By AspenCore’s EMEA Marketing Team

Content marketing is not just a hot trend…it’s a key strategy of any successful marketing department. It is a way for design experts to share their ideas with the world.

Let’s assume you are drowning in large amounts of in-depth, technical content to push out to your engineering audience. How do you make sure that your audience engages with this excellent content? If your content is as good as you think it is, then you likely already know exactly who your key audience is, and your content speaks directly to this specific demographic. At this point, it is crucial that you consider key aspects of a successful promotional strategy.

To gate or not to gate…

Not all content is suitable for gating, and it is important to understand when content is best suited for lead-generation. In general, longer form content such as white papers, webinars or eBooks are best suited for lead-generation. The in-depth nature of these types of content lends itself better to gating. Hubspot provides a nice breakdown of the pros and cons of gating content. Non-gated content tends to be shorter and less technical such as videos, blogs, case studies and product demos. These ungated assets can be great traffic drivers and can help improve SEO. Promotions of ungated content should always drive to the company site to capitalize on these benefits.

Timing is essential

Do you know the right time to target your audience for greatest impact? Specific industries have design cycles that are predictable and it’s important to take advantage of this certainty when available. For instance, fiscal year beginnings can determine when government BOMs are finalized. High profile industry events can also be a great time to expose your content. Knowing when to place yourself in front of designers can be extremely advantageous.

How to stand out from the crowd

With recent advancements in technology, designs are becoming increasingly complicated, and engineers certainly need highly technical content. Regardless of the in-depth nature of the content, engineers are still human, so it is beneficial for titles, abstracts, and images to be tailored to grab their attention quickly. Content should include accompanying images that convey the relevancy of the topic immediately. Headlines should be as brief and concise as possible, and abstracts should be focused on how the content provides a solution to a specific design problem. The abstract does not need to be technical – the content will cover that!

Publishers are a valuable resource

Although most companies will make all content available from their website, publishers still play a valuable role in content marketing. Publishers provide a central hub for readers to access multiple types of content from multiple sources. Imagine that you need a new outfit for an upcoming event. You could go directly to the shoe store because you know you need shoes, but wouldn’t it be more efficient to go to a shopping center or mall that has stores with everything you need? A publisher offers a place for readers to go for all their needs, so they don’t have to search for information in different places. Publishers also know how to target your specific audience, so you can be efficient with your marketing budget.

At the end of the day, the quality of the content will always be the deciding factor, but these promotional strategy tips can help elevate your content.