Content marketing provides a fantastic opportunity for businesses to improve their results. You can build a community, improve your online reputation, and grow brand awareness by providing valuable and relevant content to users. However, your company won’t succeed if you do the same thing as everyone else.
Content marketing is effective, but it is also highly competitive. You won’t get anywhere if you keep repeating the same points as everyone else. Your brand is unique, and so is your target audience. Therefore, if you want to get the most out of content marketing, you must create detailed, useful, and unique content.
Moreover, content marketing is more than just creating and promoting content. It is a comprehensive strategic approach to content mapping that enables you to attract and engage a specific audience and, eventually, generate profitable customer action.
By following the steps mentioned below, you will have all of the information you need to create an effective Content Marketing strategy for your company. Also, know about effective content marketing strategies to help your business stand out. But first, let’s understand why content marketing is important in 2022?
This in-depth guide is all about:
✓ Why is content marketing important in 2022?
✓ What are the essential elements for an effective content marketing strategy?
✓ How to create an effective content marketing strategy?
✓ Most popular types of Content Marketing
✓ 13 Content Marketing Strategies to Drive More Traffic
Why is Content Marketing Important in 2022?
Content consistency builds trust, establishes your credibility, and strengthens your reputation. Here’s how content marketing can help your business.
-
Your customers will stay longer on your website
Great content is a treasured asset. It has the potential to provide positive experiences for your potential customers and convince them to return for more. In other words, it’s your ticket to keeping your audience’s attention and reinforcing a positive brand impression.
-
You create brand awareness
Sure, anything can raise brand awareness, but content marketing does it uniquely. In a nutshell, content strategy accomplishes more than simply ranking your blog article on page one. It makes your content (and your brand) visible to potential customers wherever they look for your product.
To put this strategy into action, you can write about topics that your customers are interested in so that they begin to associate your excellent content with your brand. Moreover, content marketing can also help you grow on social media.
It’s one thing to grow your social media following across multiple channels, but it’s quite another to create trending content. If your company isn’t getting much response despite having a huge following, it’s time to start using content marketing to your advantage. Quality content can assist your company in gaining traction on social media.
-
You can generate more leads
Another benefit of content marketing is to generate high-quality leads. When your audience views your content, they are more likely to make a future purchase from you. Furthermore, calls-to-action (CTA) embedded directly in your content can generate new leads for your sales team. CTAs can be placed anywhere in your content: inline, at the bottom of the post, in the introduction, or even on the side panel. The more satisfied a visitor is, the more likely it is that they will click your call-to-action and proceed to your landing page.
-
Your business will get more visibility
The more consistent and high-quality content you create, the better your SEO efforts will be. For example, your content should assist your company in becoming more visible online while also establishing trust and authority with your target audience. Furthermore, if you have a well-designed content strategy, such as the pillar/cluster model, your content should help you rank higher in search engines.
Now that you know why content marketing is so important let’s know the essential elements of an effective content marketing strategy.
What are the Essential Elements for an Effective Content Marketing Strategy?
An effective content marketing strategy should include four key components: brand positioning, business case, owned media value proposition, and strategic plan. Let’s look at why these elements are important for Content Marketing and how you can begin implementing them.
-
Brand Positioning
A clearly defined brand positioning will assist you in providing a consistent experience to your audience and in developing the right image of your brand across all content marketing channels.
The following questions will help you begin brainstorming about your market position:
- Who are my current and potential customers?
- What kind of experience do they seek?
- What is the competitive environment?
- How do my main competitors market their products?
- What is the distinct value of my brand?
- What issues does my product assist in resolving?
- What distinguishes it from my competitors?
- How can I bring out the personality of my brand?
-
Owned Media Value Proposition
You must define your owned media value proposition in order to establish your brand as a trusted content publisher. You can start by asking these questions – What distinct value do you bring to your audience through your content? Why should readers subscribe to your content channels? How do you distinguish yourself from other content creators?
Begin by researching your target audience to determine the type of information they seek and their preferred resources. Then, investigate your competitors’ content strategies to identify your editorial niche.
Too often, brands are preoccupied with their market rivals and pay insufficient attention to other content creators. However, when you decide to develop owned media, you should consider all publishers in your field as potential competitors. Therefore, include unbranded media in your competitive research, such as online magazines, industry blogs, or influencers’ video channels.
