Content marketing is not about creating content; most importantly, content marketing is about communicating and adding value to your audience. The 3 E’s stands for —Educate, Entertain, and Engage—are essential for attracting readers and form the backbone of any content marketing strategy.
1. Educate: Providing value through knowledge
The first and foremost thing that is mandatory before setting off to implement content marketing strategy is education. This is perhaps the best time for consumers to be presented with answers since they are always on the look-out for information.
Why Education Matters
Educational content builds trust. When audiences feel informed and updated, they see your brand as a trusted source of information. This is especially crucial in complex and rapidly evolving industries like Information Technology, Banking, and Healthcare. By providing your audience with knowledge you thus set yourself as an authority and leading them through the clutter.
Types of Educational Content
- How-To Guides and Tutorials: Step-by-step guides that help solve problems or teach new skills, like a skincare video on sunscreen application.
- Webinars and Workshops: Webinars cover complex topics with discussions and Q&A, while workshops offer hands-on learning.
- Infographics: Visuals simplify complex information, making data, processes, or comparisons easy to understand at a glance.
- Case Studies: Case studies demonstrate how your product or service has successfully addressed customer needs, providing convincing proof of its effectiveness.
General Guidelines in Creating and Designing Educational Contents
- Know Your Audience’s Pain Points: Discern and identify what your audience wants to know. It is possible to combine surveys, feedback and analytics data to be the main focus in the content creation.
- Be Clear and Concise: This means that content to be delivered in the educational system should be simple in order to be easily understood by the learner. Do not use technical terms unless you have to use them: if technical terms have to be used, make sure to define them.
- Provide Actionable Takeaways: Your content should answer questions that the reader has or provide recommendations that he or she can implement. This in turn increases the value and the chances of customers revisiting the particular outlet.
2. Entertain: Attention Grabbing Strategy in a crowded space
In the vast ocean of information it is entertaining that can act as a hook to engage the audience. Entertainment here does not mean just a joke or an amusing video; it means anything that your target would find interesting and or worth watching or listening to.
Why Entertainment Matters
Humor makes the content likeable making the brand relatable. It is far different from the kind of advertising that has informed people through ads via the mainstream media. Humorous content is easier to drive engagement, shares, organic reach and hence an important factor while creating a viral marketing strategy.
Types of Entertaining Content
- Videos: Videos, whether tours, demos, or skits, showcase your brand’s personality and engage your audience.
- Quizzes and interactive content: Quizzes like “What Kind of Coffee Drinker Are You?” boost engagement, reveal insights, and increase page time and social media shares.
- Memes and GIFs: These are short, very easy to understand, and sometimes funny kind of content which can trending in minutes if posted properly. This part of internet culture can comment on trending topics or make light-hearted jokes about industry clichés.
- Stories: Telling stories to people has been one of the most popular techniques of entertaining them right from ancient time. Start a trend of sharing your stories in regards to your brand, your team or your customers. These are a great way of touching the heart of the target audience with a view of winning their affections to your side.
Handy Tips for Quality Entertaining Material
- Be Authentic: They can easily see that it’s fake and you must make sure that nothing of that sort happens to your content. Ensure, the material you select for entertainment’s purpose reflects your brand, its voice, and overall values.
- Know Your Platform: One must propose that not all forms of entertainment are fit for one platform or the other since they are customarily developed for maximum utilization. Streetly suggests using short and catchy videos for TikTok and Instagram, while uploading videos longer than fifteen minutes to YouTube.
- Stay Relevant: By making your content relevant to trends, the holiday season or any currently popular event, then your content is sure to go down well with readers. However, make sure that it is timely to do so and not look like as if it is done to cash in on the moment.
3. Engage: Establishing communication is one of the components of developing relationships.
Engagement is all about being able to listen to the audience and at the same time be able to talk to them. You won’t just get likes, shares, or comments; a real engagement process means creating a community for your brand. Such content compels your audience into action and hence make them leave comments or share posts, or subscribe to your newsletter.
Why Engagement Matters
Engagement leads to loyalty since it makes the audience feel special making them definite customers and promoters for your brand. This is due to high interaction rates which are given priority in the algorithms that contain social media post visibility.
Types of Engaging Content
- Polls and Surveys: Submissions allow your audience to share their views, which are helpful for you and make them feel that they are a part of the brand’s choice.
User-Generated Content (UGC): UGC refers to the content created by consumers concerning the product through reviews & testimonials or sharing of pictures/videos. The presence of UGC also helps to increase your credibility when sharing it and also makes your customers feel appreciated. - Live Q&A Sessions: Live responses to questions on social media or your website let fans connect with your company in real-time and receive instant feedback.
- Contests and Giveaways: Competition and freebies are good to help engage people and also to help spread the word. With such features as like, comment, share, or friend suggestions, participants help enhance the awareness of your brand.
Strategies on Selecting Interesting and Relevant Content
- Respond to Comments: Participation cannot be described as one-sided as it requires contributions from both the participants. Ensure to reply to comments, questions or messages as a way of continuing the conversation.
- Ask Questions: Engaging your audience with questions is helpful in getting the audience engage you at the end of the post or your videos.
- Encourage Sharing: Make use of CTA’s that encourage your audience to repost/share your content to others enabling its dissemination.
Implementing the 3 E’s to the Fullest
The best content strategies are always a blend of the three E’s, namely Educate, Entertain, and Engage rather than the two. For example, an educational blog post can tell a joke for fun and ask readers a question concerning it to generate more comments. Here’s how you can integrate the 3 E’s into a cohesive content strategy:
- Create Educational Content with a Fun Twist: This means that a how-to guide doesn’t have to be dull. It should therefore be proactive in including things such as visuals, humor or even personal examples in making the content exciting.
- Use Entertaining Content to Educate: While they may be a comedy piece, the video can still help a viewer learn something new or be reminded of a tip regarding the industry you are in. It’s a fact that the human brain retains knowledge that has been relayed moreeffectively when the same knowledge is passed with some element of fun.
- Engage Through Educational Challenges: Develop call to actions that motivates the viewers to gain new knowledge, report their experience and engage with the brand.
Conclusion
It is crucial to define the consistent content strategy based on the three E’s – first, Educate, then, Entertain and, finally, Engage your audience. Considering value, attention, and relationship-building as priorities will help to generate meaningful content that connects with the audience for more than just a moment. To make a lasting impact and convert people, use the 3 E’s in every marketing message that you make.