Digital Marketing with Content: Quality over Quantity

There’s no shortcut to successful digital marketing with content. The competition is fierce, and digital marketing leaders must have the ability to cut through the clutter of trends and focus on strategies that produce leads and ROI.

According to a recent Inc.com article, brands that want to succeed must outperform competitors in all of the following categories:

• Blogging
• Live events
• Social media
• Mobile marketing

There isn’t a quick and easy way to accomplish this, but there is one thing your brand can focus on for guaranteed digital content marketing success: quality over quantity.

What does quality over quantity look like, and how can it help your brand succeed?

Blogging

What does quality over quantity look like on a blog? Your blog should be a reflection of your brand identity. The best way to ensure your blog offers a brand touchpoint is through the use of images and video. Not just any image or video, but high-quality images and video.

It’s OK to use stock photos occasionally, but when someone finds your blog posts online, are they impressed by your images? Do these images reflect your brand message? Investing in high-quality images and video for your blog will separate your brand from the rest and encourage likes, clicks, and shares on social media.

1. Customize Stock Photos

If you don’t have the time or budget to use a professional photography team, customize your stock photos. You can add text, graphics, and color filter overlays to make stock photos unique.

2. Prioritize Professional Photo & Video Placements

Make the most of your photography budget by using professional photos for your best blog posts. Make a list of high-traffic and high-conversion blog posts and add professional photos and videos to improve your conversion rates. An image study by MarketingExperiments.com, website visitors were 35% more likely to convert when they saw a photo of a real company representative vs. a generic stock photo.

3. Photo Strategy

Using quality photos in a blog post to boost engagement works best when it’s based on strategy. Review the information in your buyer persona research. Using this information as a guide, ask these questions before selecting photos for your high-traffic and high-conversion blog posts:

• Will this photo appeal to the target audience?
• Does this photo look better than competitor images?
• Will this photo look good on a mobile device?
• How will this photo transfer to social media? (Consider text cut-offs, etc.)

If you can answer yes to all of those questions, use the image in your blog post and measure the results. If you’re torn between two photos, use A/B testing as part of your photo strategy.

Live Events & Offices

When we talk about digital marketing with content, we automatically think of online content. But did you know that innovative brands are taking digital themes to their live events and office spaces?

When prospects meet your company at a live event or your office, do they experience your brand through best-in-class creativity and visuals? Event attendees will remember your company long after the event ends if they walk away with a story about your brand. If a client visits your office for a presentation, training, or a meeting, will they remember your company, or will it blend in with all of the others they are considering?

Create a powerful story with interactive digital displays and draw them in with LED video walls, touchscreens, and content displays they can’t resist.

Email Marketing

Did you know that 86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes? Your company probably uses email as part of the digital marketing campaign, but how long has it been since you’ve looked at it through a prospect’s eyes?

When it comes to email marketing, your brand can’t afford to lose prospects because the email or video didn’t load properly on a mobile device. Evaluate your email marketing campaign by checking that the following is true:

• Images load quickly and properly on smartphones and tablets.
• Videos load quickly and properly on smartphones and tablets.
• The emails are easy to share on social media channels.
• The images and videos convey brand image and messaging.

If the visual assets in your email campaign don’t pass those four checks, work with a professional image and video team to bring them up to standard.

Are your emails still rolling out with text only? Researchers found that colorful visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. Focus on quality and add images and video to your email campaign.

Social Media

As of April 2018, the total worldwide population is 7.6 billion. There are 3.03 billion active social media users. That’s 39.8% of the people. Your brand can’t afford to ignore platforms that have the attention of almost 40% of the planet.

Here are the user numbers by channels: 

(Source: Brandwatch)

Prioritizing quality over quantity for social media marketing means knowing your target audience and focusing on the social media channels they use.

Once you’ve identified the top social media channels to focus on, follow up with a quality image and video strategy. In most cases, your brand already has the images and video assets; it’s just a matter of organizing them and checking on the quality.

If you have an extensive video library, but aren’t sure how to repurpose them for social media, learn the secret to repurposing video for social media in this blog post.

Mobile Marketing

The number of mobile phone users is expected to surpass the five-billion mark. Over 36% of those are projected smartphone users. (Statista)

If your brand is invested in digital content marketing, a high-quality mobile marketing strategy must be part of the mix. Many of our pointers for mobile marketing are listed above for optimizing images and video, but you can dive even further into strategy with Think with Google’s Mobile Advertising and Trends Guide.

As digital marketing with content evolves, only brands who put quality ahead of quantity will win. Your digital branding and marketing strategy creates a lasting presence that can help you surpass the competition, as long as you keep quality at the forefront of your efforts.