It’s not a coincidence that magazine and newspaper sales have been consistently falling, across all titles, since the early noughties, whilst website traffic and engagement have been increasing – print journalism is simply being outgunned in the digital age.

What’s more, it’s being outgunned by the type of content which made print media so popular in the first place. There are numerous examples strewn across the web of online content marketing ideas that have merely adapted from an offline format. So why does this work so well?

First of all, like any content strategy worth its salt, the content being adapted should fit with the overall aims and objectives of the website creating it and fit with its industry sector. There will always be a constant thirst for content by users so anything which can be read, watched or interacted with, that relates to a user’s topic of interest, will quench that thirst.

So which offline formats translate particularly well into beautiful online content? Outlined below are five of the best.

Top tips

Print journalism in its heyday was all about bridging the gap between the experts in an industry and consumers interested in that industry. Quite often, a debate about a particular topic in which it required many professionals to give their opinion would feature – this appears in specialist magazines such as .net – which would have been presented as quotes.

In the digital world, there are hundreds of examples of these. They are often found in relation to a curation of ideas and comments from thought leaders on a particular subject and are usually either collected into a post or put into a slideshow gallery.

The BBC, for example, ran a series titled ‘PD James’ Ten Tips for Writing Novels’ and produced James’ tips in a list of quotes. Buzzfeed is another great site which features many ‘top tips’ features all with varying subjects – anything from ’13 Reasons Your iPhone Keeps Running Out of Battery’ to ‘41 Camping Hacks That Are Borderline Genius’.

The attractive element to this type of feature, and almost any ‘top tip’ collection, is that afterwards you get a sense of learning so much about a particular subject, in bite-size chunks, in such a small amount of time.

It’s especially effective in an industry that requires a lot of knowledge and contains many experts that can convey that knowledge. The technology sector, for example, with areas such as SEO, cloud computing and hardware, can be applied well to the quote card format – take a look at this Google+ page to see it in action.

This style, for posts on social media as well as websites, works best when the design of the quote card is consistent and branded – there is no point if audiences are confused and not effectively understanding the message being sent.

Timeline

The timeline format has been utilised a lot in print for retrospective features – chronicling the life of a person, event or to commemorate a particular time in history. Popular football title Four Four Two created a timeline of when Germany star Mesut Ozil featured in games for his previous club, Real Madrid, to illustrate the point that his manager substituted him in a lot of games.

More recently, in keeping with the football theme, March 22nd 2014 brought a monumental milestone to English football with Arsenal FC manager Arsene Wenger’s 1,000th game in charge. Throughout the build-up to this, national news sites were waxing lyrical of the Frenchman and producing some amazing content at the same time.

The Guardian created an ingenious interactive timeline of each win, loss and draw of every game in every season he has been in charge of, whilst charting the goals scored and conceded too.

The Telegraph created a clickable mosaic of the top 100 most used players by Wenger and the icon of each player brought up a short paragraph on the impact that Wenger had on them. They also created a fun quiz titled ‘Arsene Wenger, David Brent or Friedrich Nietzsche – who said it?’ where you had to guess which of the three men said the twenty quotes provided.

The content works so well because first and foremost, Arsenal fans can enjoy the nostalgia and remember some of the truly great moments in the history of their club.

Secondly, the neutral supporters are able to either educate themselves on why this is such a big milestone or they can simply look back on some fascinating moments in the Premier League era.

These two newspaper sites in particular capitalised on the hype by creating its own digitally adept content for the masses to enjoy. Ensuring the content is based on a fixed point in time is essential for effectively using this method.

Guides

An extremely common type of content that can be applied to almost any industry, guides can range in size from ‘The Ultimate Guide To…’ on something extensive or something more specific to an industry/concept like a ‘How To…’ guide.

This type of content can be traced back as far as 1900 when Michelin tyres created a guide for motorists on how to maintain and care for their cars. That proved incredibly popular for the brand since it encouraged customers to associate car care with Michelin, so the brand would be synonymous with tyre maintenance and expertise and therefore front of mind when the time came for tyre replacement.

Today, you can see numerous examples of this type of content in action from small brands to some of the biggest there is on a wide variety of subjects. For example, homeware brand Lakeland created ‘The Ultimate Guide to Making Coffee’. Lakeland aren’t associated with the actual coffee itself, or the making of it either, but they do supply the cups, percolators and cafetiéres (French press) for you to enjoy your coffee with.

The idea behind these guides is to present a brand as a thought leader/leading expert in a field relevant to its industry. These guides may lead to more on-site info where a brand’s services/products can be found, with the intention for conversions.

A good way to put this type of content across too might be through the development of a smartphone app. The Telegraph has produced its own travel app, as have many different travel related companies, and the AA has created its own Theory Test app too.

Parallel content

Parallel content is essentially a way of analogising a concept by comparing a piece of content to another, normally with something that is current, in order to help readers better understand the concept.

Similarly, The Guardian ran a story recently that was written by Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Minister, about her time in office and how it is comparable to the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. A ploy on her part to get her story as much attention as possible, since it was published the same day as the new series started, but it also provoked further content from The Guardian by comparing key characters in the series to other real life politicians.

Not only did this capitalise on a worldwide phenomenon in the TV series, but the content generated was also a simple follow-up to a feature The Guardian hadn’t even written! Using smaller features to promote larger ones can be a very effective tactic in extending the shelf life of content but requires quick-thinking and perhaps a bit of forward planning too.

Illustrations

Newspapers often have a cartoon/comic strip in them that depicts a political farce or provides an amusing quip for readers to enjoy. Marketers today are using this method as a way of telling a story in a more visual way, so that it goes beyond a blog post/article. For example, this stop smoking campaign uses cartoons to show different types of smokers.

Software developers HubSpot have created an entire Pinterest board dedicated to cartoons related to the marketing industry for example. You could also argue that the trend of internet memes derived from this type of content in print too. Memes can be found in all kinds of forms today and are often used to present a feeling about something in a visual, and usually funny, way.

Although this explosion of effective online content might seem like it spells the end for print media, this isn’t the case. What it does mean, however, is that offline publications should be expected to push the boundaries and find out what it is people will want in a tangible product over something that can be found on the web.

There’s no doubt that the online techniques for content marketing like video, podcasts and the vast array of social networking sites can offer marketers an abundance of opportunities to build their brand. The important thing to remember is to identify what kinds of content marketing is right for what industry and take advantage of the rewards that it may bring.

 

By Kath Dawson, Creative Director at www.strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk

 

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