Content Marketing
Content marketing involves promoting your business through the use of content. Although it may sound straightforward, there are numerous aspects to consider. Primarily, there is the content itself, which encompasses items such as blog posts, articles, podcasts, and videos. Essentially, this refers to information presented in written, auditory, or visual formats.
What about the marketing aspect? It remains unchanged since the beginning of marketing in physical markets. Its core purpose is to inform the intended audience about the offerings and convince them to become customers. Content marketing employs content to achieve this objective.
Content marketing is different from other types of sales and marketing because it allows people to come to you instead of you reaching out to them. However, there is some overlap between content marketing and other forms of marketing. This is why content marketing is considered a part of inbound marketing.
Content marketers engage in the creation, curation, sharing, and distribution of quality content. It is important to note that quality content refers to content that is both pertinent and precise, optimized for search engines, and meets the desires of the target audience. This type of content assists marketers in achieving the following:
- Attract a defined target audience
- Inform them about the business
- Engage and educate them
- Generate leads and sales
- Turn that audience into customers, fans, and advocates
Next, let’s examine some content marketing statistics that demonstrate the reasons behind the widespread popularity of this marketing approach.
Content marketing strategy
Content marketing strategy refers to a comprehensive plan that aims to create and distribute content in order to expand one’s audience and achieve different business objectives. Instances of content marketing may involve:
- Blog posts
- Emails
- Newsletters
- Social media posts
- Podcasts
- Ebooks
- Videos
To effectively communicate with current and potential customers, it is crucial to have a content marketing plan, often referred to as a “content calendar.” This written plan helps you manage your distribution schedule and ensures that the right message reaches your target audience. Now that we have clarified the definitions of content marketing, let us discuss the significance of having a content marketing plan.
Why have a content marketing strategy
Having a content marketing strategy enables you to reach specific objectives, establish precise measures of success, and implement systematic methods for enhancing performance, which is more advantageous compared to producing content randomly and relying on chance for desired outcomes.
Other advantages of having a content marketing plan encompass the fact that 80% of proficient marketers in content marketing possess a documented strategy.
- More online visibility: The more consistently you post, the more customers you can attract. Provide educational, useful content that addresses users’ pain points.
- More leads: Because a good content marketing strategy drives traffic, it can also drive leads
- More authority: The more useful content you share over time, the more people in your niche will see you as an authority figure
- More customer engagement: Loyal customers are often repeat customers. Engage with those who comment or respond to what you share.
- More budget: If you can prove your marketing success, it will likely be easier to ask for a bigger marketing budget in the future
Elements of a powerful content marketing strategy
1. Audience personas
To effectively convey your brand’s narrative, it is essential to have a clear understanding of your target audience. Consequently, the initial step involves identifying the specific demographic you aim to reach. Here are several approaches to accomplish this task:
- Survey your existing customers
- Research industry trends
- Identify who you don’t want to target
- Keep tabs on who your competitors target
After considering your audience, you can utilize our free Buyer Persona tool to document them. Creating a formalized persona will enable you to effectively and concisely convey your audience to both stakeholders and individuals involved in brand messaging.
To kickstart your creative process, begin by examining these persona examples as a source of inspiration.
2. Brand story and positioning
By thinking in a systematic manner, rephrase the given text while keeping the meaning intact. Ensure that no new information is added and no information is omitted: The concept of a brand story entails summarizing the history, mission, purpose, and values of your company. Defining the brand story allows you to determine the appropriate content to convey and subjects to address. This aids in selecting the proper direction for your content marketing strategy.
The main theme that your story should focus on is the importance of perseverance and determination in achieving one’s goals.
- The hero of your story (your customer) and their goals and challenges
- Your brand’s personality
- The purpose of your brand and key brand values
- The way your product and your content can help reinforce all the above and empower your hero
By considering your brand’s narrative during the content creation process, you can ensure a cohesive experience for your audience and establish the desired image across all your content marketing channels. Utilize your responses to form the key foundations of your brand’s storytelling. Additionally, employ this complimentary brand storytelling template to effectively execute this stage and record your endeavors.
Small businesses and startups can derive great benefit from engaging in this step, particularly as they have the advantage of utilizing their distinctive backgrounds and identities.
3. Content marketing mission statement and owned media value proposition
To establish your brand as a reputable content publisher, it is important to define the value proposition of your owned media, which includes any digital marketing channels that are under your control, such as your website or social media platforms.
Please rephrase the text below without adding or removing any information, while maintaining the same meaning: “In essence, we need to approach this problem systematically by breaking it down into smaller parts and addressing each one individually. By taking a step-by-step approach, we can carefully evaluate each component and ensure that we come up with an effective solution. This methodical process will help us avoid overlooking any important details and increase our chances of success.”
What is the distinct value that your brand’s content offers? (This value should differentiate your content from that of your competitors.) By identifying this, you can develop a content marketing strategy that distinguishes you from your competitors.
