How To Build a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is like the onion in a digital soup. Multilayered, full of flavor when prepared well, and has the potential to make you cry when not executed to the fullest. 🥣

However, there are a million ways to dish up and deliver strong on-site content. But like all good things in life and business, the journey ahead starts with a well-placed strategy.

To craft killer content that converts, you’ll need to know your companies goals and your user’s unique needs. 

So let’s dive into it, starting with the fundamentals.

What is Content Marketing?

In its simplest form, content marketing is the process a website or business uses to get its name out there and boost its bottom line. Therefore, content marketing is used to attract traffic, keep them engaged and convert them over time.  

A solid content marketing strategy should run according to a universal marketing funnel.  Moreover, the core aim is to generate…

😬 Awareness: Familiarizing a prospect, buyer, or traffic source with your site.

🤔 Consideration: Keeping them engaged over a sustained period of time.

🤩 Conversion: Getting them to take action (i.e., subscribing/buying/responding, etc.). 

The content should promote brand awareness, establish industry expertise, and keep your site top of mind for new and existing customers.

Therefore, to put a content strategy into practice, you’ll need to know who your customer base is and what your overarching business goals will be. 

Understanding your business objectives/goals

Business goals are multilayered and different for any website owner looking to deliver content to the widest possible audience. Therefore, these goals will come down to retention or acquisition (usually a combination of both) on a broader level.

Customer acquisition is the act or process of bringing in new customers.

Above all, it involves attracting prospects to your business with meaningful content that promotes brand awareness while persuading them to take action on-site, like buying a product or signing up for a service. 

Retention revolves around any content marketing activities that take place after a customer has been onboarded. Moreover, this may come in the form of keeping customers engaged with fresh content that upsells new products/features and creating loyalty programs or referral incentives that work to increase a client’s onsite life cycle. 

Targeted Content to Promote Products and Services

Businesses that are still beta testing their online services might opt for a content strategy that purely pushes product awareness. Especially making their name known in the industry and generating engagement and/or interest before launching their offering. 

It all comes down to what stage of the marketing funnel you as a site owner are currently moving through and how quickly or gradually you’re looking to scale up your enterprise.

Benefits of Effective Content Marketing

However, the cliche stands firm. Content is king, and the only way to get your offering, brand, or services out to the general market is to make the right noise in the right direction. Therefore, a content strategy will take time to develop but, once it starts rolling out consistently, the brand exposure and accompanying financial gains are well worth the wait. Some of the benefits of an effective content marketing strategy include…. 

📣 Keeping your existing audience engaged and interested for the long run. 

👀 Increased visibility and ranking potential with the right SEO efforts. 

💡 Generating top leads that will stay engaged even after converting. 

🏆 Bringing in new prospects that are willing to champion and convert to your brand. 

🌱 Increased reputation and traction on multiple channels, including social media. 

🤝 Instilling trust in both new and existing prospects or traffic sources. 

📊 Bringing consistent conversions for existing products and services

Different Types of Content

Content is literally any offering under the sun that promotes a product or business. Therefore, whether an article, video, social post, infographic, online course, or anything in between. 

Organic Content vs. Paid Content 

Depending on your budget, the quickest way to generate new leads is by running paid ads. Also, it’s fast, effective, and can generate traction in half the time. Try out the Adcash Advertiser Platform and tailor your ads to the widest-reaching audiences, with 196 countries represented, and 200+ million unique users per day. 

Organic businesses can find organic contentbe found through keyword searches on Google and other localized search consoles. Using search trends to relevant, engaging articlesengaging, and most imp,ortantly answer the most searched for online questions.

They usually come in the form of thought leadership pieces that address and unpack a given theme or topic in a detailed and informative way, whilst layering in the most relevant search terms. 

These articles and others like them can raise your site’s ranking ability tenfold and are a great way to engage and inform buying decisions.   

Get to grips with the Ultimate Website Ranking guide for new and intermediate publishers. From finding the right domain, to effective keyword research and more. 

