Build a Strategy For Content Marketing

Content marketing is many things, but it should never be haphazard. You need to plan out your content marketing strategy to see success online.

Now that you have established detailed buyer personas, it’s time to build a strategy that reaches them in your market. As every successful content marketing company knows, to market a business successfully, you need a clear content strategy for creating, publishing, and managing unique content that spurs consumer interest and engagement. Once you have a plan of action for how you’re going to be doing content marketing in place, you can measure the results and adjust your strategy as tactics fail or new opportunities arise.

Attract Awareness

The first step in making content marketing work for you is to alert potential customers to your brand. Your content must appeal to buyer personas who are not yet invested in your company, or any company in that matter. They just have a problem or need some help and they aren’t sure what to do. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) steps in, helping potential customers move into the top of your sales funnel.

At this stage, it pays to research the keywords and phrases that your buyer personas are typing into search engines. Say you are a bank that offers personal loans. You may find that people search at a high rate for “how to get out of debt” in your area. If you put two and two together, this could indicate that customers might want to use personal loans to consolidate and pay off their debt. You should create some content—perhaps a short informational video or blog post—explaining this topic and post it to your website and social media networks. Once you start ranking for this kind of query, customers searching for debt solutions will identify your company as a source of valuable information, giving them an incentive to dig deeper.

Keyword-optimized social media posts, videos, graphics, and blog posts are all effective at raising awareness, especially when coordinated with each other. Once you have established a list of keywords that you are creating content to rank for, map out your content plan on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis according to a set editorial calendar.

Cultivate Conversions

Once you have your buyer personas’ attention, convince them that you are trustworthy and qualified to solve their problems. During this important phase of evaluation, you need to offer up content that’s directed towards those who are in the middle of your sales funnel. This converts an anonymous reader into an interested individual. Effective content marketing takes many forms, including:

• • Tools – Online software that answers users’ questions will show consumers what you can do for them. A bank, for example, might offer a “debt-free calculator” to help consumers figure out how quickly they can eliminate debt with different consolidation strategies. Online quizzes can also help your buyer persona evaluate how bad their need is or how much they may want your help.
  • eBooks – eBooks and white papers will appeal to an audience that want to understand a topic in-depth. Once you write a great piece of content targeted to answer a common search engine query, link it to a downloadable eBook or white paper to offer up even more expert information.
  • Webinars and Podcasts– A live webinar or recorded podcast gives you the opportunity to answer users’ questions as they submit them, essentially conversing directly with consumers. You can also boost publicity by inviting industry leaders and other important influencers to join your recording. Lots of social media platforms are making live video a possibility, so head to Twitter or Facebook to host a live chat about your industry instantly.

Make sure that all of these content offers are placed behind forms, so a user has to give you their name, email address, or social media handle to get the offer or leave a comment. This allows you to track engagement with your content and see if any shifts need to be made in your content marketing strategy.

Spur a Sale

What are your goals: More leads? More sales? More followers? Even invested consumers may need a final push before they give you their business. You can win them over with great pieces of content like these:

• • • Results – Publish testimonials, ratings, or case studies on how your business helped other consumers with similar needs. An infographic showing projected savings, for example, may convince new customers to give your company a try.
    • Add-Ons – Offering customers free consultations or templates is an easy way to showcase your company’s value once someone has learned more about what you can do. If they are immediately overwhelmed, you can offer them a solution.
    • Trials – Allow consumers to try your product for free for a limited period of time, and then decide when they’re ready to pay full price. Online trial content subscriptions are perfect for this type of opportunity.

Once a customer has completed a purchase, it is important to keep them engaged with new content. When they pay for your product or sign up for your service, direct them to content covering related products or services, suggest they follow you on social media, or ask them to join your email list for company news and product updates. Not only will they be more likely to make future purchases, but they may pass the content along to other potential customers just like them in your target market.

Learning how to implement a content marketing strategy takes time and a lot of effort. The research, planning, and execution of a results-oriented content marketing plan requires continuous manpower and dedication that not every business has available. If you’re looking for a content marketing company in Little Rock, partner with the experts at Scale by calling 501-588-3199 today.