Content marketing is booming. Brands rely on content marketing as the strategy to generate publicity for their services and products. People constantly publish new content and try all means to make them go viral.
Amidst all these, is there something that we should be aware of when planning our content marketing strategy? If you spend thousands of dollars each month to generate the required buzz for your brand using content marketing then this article is for you. I have seen many businesses make the mistake of going with frequency of content rather than focusing on producing the right content and ultimately they end up losing money. This post will highlight the most important points as to what exactly are you missing in your content marketing strategy.
Evaluate Your Content Marketing Goals And Derive KPI's
Every task rests on some goals. If you don't know the result your expect, the task will be done wrong. The first step is to identify the goals of your content marketing. Answering the below questions might help:
- Am I expecting an increase in traffic from the content I publish?
- Do I want an increase in conversions from the content I share on social media?
- Am I looking for branding?
- Do I want people to take certain actions when they are reading the content?
- Am I expecting an increase in the number of subscribers?
What exactly I am looking for? Please ask yourself and set your goals before proceeding further.
Once you decide on the goals, derive KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) to measure whether you are able to achieve those set goals or not? An example of KPI for the first goal described above can be the amount of increase in the total number of sessions or total number of new sessions. This way you can set goals and check whether you are able to correctly achieve those.
Based on my experience, I strongly recommend you to follow the below steps to boost your existing content marketing strategy.
1- Quality Content Vs. Right Content - The Difference
Don't focus on the frequency of creating new content; instead focus on creating the right content.
You must have heard many marketers talk about producing quality content in order to generate engagement but that is not sufficient. The key here is to produce the right content. Any content that the user can put to use instantly is the right content.
Such pieces should have the right substance, should be produced at the right time, should be marketed through the right channel and should be produced for the right audience.
"Right" content is based on the content needs of your customers.
2- Blog Management - Why Having A Blog Can Help To Increase Conversions
Businesses with a blog have experienced 50% more conversions as compared to those who don't have a blog. If you are still new to blogging then have a look at this step by step tutorial on how to create a blog that converts well.
Having a blog helps you to target long tail search queries and helps you to rank for more search queries, thereby increasing the traffic to your site. You can easily increase the number of newsletter subscribers if you start sharing latest news, offers, deals with your customers through your blog.
Have a look at these 3 practical steps on how can profit through content from your blog.
3- Content Creation Based On Buyer Persona
Buyer personas reflect the background and the actions a buyer takes before and after purchasing your products or services. An intelligent content marketer must first analyze this behavior of the customer before he produces content. Buyer personas can be created based on the age, gender, profession, location, financial condition, shopping habits etc.
As for example, try answering the following questions and focus on creating content that helps your potential customer to take a decision:
- How does the buyer allocate their time and budget to make purchase decisions?
- Which marketing channels do the buyer trusts the most?
- Do they interact online or offline?
- What are the current obstacles the buyer is facing?
- Do they have any negative experiences and what channels are they using in sharing those experiences?
By answering these questions, you can easily identify the answer to the question as to which persona has the maximum impact on the purchase decision of your consumer. Once you have the answer, create content that effectively fixes this problem or aims to provide users a better path to reach the end process of their journey which is buying the product and provide feedback.
4- Effective CTA Usage For Driving Sales From Content
CTA or call to action elements are at the core of driving conversions. You want the user to take some action while reading the content; so what sort of CTA elements have you employed on the site? Have a quick look on the below suggestions and make sure to use them in your content wherever possible:
- Using a green/orange color in the CTA button (for driving conversions)
- Displaying popup banner for obtaining the email id/ phone number/ any other detail of the customer. The bigger database you have, the greater the chances of increasing sales.
- Placing an Inquiry form or text helps. For example, you can add the line at the end of the post: Curious how to generate leads for your business? Call us today for a free consultation at 1-800-XXX-XXXX.
- Displaying your phone number in bolder text so that it remains highlighted.
- Freezing the inquiry form so that it remains visible no matter if the user scrolls up or down the content.
These are some of the strategies you can implement to drive sales from your content. Hope you get the idea here.
5- Involvement Of Influencers To Spread The Voice
Influencers are people who can help your content become viral. Influencer marketing and outreach is a big thing in the world of digital marketing. You need to connect with possible influencers your potential customers can trust. If they promote your content having the possible CTA's - it's a win-win situation for you. You get branding, citations, social promotion, backlinks and even conversions. What else do you require?
Start integrating your content with social media. The power of influencers in this virtual world of web should be taken very seriously. It's not only about having an x number of followers but also depends on the expertise on the subject matter and the relationship between the influencer and his or her followers.
6- Use Content Discovery Tools And Paid Promotion
Before you get started with the type of content that you must create in order to get the required amount of engagement, you must be familiar in using top content discovery tools and paid promotional tools like BuzzSumo. Why I suggest using these because they can save a whole lot of time. Moreover, these tools also help to find possible influencers whom you can target in future.
I recommend using the below tools to get started:
Bonus Tip - Go With The 60/40 Rule - Spend 60% Of Time And Money Promoting Content And 40% Creating It!
Last but not the least, have a strategy in place that makes your content go viral. Use tools and resources to effectively promote your content. Promotion is more important and time consuming than content creation. I have seen several business owners spend all their money and resources creating content but less on promoting it. Unless you promote it, you won't get the desired benefit.
* Leader image made with photo by amala_tc