-
Business Plan
Adding value to your audience is an essential component of a successful content strategy. However, content marketing should propel your business forward while attracting new readers and followers. Determine the business goals that your company must achieve and how content marketing will help your company get there. How many resources will you need to invest in your content strategy, and what outcomes do you hope to achieve?
A documented business case will assist you in understanding the costs, benefits, and risks of implementing a content marketing strategy in your company.
-
Strategic Plan
A strategic plan should focus on your objectives and how you intend to achieve them. It will assist you in planning each step of your content strategy. This plan will also assist you in determining who you want to reach with your content marketing efforts, how you will deliver such content to them, and how you will achieve and measure your desired results.
Using these elements in your content marketing strategies, you can grow your traffic and boost conversions.
However, before learning different marketing strategies for your brand, here are 7 simple steps using which you can develop and execute a content marketing plan.
How to Create An Effective Content Marketing Strategy?
-
Establish your objective
A content marketing mission statement is a great place to start when developing your content strategy plan. This brief statement helps you focus on what’s important and what’s not when creating content. Also, it allows your content marketing strategy to stay on track.
A content marketing mission statement includes the following information:
- Your intended audience
- The material you’ll use to reach out to them
- The advantage they will receive
While the mission statement addresses what your target audience will gain from your content marketing strategy, you should also consider what your company will gain from it. This is where your business objectives come into play.
Your goals should include:
- Revenue growth as a result of your content marketing strategy.
- Making more sales and obtaining more high-quality leads to assist you in meeting your revenue targets.
- Increasing traffic to your website because the more traffic there is, the more likely you are to meet your other objectives.
- Improving the image of your company so that you can gain influence and authority and be recognized as a leader.
- SEO success to drive more traffic.
- As your content becomes more effective, your marketing costs will decrease.
- Engagement on social media, which can help with both traffic and authority.
-
Carry out persona research
To create a successful strategy, you must first define your target audience, which is also known as your buyer persona.
This is crucial for those who are just getting started with their marketing. Knowing your target audience allows you to create more relevant and valuable content that they will want to read and convert on.
There are three steps you must take.
Collect Demographic Information
The first step is to gather demographic information from your website visitors, email subscribers, and social media followers.
Social media analytics, web analytics, and email subscriber analytics will provide you with the information you need about your target audience:
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Income
Obtain Customer Feedback
Collect feedback from your current customers to learn even more about your target audience. This will provide you with information about:
- What do they think of the content you’re currently creating?
- What are their most pressing requirements?
- How can your content help them solve their problems?
Obtaining the right customer feedback can assist you in the following ways:
- Recognize your readers’ and subscribers’ priorities.
- Choose the best locations to reach your customers.
- Flesh out your buyer personas.
-
Carry out a content audit
Most brands begin with blog posts in the early stages. If you want to experiment with different formats, you can conduct a content audit to determine your best and worst-performing content. Then, you can use that information to decide which path to take next.
Moreover, if you’ve been in the market for a while, you should look back at your content marketing efforts and results from the previous year.
Determine what you can do in the coming year and set new objectives. Now is the best time to align your brand’s goals with those of your organization as a whole. Whatever stage you’re at, a content audit will assist you in determining what resonates best with your audience, identifying gaps in your topic clusters, and brainstorming new content ideas.
-
Select a content management system (CMS)
Content publication, content creation, and content analytics are all important aspects of content management. You can invest in a CMS to make managing, creating, and tracking your content easier and more sustainable. There are many popular options in the market where you can produce, plan, publish, and measure your results all at the same place.
-
Decide what kind of content to create
There are different types of content you can create, ranging from audio content like podcasts to written content like blog posts and e-books.
-
Generate content ideas
It’s now time to start brainstorming ideas for your next content project.
Here are some resources to get your creative juices flowing.
-
Feedly
The Feedly RSS feed is an effective way to keep up with trending topics in your industry while also generating content ideas.
You begin by informing the software about the topics you are most interested in, and its AI tool will do the rest. You won’t have to scour the internet for new content ideas. Instead, you can browse your curated list, which has been compiled from newsletters, news sites, and social media.
