These days, companies operating on overly competitive markets have to use every single trick in the book to stay in front of their prospects and existing clients. Those who think this task is overwhelming should be ready to face an even greater challenge: information overload.
This can also be known as content infoxication, or infobesity. (Webster, can we add those to the dictionary, please?)
Content Fatigue: The Silent Disease that can Threaten Your Ascension in Any Industry
According to an article published by Huffington Post, the amount of information available online will increase a whopping 600% by 2020. This somewhat intimidating prediction suggests business owners will have to go out of their way to implement more effective marketing campaigns based on the best content that they’ve created and published so far.
These numbers make us consider one potential threat that could shake our world to the ground: Content fatigue. We are crafting and publishing more and more content to stay relevant; but at the end of the day we are competing for the same pair of eyeballs.
A chart published by Moz illustrates the danger we may have been ignoring for too long. According to this source, the quantity of contentreaders are exposed to influences the relative likelihood of earning visits, applause, and amplification.
In other words, infobesity maintained though an overflow of written words could make it increasingly difficult for readers to find the concise information they were actually looking for in a timely fashion, amplifying their frustration and maximizing your website’s bounce rate at the same time.
10 Simple Ways to Keep Content Fatigue at Bay
Furthermore, one of the most pressing problems we experience today is based on the fact that generic messages about the importance of content have tricked many business owners into creating “content for the sake of content”. Millions of small companies that pursue big goals still count on an ineffective “one-post-per-day” blogging strategy that revolves around overdone concepts and outdated formats, instead of being geared towards new, interesting and useful information that may actually capture the readers’ attention.
Intoxicated with huge amounts of data that they have very little time to digest, people may become less receptive to the messages that you’re trying to send through your content. So how can you overcome this challenge and earn the amplification that you feel entitled to? Here are 10 easy ways to fight content fatigue on a daily basis, while also perfecting your existing content marketing strategies.
1. Organize Weekly Brainstorming Sessions
In order to round-up some of the best ideas that can help you combat the meanest case of content fatigue, it is imperative to start organizing better brainstorming sessions. According to Entrepreneur, the most successful ones gather less than 10 people and reflect the highest level of cognitive diversity. This means that the brains of all attendees hold different kinds of conceptual materials. Ask writers, copywriters, marketers, and client managers to join. The perspectives shared by your staff members will enable you to prevent topic fixation and come up with great newsworthy facts, while also battling content fatigue.
2. Including New People in Your Content Creation Plan
We will let you in on a little secret: diversity is the key to neutralizing content fatigue. This means you shouldn’t hesitate to allow new people to support your content creation efforts. Talk to new staff members, survey your new clients for their biggest questions or have a nice chat with your client manager. All these people could help you gain invaluable insight and explore new topics that could put an end to your writer’s block and maximize your productivity.
3. Stick to a Fresh Editorial Calendar
An editorial calendar provides numerous benefits and makes your life as a small business owner so much easier. Just think about it: this handy little helper can give you the chance to avoid a virtually endless list of problems listed by Hootsuite, like missing extremely important dates, publishing low-performing content, overwhelming or puzzling your team of writers, neglecting or spamming social media platforms and, ultimately, amplifying the content fatigue threat. An editorial calendar created and adjusted by multiple staff members can support your content planning efforts and help you stay up-to-date and relevant in your industry.
Here’s an example of an editorial calendar we use. It can be as simple as a few fields in Excel:
Photo credit: Express Writers4. Become an Expert in Your Niche or Work Closely with One
Let’s face it: readers love experts. They simply devour content pieces written by specialists who provide accurate, easy to follow tips on how to face daily challenges. If you don’t have what it takes to share your wisdom and connect with your readers on such a level, I highly recommend collaborating with expert writers who are familiar with your industry. Work with people who have already made a name for themselves in your niche, instead of relying only on generic writers.
For example, if you operate in the IT or automotive sector, it would be better to employ a tech writer who would have the skills and knowledge required to translate the features of your products into benefits that could attract the attention and interest of your potential buyers.
5. Listen to What Influencers and Thought Leaders Have to Say
You can prevent content fatigue by learning from the best. Consider establishing strong relationships with the individuals who have already achieved the goals you are currently pursuing. By interacting with the most prominent thought leaders in your industry you can come up with fresh, interesting content ideas and lay the foundation of beneficial relationships enabling you to reach a wider audience, while building credibility and trust in your sector. Listening to others in your industry, connecting, and talking with them is a fabulous strategy that can bring awesome ideas together for free! Unleash the power of the people and let it take your content creation and distribution to a whole new level.
Being sociable always pays off, especially when it comes to using your own connections to improve brand awareness and consolidate your position on a certain market.
