Content marketing creates an immersive environment for potential customers to discover how your product or service will solve their problems or realize their desires, which can drive clients to buying decisions.
This post contains a detailed explanation of how to create an effective content marketing strategy. It outlines the process of planning and creating content that will engage your target audience.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a strategy for engaging with your audience and increasing your client base through the creation of relevant and valuable content.
This strategy is good for attracting, involving, and creating value for a brand’s audience. This method builds a positive perception of your brand and generates more business for your enterprise.
Content marketing is no longer a market trend, but a strategic investment for achieving greater business success. With content marketing, brands can gain greater relevance and visibility online and become more recognizable to their customers.
A business can stand out in people’s memory by being different from the competition. This can help the business avoid being swallowed up by the competition.
Nowadays, it’s not enough to just be present on the internet. The real challenge is to make sure that you’re visible and relevant to your target audience. This is what content marketing is all about.
11 Content Marketing Strategies to Build Brand Awareness
1. Create a buyer persona
The key to creating good content is understanding who your audience is and what they want to hear. It’s not just about segmenting your audience, but understanding their needs and wants.
This character is known as a “buyer persona,” and is given a name, social class, history, desires, problems, interests, and other specific details inspired by real people who have purchased from your company.
The persona is a more segmented concept than the target audience. This is because you look at all the problems your persona has and match them with what you offer.
This strategy results in content that is both helpful to the audience and creates a strong relationship between the brand and the audience.
2. Define objectives and KPIs
After you know your persona, you need to set some strategic goals and identify the metrics you’ll use to determine whether or not the campaign is successful.
Some of the most common goals for Content Marketing are:
- increase traffic;
- generate more leads;
- increase sales;
- educate the market;
- wide brand awareness;
- create value;
- engage the audience;
- reduce Customer Acquisition Cost;
- increase client lifetime value.
The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that we use to monitor the results of our Content Marketing efforts.
Remember that these KPIs must have a relation to the goals. See some examples below:
- if you want to increase traffic, monitor the site’s traffic;
- if you want to generate more leads, monitor the conversion rate on your site;
- if you want to increase brand awareness, monitor social media interactions like comments, shares, and reactions on social media platforms;
- if you want to increase sales, watch out for the number of sales, ticket value, items by sale, etc.;
- if you want to educate the market, watch out for the number of new subscriptions on a newsletter, access to content pages, etc.;
- if you want to increase clients’ lifetime value, watch out for how long they stay as your customer.
3. Consider the buyer’s journey
The marketing funnel is the process people go through when making a purchase. In order to drive people through the funnel, Inbound Marketing strategies are used.
Most people start at the top of the sales funnel, where they are attracted by content marketing, and continue until they are ready to buy.
Know each stage of the marketing funnel below.
TOFU (Top of the Funnel)
The most general stage of the journey is when the consumer is discovering their problem. Here you may attract many people, but just a few of them will really fit with a qualified lead profile.
At this state, people are not likely to share their information. However, it is not impossible for that to happen.
The masses want content that is informative and helpful. Blog posts, podcasts, ebooks, and guides do just that.
MOFU (Middle of the Funnel)
At the middle stage of the funnel, your audience is already aware that they have a problem and are looking for a way to solve it.
They’ve given you info about themselves in order to get something from you, like an ebook or infographic. You can use this data to get them closer to making a purchase.
The most effective way to address the topics related to your business is to create blog posts, multimedia content, and interactive content that focus on the solutions your company can provide.
BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)
People who are interested in your products or services are more likely to buy them.
The people who are the most valuable leads are those who are already educated and know what they want.
Now you should show your client some case studies, demos of your solutions, and other client testimonials that demonstrate how your business can fix their issues.
The buyer’s journey is made up of different stages, each with its own level of knowledge and information needs. That’s why you need to consider which stage of the marketing funnel they are in when creating content.
4. Set a budget
Budgeting is an important part of creating any successful digital marketing strategy, and this is especially true for content marketing.
To what extent should you be spending on content marketing, and what are the most useful methods for creating a budget that works for you?
You should budget approximately 25-30% of your marketing budget for content production.
You’ll need to know what kind of content you want to produce in the future and how much it will cost to hire someone to do it for you.
Examples to consider include (but may not be limited to):
- Blog posts
- Slideshows
- Ebooks
- Videos
- Infographics
- Charts and media assets
- General content promotion
Prices for the above assets can range from free to several thousand dollars.
More experienced service providers tend to charge more.
Choose wisely when selecting someone based on price, making sure to consider their skill set.
5. Implement SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a set of techniques used to improve a website’s ranking on search engine page results. These techniques can be used to improve the ranking of a website on search engines such as Google.
If you are ranked highly on Google, it is more likely that your target audience will find your blog, progress through the sales funnel, and make a purchase from you.