-
BuzzSumo
Do you want to learn about popular content and content ideas? This company provides a variety of market research tools, one of which uses social media shares to determine how popular and well-liked your content is. This data assists you in determining which content ideas would perform well if you created content around them.
-
Blog About (Impactplus)
With IMPACT’s blog title generator, you can get your creative juices flowing. This tool functions similarly to Mad Libs, but instead of joke sentences, it displays common headline formats with blanks where you can describe the subject of your choice.
-
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
This Generator can provide you with blog post ideas for an entire year. All you have to do is enter general terms about which you’d like to write, and this content idea generator will do the rest. In addition, this tool evaluates headlines and titles, providing feedback on length, grammar, word choice, and keyword search volume.
If you have something in mind, run it through the Headline Analyzer to see how you can improve it and move your idea along in the brainstorming process.
-
-
Manage and publish your content
Your marketing strategy should include more than just the types of content you’ll create; it should also include how you’ll organize that content.
You’ll be on the right track with an editorial calendar if you want to publish a diverse and well-balanced content library on your website. Then, to manage and promote your content on other sites, create a social media content calendar.
Many of the suggestions you make will be perennial (i.e., just as relevant months and years from now as they are today). Being said that, you should not ignore current events. While they may not constitute the majority of your editorial calendar, they can assist you in generating traffic spikes.
Most people count on popular holidays, such as New Year’s, to be incorporated into their marketing strategies, but you don’t have to restrict yourself to these essential marketing dates.
If there are niche holidays that might be of interest to your audience, it may be worthwhile to publish content on your blog or on social media.
That’s how you can develop an effective content marketing strategy using simple steps. But, first, let’s dive into the types of content marketing assets you can develop.
Most Popular Types of Content Marketing?
-
Start Blogging
If you don’t have a blog, or if it’s almost non-existent, you should reconsider your priorities. In case you didn’t notice, you’re presently reading a blog. A blog will not only improve your SEO but will also lend authority to your brand, foster better customer relationships, and drive more traffic to your website.
So, what do you have to lose? Don’t just rely on your own blog; look for influential bloggers for whom you can guest post in order to increase the number of people who see your content.
However, keep in mind that your posts should provide valuable content to your audience so that they can persuade them to share posts on social media and other websites. The recommended length of the blog posts is 1,000 to 2,000 words, but you can experiment and see whether your audience prefers longer or shorter reads.
Consider the following things while planning a blog post:
- Discover what your target audience wants to read.
- On a weekly basis, create interesting, shareable content.
- Post a guest post on the websites of well-known bloggers.
-
Write an eBook
The next step in the marketing process is to create an ebook. It’s because visitors may want more information after reading a blog post like this one. This is where calls-to-action (CTAs) come to the rescue by directing people to a landing page where they can download an ebook to learn more valuable business information by submitting their contact information.
Don’t worry; an e-book doesn’t have to be a long novel. It’s an excellent way to provide your visitors with interesting reading material. It’s also great for increasing your email list because you can use the e-book as an incentive to sign up. However, make sure each page is useful, and hire a designer to make it visually appealing. To help with the flow of the book, keep sentences short and use bullet points. You can also include stats and credible quotes as they back up your claims with facts.
-
Case Studies
A case study allows you to tell your customer a story while also gaining credibility. It is one of the most adaptable types of content marketing because it can take many different forms. Case studies can be in the form of a blog post, e-book, podcast, or even an infographic.
The goal is to show how your product helped real-world businesses succeed. Therefore, before selecting a customer for a case study, you should decide which business area you want to add value to.
-
Infographics
Infographics are all about numbers and statistics are an excellent way to convey information precisely. Moreover, they look great if they are well-designed, and people on the internet seem to enjoy them. Therefore, when it comes to creating your infographic, you should consider telling a story. Make sure you do a lot of research to find the right statistics and the right story to tell.
A great strategy would be to conduct a survey in order to obtain the most recent and up-to-date information possible. Here’s an example of a post that includes an infographic.
-
Videos
Did you know that the most engaging way to connect with your audience is through video? Videos are engaging content mediums that can be shared on social media platforms and websites. Videos necessitate a greater investment of time and effort than written content, but because visual content continues to provide a high ROI, it’s worth all the effort.
