The race is on to stand out and above the competition and it’s not just your direct competitors you are competing with anymore.  Thanks to social networks and blogging platforms, there are literally millions of content creators globally and being able to bubble up to the top can seem like a daunting task.

While you want the content you’re creating to be memorable, or that your company is memorable, something has to happen first before that memory is set in for your target audience.

You have to become valuable.

Think about your own experiences.  The things you remember the most, the places you go to, the people you in engage with, the products you come back to time and time again, you remember them because they have become valuable to you in some fashion.  Why not apply that to your on content marketing strategy?

So here are 5 tips to consider when you are putting together your content creation schedule or calendar.

Save Time

Time is money and everyone wants to know that their time is valuable.  When your content saves someone’s time, whether it’s offering a shortcut to finishing a project or it offers a way for the reader to shorten the time span of something they thought would take hours, into minutes, your content becomes valuable to them.  You’ve just freed up their time to do something more with that time.

By saving them time, you’ve also just demonstrated to the reader or consumer that you value their time as well – and that’s something they’ll remember

Evoke Emotions

On stressful days, who doesn’t like to watch those videos of cats on Roombas? When you’re down because something didn’t go your way, inspiring messages can help change your mood.  When you’re passionate about a cause or situation, stories, videos and articles assist in building up that passion even more.Content that can evoke emotions whether it’s a smile or a laugh, anger, sadness or passion, becomes valuable to the reader.

When the content becomes valuable, it becomes memorable.  Think about how silly the Cat Memes are from com (not to mention their name), their images are silly and fun, they make people smile and laugh, and people value that.  They remember it and come back time and time again and they share it.

Create a Memory

This tip can be a little tough to actually “plan” for, much along the lines of purposely creating “viral” content, it’s tough to gauge which of your content could actually create a memory. The key here is to become more engaged with your audience, or have your content offer some kind of direct engagement.

JibJab does this really well.  They allow their audience to engage directly with their content to make a memory that is unique and now personal to the audience member that is engaged.  Whether it’s adding their friends or “elfing” themselves, JibJab creates memories with its content.  That content becomes valuable and therein become memorable.

Save Money

Saving people money will always be valuable, but think about the saving money part not as coupons, discounts or rebates. Jump out of that box and think about how creative content can save your audience money.

“Hacks” are an extremely popular type of content.  Why?  Because they save time & money.  “Lists” save money.  How?  By offering alternatives to items that can do things that more expensive things do.  “Tips”, “How To’s” and so forth – all of these types of content save money to those who read and utilize them.  That in turn creates value, and that gets your audience returning time and time again because they remember you’ve saved them money.

Give Knowledge

Knowledge is power! Knowledge is valuable, too. White papers, case studies, survey findings and infographics all provide insight and knowledge into the topics they are about.  This is why they all have become popular forms of content to create, especially in the B2B segment.

People like to be considered intelligent, to show they are knowledgeable about a certain “thing”.  Think about your own circle of friends, I’m sure you can point to certain people who are “go to” people about certain topics. Why?  Because they share their knowledge and you remember that because you find that valuable.  Your company can become the same, just share the knowledge!

In 2016, what is your content marketing strategy to become a valuable resource that makes you memorable?