Make sure your strategy includes your content marketing mission statement, which is crucial. The statement should effectively summarize the purpose behind your content creation and specify the target audience who can gain value from it. Ensure that your content marketing mission statement comprises these essential elements.
- Your audience: Who are you creating content for?
- The benefit: What information or answers will you provide?
- The outcome: How will your content help your audience achieve their goals?
4. Business case and content marketing goals
Creating a business case documentation will aid in comprehending the advantages, expenses, and hazards of integrating a content marketing strategy within your company, which is crucial for driving your business forward and engaging your audience effectively.
A business case is a document in project management that explains the reasons for executing specific tasks and how their benefits are greater than their costs. To begin, determine the business objectives that your company must accomplish and ascertain how content marketing will help your company progress towards those objectives.
By systematically considering the steps, how can you rephrase the text to retain its meaning and not add or remove any information? What financial resources are necessary for your content strategy? What outcomes do you aim to achieve in order to establish a concrete content creation and marketing budget?
5. Action plan
Once you have thought through each content marketing strategy step individually, you should include your main content marketing campaigns and projects in your content plan. Utilizing a formal content plan will assist you in covering the following aspects during content planning.
- Choose content topics for each campaign
- Determine which content formats you will produce
- Pick the channels for content distribution
When planning your calendar, be sure to include the following key elements:
- Topics or keywords
- Target dates
- Headlines
- Categories or clusters
- Content formats
- Target personas
- Success metrics
How to create a content marketing strategy
If you create content without a plan, it is similar to driving without GPS. Although you eventually reach your destination, you will certainly make some incorrect turns along the way. As a matter of fact, you might find yourself wandering without direction, feeling frustrated, and wasting valuable time and money.
According to the statistics, marketers face the greatest challenges in the field of content strategy.
- 63% of businesses haven’t got a documented content strategy
- 64% of marketers need help on building a better content strategy
- 60% of marketers find it difficult to produce content consistently
Below are some guidelines for devising an impeccable content strategy by considering each step thoughtfully.
1. Set out your mission, goals, and KPIs
To begin with, it is important to determine your content marketing mission. This involves creating a concise statement that defines your target audience, the methods you will use to engage with them, and the benefits they will derive from your content.
Business goals play a crucial role in the process as they define the benefits your business will achieve through content marketing. Common objectives in content marketing consist of enhancing sales, generating more leads, and amplifying traffic.
2. Know your audience
In any content strategy, it is crucial to determine your target audience to ensure your content is accurately focused. This is essential because effective marketing thrives on relevance. By creating content for a broad audience, you are essentially creating it for no one.
To begin, you can obtain demographic information about your target audience by utilizing Google Analytics, along with analyzing data from social media and email. This analysis will provide you with insights regarding the age, gender, education, and income of your intended audience.
In order to understand their priorities and determine the best way to reach customers, you can gather feedback from them and develop buyer personas. These buyer personas will combine the gathered information and guide you in creating relevant content that will provide value to your audience and capture their interest.
3. Plan your process
In order to properly create content, it is crucial to have a plan in place. Specifically, you need to be aware of:
- Who’s in charge of creating content?
- Who’s in charge of maintaining and updating content?
- What resources do you need for content creation?
- What is your publishing schedule?
- Who has the final content approval?
- What is your content production workflow?
If you want to learn more about resource allocation for content marketing, you can find information here. Additionally, for advice on how to integrate your content into a content calendar, please refer to our FAQs.
4. Start a blog
If you don’t currently have a blog, it is crucial to start one. Your blog is a vital marketing tool and acts as the center of your content marketing strategy, serving as a hub for all your other content marketing endeavors.
In order to maximize the potential of blogging, it is important to have a collection of blog post ideas. Effective suggestions for generating ideas include:
- How-to guides
- Tutorials
- Industry news and insights
- Checklists
- Case studies, which we’ll look at in more detail later
- Interviews
- Expert advice
5. Audit your existing content
To determine if your current content is achieving your goals and meeting the KPIs, it is crucial to conduct a content audit. The content audit process consists of three steps.
- Log what you have
- Assess whether it’s working
- Find content gaps
Screaming Frog is an effective tool for logging content. While it is primarily used for SEO purposes, it can also efficiently extract all the URLs from your website. Additionally, it can be utilized to easily identify duplicate pages as well as missing titles and descriptions. Further information on how to use Screaming Frog can be found in our SEO guide.
SEMRush, which is another helpful tool, contains a content audit tool that evaluates the length of the content, inbound links, and social shares.
Once you have gathered data from both of these tools, it becomes easily noticeable what is effective, what requires improvement, and what should be replaced. Additionally, you can promptly pinpoint content gaps, indicating areas where creating a new content piece could contribute to the attainment of your objectives.
