharing some content for your business. Content marketing is a core piece of a well-rounded marketing plan—but it doesn’t happen on its own. It takes planning to provide value and variety to your audience in the form of great content. If you’re looking for actionable and effective ways to improve your content marketing, here are nine content marketing tips you can apply to your website, blog, email marketing and social media.

1. Fulfill the reader’s goal 

Search intent, aka what is the reader trying to accomplish, has become a much more important SEO ranking factor over the past few years.

@cesilvam summed it up very well, so here you go: 

If you're writing content to rank on Google, ask yourself one question:

"What is my reader's immediate goal?"

Your answer will help structure your article entirely.

What to include, what to omit, how much jargon to use, etc…

Search Intent is Google’s #1 goal.

Nail it.

— Carlos Silva (@cesilvam) September 13, 2022

This kinda goes hand in hand with keyword research (or at least deep topic research). Try putting your topic or key phrase into the regular old Google search bar, and then take a look at the “People Also Ask” section that appears after the first few results. This will give you a good idea of the type of questions people are asking. The problems they’re trying to solve. 

Don’t just create content as a way to shoehorn your product or service into the conversation. Answer their questions. Be helpful. 

2. Tell your unique story

“How you run your business is not nearly as important as why.” One of the great inspirational marketers of the world must have said this because it seems to be true. People connect to stories. We love stories and we love learning how others achieved great results.

Your “why” is what sets you apart from the rest, and it’s a big part of your brand messaging strategy. You do have one lurking in there, even if you don’t see it! It’s a talented marketer’s job to help you find and share your brand story.

3. Get into the mind of your audience 

You’ve probably heard marketers talking about pain points. Well, they’re not talking about old sports injuries—customer pain points are the problems faced by your ideal prospective customer. Pain points put you inside the mind of your audience. 

First, you identify your target market’s needs: What problems are they trying to solve? How do they want to feel? Next, you position your company as a potential solution. How can your product or service help customers achieve the desired feeling? The StoryBrand approach does a great job of using pain points for engaging and effective content marketing. 

4. Share your link in the comments, not the post itself

This one’s a social media hack. Because platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook want you to stay on the platform vs clicking away, they don’t reward you for sharing links as posts. That’s why you may have noticed lots of content creators sharing posts on social media that have no links at all. Just text (with emojis, of course 😍😎🎉✨) and possibly an image. 

Then, they share a link to the post or video that the text is about as a comment. The benefits are two-fold: you “trick” the algorithm into giving your post more reach. Second, you increase the value you provide to your followers when you give something interesting or helpful to the reader right where they are, rather than making them click away to another platform or read an entire article. 

You can see how copywriter Eddie Schleyner uses this technique on LinkedIn.

5. Repurpose your content

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your content is to share it only once. One of the best ways to make the most out of your content is by recycling it into multiple formats. You can make an infographic, a video, a blog post, a webinar, an ebook, and a podcast all from the same topic. Then, share each of those content pieces over time. That way you appeal to all types of people, who have different preferred platforms and ways. 

6. Focus more on content distribution

Brands spend so much time creating content, and not nearly enough time promoting it. The result? Your great content doesn’t get to live up to its full potential. Poor little stunted growth for your content. 

Remember, people consume content in different ways, and only a small percentage of your audience will see any post on a particular platform. And, people don’t remember everything you’ve ever shared. 

Share your content on all your social platforms, and share it multiple times. Email it to your list. Ask your employees and friends to share it. Link it in your email signature. Remember, you’re trying to reach as many eyeballs as possible. 

When something has performed well, that’s a good sign you should share it again at a later date. In the words of content marketer Ross Simmonds: “Create once. Distribute forever.” 

7. Share your wins with your audience

Social proof might be one of the most timeless marketing concepts out there. People will always trust customer reviews over brand-generated promises. They want an honest opinion from someone who’s been there.   

In addition to having logos, testimonials and customer reviews on your website (the most classic examples of social proof) you can share screenshots of your wins on social media. Either block out names or get permission to share. 

Customers will love seeing real-life examples of your great results, so when people give you compliments, share them! Genuine customer feedback will always be more valuable than anything you can create. 

8. Don’t neglect your brand voice

Does your brand have a strong voice? How would you describe it? In my 10+ years as a content marketer, I’ve seen tooooo many brands procrastinate on defining their brand voice. Or worse, they simply write it off as “not that important”. 

Not true, my friend! 

Your brand voice is how you connect to your customers. How you speak their language and make them know, like, and trust you. How you remain consistent and recognizable. In some cases, it’s how you stand out in a competitive market. 

Your brand voice must—I repeat, must—encourage emotional connections. And the old fallback of “professional yet approachable” isn’t going to cut it. 

Did you know my superpower is mastering your brand voice in 10 seconds flat? No joke—even my clients say I have an uncanny knack for tapping into the intangible essence of a brand’s  communication style. AND distilling it all into a useful, repeatable format. 

Download my free Brand Messaging Guide Template to strengthen your brand messaging, help your teams and freelancers nail your brand voice, communicate consistently, and stand out in a sea of sameness.

9. Don’t be afraid to use a ghostwriter. 

Being a subject matter expert and an expert writer are two very different things. Maybe you don’t know what to write about or how to write about it. Maybe you’ve got great ideas but no time to execute them. That’s what ghostwriters are for. Outsourcing your content creation to a skilled writer will save you time, money and heartache. 

They’re trained to write for results and make you look good online. I create content for top finance, SaaS, and B2B brands, helping to position them as experts in their industry.

Ready to create a content strategy that fits your brand audience and your goals for growth? Schedule a time to chat.