How to Build Your Content Marketing Competency for a Post-Covid Future

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns have changed the world we work in. And many of us are wondering what we can do now to make our businesses thrive.

The solution to our problems is simple. We need to embrace the changes and adjust our marketing strategies to the new reality. 

In this article, we will talk about how to design a winning content marketing strategy for a Post-Covid era. Here are a few tips on how you can boost your efforts and improve customer trust and loyalty.

Spot the changes in customers’ preferences and behavior

What’s the first step you should take? You should analyze the hanges that have taken place in your niche. It will help you to understand whether you should revisit your current content marketing strategy.

Your main task here is to conduct a target audience analysis. You should identify the changes in your customers’ behavior, attitudes, and preferences and find out how these changes may affect your brand.

Let’s say you sell office chairs. Before the pandemic started, you wrote blog posts on topics like this: “How to pick a chair that is ideal for your office setting”. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses revisited their workplace policies and offered employees to work remotely full time. It means that your target audience’s preferences have changed – today, many of your customers buy office chairs for home use.

If you want to build your content marketing competency for a post-Covid future, you should discuss new topics in your blog. For instance, you can cover topics like “How to choose the best home office chair” to attract your new audience.

Talk about safety

The COVID-19 outbreak has changed our perception of safety:

• Surveys showed that many employees don’t feel safe returning to the office. 
• Recent studies suggest that food safety concerns have become more important than sustainability and other concerns.
• Another study shows that COVID-19 has greatly affected travel decisions and tourists’ perceptions of hygiene and safety. The pandemic triggered anxiety and forced travelers to reduce or cancel their travel plans for the next 12 months. 

Whatever niche you work in, you should address your customers’ safety concerns. You should create content that will convince your customers that your products and services are safe to use. 

For instance, if you work in the hospitality industry, you can create a Facebook video ad to demonstrate the COVID-19 Cleaning Procedures you developed. Or, if you run a digital business, you can write a blog post about the safety measures you take to protect your employees.

Tell your story

Modern customers are more loyal to authentic brands. Keep that in mind when designing your content marketing strategy for a post-Covid future. 

Don’t try to portrait your brand as a perfect one. Tell your customers a real story of your brand and write about all the challenges you have overcome to bring your innovative business ideas to life. 

Was it challenging for your business to survive the corona crisis? Share your experience with your target audience. The chances are your customers experienced the same problems, and your story will resonate with them on a deep emotional level.

Leverage storytelling to highlight your brand authenticity. It will help you to strengthen your customer relationship and achieve success in the long run.

Improve content quality

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, people were forced to spend most of their time indoors. That resulted in the increase of internet use and the rise of content consumption. Eventually, that has lead to changes in users’ behavior. 

Today’s users are picky about the content they consume. If you want to win their attention, you should create unique, informative, and valuable content.

Be aware that the quality of your writing will define the success of your brand in the coming year. If you hire qualified in-house content creators or use paper writing service online, you will beat the competition and get your brand noticed. Well-written blog posts will drive more traffic to your website and help you build customer loyalty.

Improve content readability

Content readability is as important as content uniqueness. No matter whether your article is interesting and informative – if it looks like a wall of text, no one will want to read it.

As we have mentioned above, modern users are picky. If you want to make them stay on your website, make the text skimmable. Here are five simple rules that will help you to improve text readability:

• Add headings and subheading 
• Use bulleted lists where possible
• Avoid passive voice
• Keep sentences short (preferably under 20 words)
• Highlight the most important words and phrases in bold

Retain your new customers

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic has severe negative impacts on the global economy, some industries have benefited from the coronavirus outbreak. Here is a list of the industries that expanded their markets in 2020:

• Entertainment streaming and gaming services
• Pharmaceuticals
• Logistics and delivery companies
• Companies that offer video conferencing software
• Ecommerce marketplaces

Do you work in one of the niches mentioned above? Were you able to increase your sales during the COVID-19 outbreak? Your main task now is to retain the recently acquired customers. 

Life is slowly returning to normal, and your customers may give up using your services. For instance, if you offer grocery delivery services, you will likely lose part of your recently acquired customers. Some people will stop using delivery services – they will start doing grocery shopping by themselves as they did before COVID-19.

Estelle Liotard, a writer and proofreader from GetGoodGrade, has this to say about creating content for a post-Covid future: 

“You need to draw your customers’ attention to the value they got from using your products during lockdowns. You should convince them that they will benefit from using your product even when life will get back to normal”.

Grow your social media presence

During the lockdowns, users have been actively interacting with brands on social media. And we can expect that this trend will not change in the post-Covid future.

If you want to stay connected with your target audience, you need to grow your social media presence. You should choose two or three social media platforms that your customers use the most. For instance, if you target Generation Z – create content for Instagram and TikTok. If you target older Millennials – focus on creating content for Facebook and Twitter.

You will maximize your social media marketing efforts if you follow these simple rules:

• Create diverse content – share photos, videos, memes, and any other content that appeals to your target audience.
• Write engaging captions for every picture you share.
• Tap into your customers’ emotions – share stories, memories, or something your customers can relate to.
• Leverage interactive content: quizzes, polls, online games, etc.
• Add 1-3 hashtags to every post.

Wrapping up

A post-Covid future is full of great business opportunities. Get ready to use them! Create a winning content marketing strategy and ensure the long-term success of your brand. 

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