A one-minute video is worth 1.8 billion words, according to Forrester Research. This is because the video is much easier to digest and much more memorable than text. An explainer video is the best type of video you can make for your business, and these can be animated or screen recorded. If you want to make a video, you must consider your audience. Consider what problems they face and how you approach solving those problems – and use that as the foundation for your story.
-
Social Media
After you’ve been consistently publishing content on your website for a while, consider developing a social media strategy to distribute your content across social media.
You can repurpose your content into new formats and create original content for each platform in addition to sharing it.
Posting on social media is critical for expanding your brand’s reach and delivering content to your customers where they spend their time. Popular social media platforms include:
Social media is a platform for showcasing your personality as well as your content. For this, you must be strategic in your posting and change it up for different social platforms. Discussions are excellent for social media and a fun way to connect with your audience. You can start discussions on Google+ and Linkedin by joining communities and groups that are relevant to your customers.
Twitter is a little different because you only have 140 characters to work with, but it can really help bring your brand to the forefront. However, when creating a business account on any social network listed above, make sure to tailor your content to the platform.
Users on Instagram, for example, want visually appealing images. You have a lot of options with feeds, IGTV, and Stories. Conduct market research to determine which platforms your buyers are using and tailor your content to their needs.
A successful content marketing strategy takes time, organization, and creativity. However, crafting your strategy won’t be a hassle if you follow the steps here, from laying the groundwork for your content marketing plan to adding tools to manage your content better.
-
Email Marketing
Never underestimate the effectiveness of email marketing. People who have signed up for your emails will likely want to hear from you. However, instead of a barrage of sales spiel, make sure to provide your contacts with useful content. You can email your customers with a variety of content, such as competitions, blog posts, e-books, event invites, and exclusives.
Also, consider putting a lot of sign-up tabs on your website to help you build your contact list. In order to build customer confidence, make sure you give your customers an incentive to sign up and follow through.
If you’ve understood the power of content marketing, you’ll know that it can be the foundation of your entire business. Moreover, you can experiment with different content marketing strategies to find which one works best for you.
Here’s a list of some effective content marketing tactics that will skyrocket your search traffic.
Content Marketing Strategies to Drive More Traffic
-
Create targeted landing pages
According to the marketing experts, creating advanced guides for SEO and other internet marketing topics can drive more search traffic to your website. Therefore, you can maximize the chances of getting your content popular by creating landing pages of such advanced guides that are optimized for the relevant keywords. Using templates is the simplest way to get started creating high-quality landing pages. Here’s an example of a landing page from Hubspot.
-
Increase Engagement by Segmenting Your Audience
Smart content marketers understand the importance of segmenting their audiences based on product needs. For one simple reason, segmentation is critical: some of your blog readers aren’t buyers, but others are.
In simple words, your content cannot be appropriate for everyone because people are at different stages of the purchasing cycle. As a result, content designed to raise awareness among new customers is useless for loyal repeat customers.
Increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by segmenting customers based on their personas. Remember that a buyer persona is a fully fleshed-out profile of a specific segment of your target audience. It enables you to create content that speaks more effectively to each segment.
-
Concentrate on Facts and Data
Experimentation is sometimes required to verify results or data personally. What was true five years ago, or even last year, may not be applicable today. Instead of taking everything you read on other websites and blogs at face value, train yourself to think tactically and critically.
The outcomes are relative. You could try something different and get a different result. You can create a new concept that others can learn from by observing, brainstorming, and A/B testing.
That is how you become a content marketing expert, not by simply following the crowd.
-
Focus on Millennials and Generation Z
Millennials and Generation Z now constitute a significant proportion of the world population.
As these groups are likely to make up a sizable portion of your target audience, your content should speak to their needs and values.Because both of these groups grew up with technology as an integral part of their lives, they have high expectations for how businesses use technology. However, they also place a premium on experience over almost everything else, which is directly related to content marketing. So, while both groups share similarities, you must approach each in a slightly different manner. Learn more about marketing to Millennials and targeting Generation Z.
One option is to use adaptive content. Adaptive content allows for meaningful interactions across multiple platforms. Consider it like water: whatever container you pour it into takes on the shape of that container.