6. Put Pen to Paper Anytime, Anywhere and Stay Relevant
Don’t let your creative impulses vanish into thin air. According to Business2Community, this is a major mistake that will make you dread the agony of a strict deadline and the frustration of gazing at the blank page in front of you. As soon as you come up with a brilliant idea that could lead to a shareable article or blog post, write it down. Keep a list of excellent content ideas on your smart phone or notepad and discuss them with your staff members during your weekly brainstorming sessions.
Relevancy is another aspect that you should consider. At the end of the day, it is extremely important to be able to identify and respect the limits of your readers. Unless you’re offering gift cards in all the emails that you’re sending to your prospects (people can’t get enough of freebies, that’s for sure!), try to send emails on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to prevent content fatigue.
This way, you can filter and polish the information you want your readers to assimilate and give your audience the blessing of a less cluttered inbox. Also, keep in mind that meandering is not the best tactic during content creation. Don’t try to cover multiple topics in the same blog post. By doing so, you only manage to confuse your readers and make them lose their focus.
7. Come Up with a List of Evergreen Content Ideas
Want to find the most convenient way to fight content fatigue in the long run? You need to count on a solid backup plan. According to Geoff Livingston, you can prevent the potentially devastating effects of content marketing fatigue by building a repository of quality evergreen content. A platform that leans on evergreen material can help you optimize your content flow, prevent gaps that could threaten your consistency, and also gives you the extra time you may need to cover time-sensitive, relevant sector news.
8. Dig a Little Deeper
What happens when you find yourself scraping the bottom of the barrel? Should you try to recycle and repurpose some of your best pieces? Should you add new meanings to old stories? If you are currently in this situation and your world isn’t rocked by industry breakthroughs, newsworthy facts or client success stories, choose to tackle issues experienced by past clients. By addressing pressing problems listed by a segment of your public you could come up with new content ideas appreciated by an even broader category of readers.
9. Use the Right Blogging Tools
Decades ago, writers relied on coffee, muses, existing written materials and a reinterpretation of their own concepts to find their inspiration. These days, those who catch content fatigue have many more options at hand, including some of the very best blogging tools leading to a smooth, rapid recovery. According to Digital Marketing Institute, now you can make the most of a plethora of free or almost free blogging tools that serve the same purpose, but can help you in different ways. For instance, KingSumo is a great pick if you wish to optimize your blog post headlines and grow your traffic on WordPress. Freepik lets you upgrade your visuals by grabbing beautiful, free pictures that are compatible with the message that you’re trying to send to your audience, while the popular Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator gives you the fresh food for thought that you may require to develop high-impact blog topics. The key is to use this diverse arsenal to find the best sources of inspiration and the most effective tactics that you can then implement to optimize your content and make it seem more appealing in the eyes of your readers.
10. Do Not Ignore the Importance of a Personalized SEO Plan
In 2015, SEO is alive and well, despite the fact that many so-called specialists have rushed to predict its death. On the other hand, you should know that today’s effective search engine optimization plans require the highest level of research, personalization, and commitment. Real SEO experts don’t just “toss keywords on a page” to help them rank. SEO experts care about the implementation of Google-approved tactics designed to improve a website’s visibility in search engine results, generate more traffic and expand the benefits that a web business owner can only hope to witness. Defined by Bill Sebald from Greenlane Search Marketing as “the art and science of being found in natural search”, a cohesive SEO plan will ultimately help you craft killer content that will be rated highly by both humans and machines.
Are You Talking to Your Audience or Are You Just Making Noise?
According to the data provided the report entitled 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America, and introduced by B2B Content Marketing, 70% of all B2B marketers are currently crafting more content pieces than they did in 2014; this percentage includes even those marketers who would define their performance as “least effective” (58%) and also the ones who do not employ any type of strategy to guide their content flow in a certain direction (56%). The same source indicates that measurement is the crucial element that leaves B2B marketers wandering in the dark: only 21% of content marketers reported that they can effectively track ROI.
Crafting content is the key to staying active and relevant in any field of activity. After all, when all your competitors are trying to make their voice heard through the quality content they’re creating and distributing, can you afford to remain silent?
Next to that, even the simplest content marketing strategy requires proper planning, monitoring, and measurement to become successful. Securing a certain audience becomes a challenging task, especially when you’re competing with more than a few powerful players on a narrow niche.
Sometimes, the secret is to reduce quantity to boost quantity. One post per week delivering premium, user-oriented information is often much more effective than a package of seven posts per week, which do not communicate groundbreaking news about your company and your products.
Even the Best of Us Can Do It!
Don’t let your content get stagnate. Avoid content fatigue, the nemesis of good content, that can cause your enthusiasm to get depleted, your audience left forgotten, and your profit margins shrinking.
And it’s easy to do. Sometimes even the best of us need help. Reach out to a content marketing expert or a writer that fits your industry, and that may turn out to be your best marketing investment this year.
Featured Image: PathDoc via Shutterstock
In-post Photo: Elnur via Shutterstock