In order for your content to be optimized for search engines, it needs to be written well and engage the reader.
You can do this by:
- analyzing your results with Google Analytics to know which posts you could improve;
- using the Google Search Console tool and uploading your site map;
- installing SEO plugins like Yoast if you work with WordPress;
- using keywords that Google suggests in tools like Keyword Planner;
- optimizing the keyword’s use by putting it between the first 100 words and in a subtitle, for example;
- adopting short URLs and using keywords in them;
- optimizing your pages for mobile devices;
- improving your site speed and testing it in Google PageSpeed Insights;
- designing your content using SEO best practices to rank in Google page results;
- using backlinks.
6. Spread impactful content on different platforms
If you want to stand out in a competitive market, you need to do more than just provide content. Improve your content marketing strategy by following best practices. Some good practices to follow include PPC, SEO, display advertising, email marketing, and influencer marketing. Using content management can also help strengthen your online store strategy.
Adhering to these practices will result in long-term benefits, though they may work slowly at first. Give them some time, and you will see a significant improvement in your site’s traffic. Also, take a close look at which platform is performing best for you and maximize your use of the most effective practices.
Make sure your content is shareable and visible to as many people as possible by working with influential figures in your field. Ask them to write a blog post about your products or services, give you introductions to their networks, and leave reviews.
Your content marketing strategy should be consistent. This means regularly sharing blogs, articles, and videos that include visuals. The focus should be on providing high-quality content.
7. Make your customers satisfied by answering their queries
You should aim to serve your customers in the best way possible by answering their questions fully and satisfactorily. Top search results and customer queries should be given priority, and you should strive to provide answers that are both conceptually sound and impressive. If your customers are facing any problems, do your best to resolve them.
Please provide your feedback in a lucid and simplified manner. Your answer should be clear and easy to understand, without using the same ideas as others. Try to be innovative and different, using strong examples to support your points. Whatever will be helpful for your customers, please share.
Answering questions on Quora and engaging with popular queries can help draw traffic to your profile. Adding comments to blog posts, social media posts, and videos is another way to get people to notice you.
This can also improve your online store business process. You can identify your weaknesses and areas for improvement.
8. Offer problem to solution content
If you want customers to buy your product, you need to offer them content that provides a deep understanding of what they’re buying. This can include product guides, demos, maintenance tips, introductions, charts, and graphs. This will help potential customers make an informed decision about your product.
Make sure to keep your customers updated on any new innovations, plans, or changes to your business. Clearly explain how you stand out from the competition and how your business methods can benefit your customers.
This way, customers can understand your store’s business model and decide if it is right for them.
9. Send email reminders
Email marketing can be used to reach potential customers and build strong relationships. Make sure the content in the emails is high quality and interesting to the reader to encourage attendance at events, sessions, and webinars.
Keep your customers up to date with recent updates, promotional and discount offers, and informative news that can be helpful for them. By sending emails, you will never lose touch with your customers.
You can use your mails to provide deals, like free shipping or a sale that only lasts for a limited time. You can also send discount mails to encourage your customers to share your products or site with other people. By doing this, you can reach more people and increase web sales. To do this, you need to make a standard subscriber list and segment your customers based on various traits.
The email can be like the following one.
We are giving our old customers 500 points this weekend! Come shop now, your favorite styles are waiting for you in our store.
Also, make sure that your customers don’t feel irritated. Send emails sparingly so that they are not ignored and sent to spam.
10. Build trust among your customers
Before deciding to buy a product, customers usually read reviews to learn about the product and the company. Customers research your website and business to see if you are knowledgeable and efficient.
If you want to build trust with your potential customers and show them how excellent your business is, you can include customer reviews on your website. Showcase case studies detailing the problems they were facing, how you tackled them, and how they finally achieved success. You can also publish content such as blogs and social media posts featuring your customers.
You can demonstrate to your customers the areas in which your business excels. Share your business insights and experience with them, and introduce them to the new technologies and tools you are using. Keep them updated on any new developments or changes happening in your business.
11. Analyze and measure results
Your content marketing goals should not only be achievable, but also measurable. Plan to collect data that will help you gauge your progress, and decide how frequently to do so.
You should try to collect data once a month, but this may vary depending on the needs of your business.
It’s also a good idea to pick a few key metrics to watch weekly to ensure you’re staying on target. Possibilities include:
- Website traffic
- Pageviews
- Online and offline sales for both new and existing products
- Email subscriptions
- Blog subscriptions and social media follows
- Blog and social media comments
- Conversion rates
- Social buzz
It is important to regularly analyze your data to get a clear picture of your progress.
After you have done your research, discuss your findings with the rest of your team or a few people you trust. Be prepared to adjust your strategy accordingly.
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