For example, you could put their name at the top of a booking site or recommend content based on their previous interactions with your brand. Your readers should be able to access your content on a desktop computer, then pick up where they left off on their smartphone or complete their purchases through your mobile app, with no problems.
-
Choose right topics
While choosing the right topic may not have a direct impact on your chances of ranking on Google, it is the most important part. The last thing you want is for your blog to attract visitors who aren’t interested in your content.
Remember that getting more organic visitors isn’t the only goal; you also want to attract the right people to your blog.
Ideally, you can categorize the topics based on the stages of the sales funnel.
✓ Top of the Funnel
✓ Middle of the Funnel
✓ Bottom of the FunnelIf a topic does not fit into one of these three stages, it is likely irrelevant to your company. As a result, avoid writing about those subjects.
-
TOFU or Top of the Funnel
Top-of-the-funnel content is any content that can help your brand gain awareness. The goal should be to attract as many people as possible who are relevant.
For instance, 10 of the Best Email Marketing Strategies for E-Commerce Websites
Conclusion – If you look at the above topic, you’ll notice that it doesn’t cover automation in general, but it does provide an introduction to automation in one of the points.When compared to other stages, TOFU works best for brand visibility but may not always result in quality leads.
-
MOFU or Middle of the Funnel
Your goal with this type of content should be to persuade visitors to sign up for a trial or a demo in the consideration stage.
For instance, the E-commerce Business Automation Guide for 2020.
Summary – The preceding topic is intended for E-commerce businesses looking for automation solutions.When creating MOFU content, keep in mind to highlight the various benefits and features of your product. This will assist in converting more visitors into leads.
-
BOFU stands for Bottom of the Funnel
This kind of content assists users in validating their purchase decision. Content types such as a comparison post, buyer’s guide, and case studies (which may or may not help you get organic traffic) are excellent examples.
-
-
Promote, promote, and promote more
Here’s a simple question: how much of your time do you spend on content creation versus content promotion?
Most teams spend 80% of their time writing content and 20% promoting it. This is a major issue. Remember that simply promoting your content on social media and to your newsletter subscribers is insufficient. To reach your target audience, you must find new and innovative ways to promote your content.
Here are some techniques for promotion that you should try:
- ✓ Community promotion – It includes attempting to promote your content in relevant communities and groups on Facebook, Slack, and other platforms. You can also look into online communities (such as GrowthHackers) and other promotion platforms (such as Zest.is). Just make sure to interact first before publishing your article.
- ✓ Reddit and Quora – These are clearly two of the most underutilized channels for promotion. However, if used strategically, they can produce excellent results. Reddit, for example, can drive a lot of traffic and links to your post. You simply need to be strategic in your messaging.
- ✓ Influencer marketing – Using a tool like Buzzsumo, identify relevant influencers and reach out to them via email or Twitter with your content.
- ✓ Repurposing content – Even if your content is only text, you should not be discouraged from converting it into a video and uploading it to YouTube. You can use a similar approach to repurpose into other content formats such as audio, slides, infographics, downloadable files, and so on.
-
Keyword research is important
When it comes to SEO, you can’t ignore the importance of keywords. If you want to get organic traffic, you need to rank for terms that people type into Google. However, selecting a term on the basis of your gut feeling is not a good idea.
Using a keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner or UberSuggest is the easiest method to achieve this. After entering your keyword, you’ll see a list of related keywords and search volumes.
However, your final keyword selections should not be just based on volume. There are other aspects to consider, such as —- The keyword’s level of difficulty. Simply conduct a Google search and examine the top-ranking web pages. You can also compare the DA of the top website with yours to determine if you have a chance of ranking on the first page. It’s best to skip a topic if there is a significant gap.
- Check area-specific volumes if you’re targeting a certain country or region. There can be a significant disparity between worldwide and country-specific search volumes.
- If you’re creating a blog, make sure the keyword has an informative intent. For example, if a term has a lot of product pages ranking for it, it’s probably not the best keyword to use.
-
Continue to update old articles
Editing old posts can be difficult, especially when you’re working on a piece that you didn’t write. However, with so many global changes, your article will definitely become old and lose rankings over time.
