Content marketing is an important part of you overall business strategy. It helps you build trust with your audience and it allows you to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Your content will not only help you attract leads but also educate prospects and increase awareness about your brand. A sucessful content marketing strategy builds upon several pillars.
1. Who will read your content?
In order to create a successful content marketing strategy, you need to first understand your audience. What are their needs and wants? What kind of content will they find valuable? Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can begin creating content that is relevant and useful to them. Your content strategy can be tailored to multiple types of users, just as customers might come from different businesses.
You can deliver content that is tailored to each individual by using a variety content types and channels.
2. Which problem are you solving for your audience?
Your product or service should solve a problem that your audience knows about. Your content should also help your audience identify and solve this problem. Your content strengthens the solution you offer and builds credibility with your target audience.
3. Consistency
One of the most important aspects of a content marketing strategy is consistency. You need to be regularly publishing new content in order to keep your audience engaged. If you only publish sporadically, you run the risk of losing their attention. This begets the question what kind of content do you want to publish? Depending on the type of content, the required efforts differ. For example, writing a blog post is less work than producing an ebook.
4. Content Format
Chances are that your audience prefers different content formats. You've to start somewhere and experiment with different formats. This also depends on your time budget.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are a very good starting point for content marketing. Blog posts should be between 1,000 to 2,000 words. However, you can experiment to find out if your audience prefers shorter or longer reads. Your posts should address a pain point of your audience so that they are more likely to share them on social media.
Ebooks
Ebooks can be downloaded by website visitors after they submit a lead form. These are usually longer and more detailed than blog posts. They are also published less often than blog posts which are designed to draw visitors to a site.
Ebooks are generally further down the sales funnel and need to be more personal and provide more sales content. Prospects at this stage will benefit from comparison guides and an ebook of case study examples.
Calls-to-action (CTAs) are used to direct people to a landing site where they can submit contact information and download a ebook. This will help them to get more information about their business. The ebook's author has a new lead to contact for their sales team.
Case Studies
A case study is a way to tell the story of a customer and gain credibility. Because it can be taken in many forms, a case study is one of the most versatile types of content marketing. Case studies can be written as a blog post or ebook. They can even be incorporated into a podcast.
Your goal is to show how your product has helped real-life businesses succeed. Before you choose a customer to be a case study, determine which business area you are trying to increase value.
Templates
Templates can be used to generate leads and provide great value to your audience. Your audience will be more likely to use your templates to save time and help them succeed in the future.
Infographics
Infographics are a way to organize and visualize data in a better way than words. These content formats are ideal if you want to share lots of data in a clear and understandable way.
Videos
Videos are highly engaging and can be shared across websites and social media platforms. Video content requires a greater investment of time and resources that written content. However, visual content continues its big ROI so it is worth exploring.
Podcasts
If your audience doesn't have the time or interest to read content daily, starting a podcast can help them find you brand. Podcast listeners are increasing -- there was a 10% increase in U.S. podcast listeners in 2021. Podcasting is another format you can experiment with if you have people to interview and conversations to host.
5. Promotion
Another key element of a successful content marketing strategy is promotion. Simply creating great content is not enough. You need to make sure that your target audience is actually seeing it. There are a number of ways to promote your content, such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.
Social media is a great way to increase your brand's reach, and deliver your content to customers where they are most likely to be using it. These are some of the most popular social networks:
Facebook
Instagram
TikTok
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Snapchat
YouTube
Adjust your content for each platform when you create a business account via any of these social networks. Instagram users expect visually appealing visuals. TikTok appeals to a younger audience that is looking for creative short-form videos that are funny and trendy. Conduct market research to find out which platforms buyers use, and tailor your content to meet their needs.
6. Audits
A content marketing strategy is not something that you can set and forget. It needs to be regularly reviewed and updated based on your audience’s changing needs. To evaluate your best-performing and least-performing content, you can conduct a content audit. You can then use this information to decide which direction to go.
Set new goals and identify what you can improve on in the coming year. This is a great opportunity to align your team's goals and the goals of your entire organization. No matter what stage you are at, a content audit can help you identify the best content for your audience, identify gaps within your topic clusters and generate new content ideas.
The takeaway
Content is king and a vital part of your overall business strategy. By following these tips, you can create a content marketing strategy that will help you achieve your business goals. Get in touch with us for your individual content marketing strategy.
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