A Basic Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is the secret art of persuading people through education and information, not smoke and mirrors. Customers educate themselves on the solutions to their own problems, and further educate themselves on why your solution is the one they need. Basically, you’re marketing to them with content that teaches, informs and inspires. So there’s no better time to improve your content marketing!
Your content usually appears in one of three forms: things you read, things you hear and things you see. That can be blog articles, web pages, whitepapers, ebooks, special reports, tweets,and so on. Email campaigns (87%) and educational content (77%) are the two of the most popular content marketing methods that B2B marketers use.
You also might use videos, photos, infographics and navigation schemes as 84% of people have decided to buy a product or service after watching a video. Or it could be podcasts, music, presentations or (again) videos. More than half of podcast listeners say they are more likely to consider brands advertised on podcasts.
When customers show up in your sales funnel, they’re already pre-qualified and just need to be shown how and why yours is the best possible product or service they need.
That doesn’t mean you can be boring and create mediocre content and just expect people to show up.
There are a lot of people out there who are creating interesting content and winning people over by being clever, humorous, and informative. They’re writing interesting copy, taking gorgeous photos, and producing high-quality video and audio content.
If you wanted to create a basic content strategy, you can follow these steps:
Pick three to four frequent problems your product or service solves. Dedicate one topic per week for each month. You’ll cover all four topics in a month for blog articles and social media updates.
Pick three to four themes for your strategy. Pick one theme per week of the month. For example, 1) how-to, 2) client case study, 3) typical client problem, 4) industry news analysis.
Write one blog article per week about each theme. Post it to your blog as a way to boost your website’s SEO, but to also show your audience that you’re an expert in this field. (If you’d rather do videos or podcasts, do that too, but try to stick to the same schedule.)
Build your social media audience. Do a search for people who are likely to buy from you and then follow them on Twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn and Instagram. Engage with them in regular conversations, don’t push out sales messages.
Share industry news stories on your social channels. A great way to remind people of their pain points is to share news stories about them. If you sell a device that helps fleet drivers reduce fuel costs, share news stories about gas prices going up. And write blog articles that analyze the issue.
Do NOT build a day-to-day or week-to-week calendar. I’ve known agencies that scripted out an entire year’s worth of tweets and social updates, plus blog articles, only to have the entire script collapse when something in the industry or company changed. Think guidelines, not schedules.
Incorporate holidays and events. Be sure to take holidays or special events into consideration. Hotels should have themes for Valentine’s Day, conference schedules and so on. Accountants should talk about tax day a month in advance. And retailers should make plans for the major shopping holidays several months in advance.
I’m leaving out the basic, it-goes-without-saying elementary “secrets” to improve your content marketing that every other expert tells you, but they’re still things you should do anyway:
Understand your unique value proposition.
Define your audience and create personas.
Know your keywords.
Or my most-detested “secret.”
Write good stuff.
(Seriously? That’s not optional! And it’s certainly not a secret. That’s like your family telling you “Drive safely” when you drive to work. Boy, I’m sure glad you said something because I was just going to swerve all over the place. Basically, if being told “write good stuff” makes you decide to write good stuff, then you need to re-examine your life choices.)
If you are looking to improve your content marketing, schedule an appointment today to discuss how we can help.
Source credit: https://www.godaddy.com/garage/improve-your-content-marketing/