You should make it a habit to update old posts to avoid becoming obsolete. This can be accomplished by including relevant material, additional information, and internal links to the new pages. This work will directly contribute to the article’s authority.
Every six months, you can create a report to identify such posts. The timeline can be adjusted based on the number of posts you publish each month. Regardless, if you notice traffic for a post drop, it’s a good indication that you should work on updating it.
When it comes to increasing organic traffic, most of us focus on adding new blog posts. However, don’t underestimate the power of updating your existing posts to increase traffic.
-
Create Content That Reflects Your Core Values
Every human being and every business is built on core values. An individual’s behavior and choices are guided by his or her personal core values. The same can be said for your company’s values. For instance, if you believe your target audience will benefit from the information you share, you will conduct extensive research and create the best content possible.
However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for defining your core values. Just make sure that each value stems from your deeply held beliefs. When you begin to write content based on what you truly believe in, you bridge the gap between your message and the expectations of your readers. From there, solid content creation will follow.
Moreover, storytelling can also assist in bridging that gap. It’s much easier to tell stories based on what you know and believe rather than what someone else says or believes. Such a marketing effort will appear effortless to your readers.
-
Make your content better than your competitors
Nowadays, competitor analysis is not optional. You can effectively analyze your competitors to learn precisely what they’re up to and plan strategies to outsmart them.
Competitor analysis, according to industry experts, is a critical component of search marketing success. When the results of competitor analysis are integrated into your strategy, they can improve many aspects of your marketing, including your conversion rate.
Using the right automated tools is the simplest way to learn about what your competitors are doing in terms of where they are getting backlinks and how many quality links they have.
-
Incorporate Emotional Keywords into Headlines
The most effective way to create magnetic headlines is to use emotional keywords. This will boost the effectiveness of your content. People will be inspired not only to read it but also to share it on social media and elsewhere.
For instance, if someone is trying to lose weight, they would most likely go to Google and search for keywords such as:
- The fastest way to burn extra fat
- Drop 20 pounds in 2 weeks
- Lose 10 pounds quickly
Therefore, instead of writing headlines such as “Effective tips for weight loss,” try something like “Shed 20 pounds quickly with these 20 effective tips.”
-
Produce High-Quality Content
Are you concerned that you aren’t a good writer? You’re not alone. You have the ability to develop new skills today. It all starts with igniting your love of writing. After all, if you’re passionate about what you do, nothing in the world can stop you. Consistent effort is required for success, and it’s a lot easier to be consistent when you’re passionate about what you’re doing.
Blogging and business both necessitate creativity, but it doesn’t have to come from your writing (it’s just not for everyone). It could also be a result of how you manage other people. You can also refer to other digital marketing or content creation services and hire professional writers to get the job done for you.
Working with freelancers from all over the world has become incredibly simple due to modern technology, and this can also make a significant difference in your content marketing.
There are many talented individuals who can assist you in expanding your content output while maintaining quality. It’s all about being innovative with your processes and putting in place the right systems to get the most out of your freelance team.
-
Run A/B Testing
Are you consistent when it comes to split testing? According to AdPushUp’s research, conversion rates typically range between one and three percent. A/B split testing can help you increase that rate, and even a single percentage point increase in your conversion rate can be significant.
A/B testing is the process of creating two different versions of your website and observing how your audience reacts to them. And then make those designs useful because the best design yields the desired results.
Running A/B split tests is critical whether you’re on a team of B2B marketers or a small business owner to know for certain which headlines, calls-to-action, and types of content work best for your readers. When you understand which strategies work, your work becomes much more efficient, and your overall content marketing strategy becomes much clearer.
The Bottom Line
Content does a lot more than just fill up your web pages; it also instills trust in your present and potential customers. It assists in the development of strong brand awareness and increases traffic to your website, where your products or services are listed.
However, the benefits of content marketing extend beyond attracting audiences and generating revenue because some other advantages cannot be quantified in monetary terms. Moreover, the growth of content marketing has been rapid and shows no signs of slowing.
If your content marketing isn’t producing the desired results, you can try a variety of different tactics. Of course, not every tactic will work for your company, so experiment to see which ones do the best job of engaging your audience. Hopefully, the content marketing strategies mentioned above will help you create a distinct brand voice that can lead to more conversion.