Blogs

Onsite blogs are a great way to engage both new and existing customers. Therefore, depending on your vertical and business objectives, a dedicated blog page can cover a wide range of topics, including the latest industry trends and topics, new products and features, and cutting-edge consumer insights.

Also, Blogs are a great retention tool designed to entertain, captivate and educate. 

That said, there are now more blog pages than ever before. If you’re looking to craft captivating content for your blog and stand out from the crowd, you can find a quick guide to the best blog idea generators here.

Longform Content

The idea behind long-form content is to offer up a lot of information about a specific niche, topic, or trend. These articles are usually pretty hefty (between 3000 to 5000 words) and are a great Google ranking tool, as they fit in nicely with Google’s EAT Principle. The principle ranks content according to…

E – Expertise 

A – Authoritativeness 

T – Trustworthiness

Longform content usually relates to whitepapers, in-depth reviews, larger case studies, eBooks, online courses, and similar.  

Gated Content

Gated content needs to drive value to the end-user. Additionally, this content can take the form of detailed infographics, eBooks, courses, case studies, and similar.

The content is “walled”, meaning it can only be accessed in exchange for a user’s details (usually their email address).

Undoubtedly, these pieces form a vital retention tool for content marketers, as the email list generated can be used to further promote new features, products, or services in the future. 

Other Content Marketing Types

Moreover, other core content types include video, homepage content, product reviews, email marketing, infographics, newsletters, webinars, podcasts, photos, banners, audiobooks, presentations, promotions, e-courses, reviews, tutorials, social campaigns, and a whole lot more.

With so many channels to choose from and so many different ways to drive engagement, the ultimate aim of any content marketer should start with a well-thought-out content calendar.

Content Marketing Editorial Calendar

When it comes to content marketing, the right itemizing and organizing go a long way. Therefore, the best method for keeping track of your outgoing content is with an editorial calendar. 

This calendar is used to control creation and publication across different channels. Also, it’s a way for site owners and content marketing teams to keep track of what’s in process and what’s ready to go out.

Subsequently, depending on the size of your team, the skies the limit in terms of how much content you can generate over time. 

Some of the elements  to track in your content marketing editorial calendar should include: 

📺 The channel in which the content will be published.

✏️ The topics, trends, and pieces you’ll be covering from week to week

🚀 The type of content you want to be sending out

⚙️Repurposing content to other channels (turning a video into a blog, etc.)

⏰ The date and publication time. 

📚 Ideas and angles for future pieces, promotions, and drives. 

Finding the right content marketing software.

Having the right software and tools in place can go a long way to automating and refining your content rollout. Moreover,  it pays to do the research and pinpoint which tools can make your content calendar run like clockwork. Therefore, look for the tools that automate, simplify and refine your content marketing strategy. 

Keyword research tools can get you better ranking potential and listings in today’s top search engines. They can help you find the long-tail keywords and phrases that rank and generate further engagement for your brand. They can also help simplify the optimization process. Check out AHrefs or SEMrush to get you started. 

Email Marketing software can help you automate your outgoing emails, nurture new leads and optimize your email campaigns to the fullest.  So, Check out MailChimp and Zoho Campaigns to get you started 

Competitor Analysis tools can help you gain valuable insights for improving your content marketing strategy. Check out BuzzSumo, QuickSprout, and SimilarWeb to get you started

Content marketing platforms and editing plugins are a great way to track, publish, and analyze campaigns, whilst optimizing your content to flow effectively and efficiently. Check out Content Tools and Grammarly to get you started. 

Content marketing scheduling tools are a great way to keep track of incoming and outgoing comms. These can be paired up with your content calendar for maximum efficiency and reach. Check out Asana, Trello, and Monday.com to get you started. 

That’s it for this content marketing recap. All the best on the road ahead. Please leave a comment in the box below and reach out to us anytime over here, for any questions. 

Bye for now