Effective content marketing can get your business in front of new customers and build loyalty with those you already serve.
Content marketing helps your business reach new customers and strengthen connections with existing ones. It’s an excellent strategy to communicate with valuable audiences in way that makes them feel compelled to become loyal customers and doesn’t come across like a sales pitch.
You can’t ignore content if you want your business to grow. Over 70 per cent of marketers use content marketing as part of their strategy.
How can you win with content marketing? Create content that informs, entertains and empowers customers to make confident buying decisions. If you want to build visibility for your brand and increase potential revenue, it’s time to implement strategies for maximizing your content marketing success.
Where to start when building a content strategy
Before you begin publishing content, there are a few steps you should follow to ensure you’ve collected all necessary information and mapped out a viable plan forward.
Here’s where to begin (and why):
Develop your company branding: Establish and adhere to a consistent brand voice, style and visual identity across all content channels.
Why? Consistency builds brand recognition, fosters trust and enhances the overall perception of your business.
Define your content marketing goals: Outline specific, measurable objectives for your content marketing, such as increasing brand awareness or generating leads.
Why? Focused goals ensure alignment with your overall business goals and help you measure progress.
Understand your audience: Thoroughly research your target audience’s demographics, preferences and behaviours.
Why? Knowing the audience helps you tailor content to their needs, making it more relevant and increasing engagement.
Evaluate your competitors: Review your competitors’ content strategies to analyze where they are successful and look for gaps in the market that you can fill.
Why? Competitor analysis allows you to differentiate your business and stay ahead of the field.
Key tools for a successful content strategy
Once your foundational elements are in place, you can create three useful tools to help improve your overall targeting and consistency.
- Buyer personas
Develop detailed profiles representing your ideal customers, incorporating their motivations and challenges. Buyer personas guide content creation, ensuring it resonates with your audience and addresses their specific pain points.
- Content calendar
Develop a content calendar to plan and organize your content strategy, including publication dates and promotion schedules. A content calendar ensures consistency, helps avoid last minute scrambles and improves overall content organization.
- Keyword research
Conduct thorough keyword research to identify high volume, relevant keywords related to your industry or what you sell. Strategic keyword use improves search engine visibility, helping your content rank higher. Learning the language your audience uses to search helps you target more precisely and increase relevant web traffic.
15 tips to successfully implement your content marketing strategy
An effective content marketing strategy can elevate your brand over competitors and guide your customers on their purchasing journey. Now that you have the essential tools and a plan, you’re ready to go.
Try these tips to boost the effectiveness of your content marketing:
1. Choose quality over quantity
Prioritize in-depth, valuable content. Interview experts, gather and share data, and focus on customer experience. Quality content increases credibility, establishes your expertise, and builds audience trust and loyalty.
2. Try different content formats
Experiment with various formats, such as blog posts, videos and podcasts. Different content formats are effective at reaching different audiences. Diversifying can expand your reach and improve engagement.
3. Prioritize SEO optimization
Incorporate relevant keywords, add meta descriptions and tags, and learn best practices for internal linking. Search engine optimization (SEO) increases visibility, driving organic traffic to your website and improving search engine rankings.
4. Expand your reach with social media
Actively engage with your audience on social media by commenting, sharing and interacting with your customers. Social media engagement builds a community, increases brand awareness and fosters strong customer loyalty.
5. Optimize content for mobile
Ensure your website and content are mobile friendly, providing a seamless experience across devices. Mobile optimization ensures you don’t miss out on growing mobile audiences, improving accessibility and user experience.
6. Email marketing integration
Extend distribution with email campaigns to deliver relevant and valuable content to subscribers. Email marketing nurtures leads, keeps the audience informed and supports customer retention.
7. Pay attention to search intent
Explore the search intent behind target keywords to try to understand why users are searching. Is their search informational, transactional or navigational? Then craft content that matches their intent and provide the information they want. You’ll improve user experience and likely boost your search rankings.
8. Play with interactive content
Quizzes, polls and other interactive elements boost engagement and participation. Interactive content keeps audiences actively involved, increasing time spent on your platform and enhancing user experience.
9. Leverage customer testimonials
Highlight authentic customer testimonials and success stories on your website and social channels. Social proof builds trust and can effectively influence potential customers in their decision making process.
10. Repurpose content
Extend the impact of your content by sharing it in new ways, such as turning blog posts into videos or infographics. Repurposing content extends its reach, maximizes its value and makes it appealing to different audiences.
11. Focus on high value topics to establish authority
Try to identify key topics relevant to your industry and create pillar pages that act as in-depth guides. You can link to supporting content or content clusters from these pillar pages, boosting your authority with search engines.
12. Engage your community
Participate in relevant online communities and forums, engaging with your audience and offering valuable insights. Community engagement builds a loyal following, establishes your brand as an authority and fosters customer relationships.
13. Connect using local content
Tailor content to specific geographic locations to accommodate the unique needs of diverse audiences and prevent exclusion. Localized content increases relevance, resonates with specific demographics and enhances overall awareness.
14. Publish with predictable timing
Stick to a regular publishing schedule to establish expectations and maintain audience engagement. Consistent publishing builds anticipation, improves SEO and fosters a loyal audience.
15. Monitor industry trends
Watch industry trends by researching, attending conferences and subscribing to relevant publications. Keeping an eye on trends will ensure your content stays current, resonates with your audience and keeps you competitive.
Measuring success with content marketing
As with any strategy, you must regularly evaluate your content marketing strategy to see if it’s having a meaningful impact on your overall marketing goals.
To help assess how well your content marketing is going, go deeper:
Make decisions based on data
Try using analytics tools to gather data on your content performance, analyze metrics and make informed decisions. Insights pulled from data support continuous improvement, helping you refine your content strategy for better results.
Seek feedback and adapt plans
Consider seeking or gathering feedback from your audience and using what you learn to adjust your content strategy. This approach ensures continuous improvement, responsiveness to audience needs and long-term content effectiveness.
Perform content audits
Regularly audit your content to fix outdated information, identify gaps in coverage and ensure relevance. Content audits improve content quality, maintain accuracy, and contribute to a more accurate and appealing online presence.
With the right combination of thoughtful content, targeting and distribution, you’ll be well on your way to a successful content marketing plan.
Content marketing is a smart choice for businesses looking for ongoing benefits from their marketing investment. Download our Content Guide to learn more.
