6 Tips For The Ideal Content Marketing Strategy

If you are looking to build a digital marketing campaign for your business, you’ll first need a content marketing strategy. That’s because all online marketing is built on some type of content, be it blogs, videos, social media posts, landing pages or PPC ads.

Research shows that businesses that spend upwards of $10,000 on content marketing experience greater output.

This makes content a very powerful tool that should never be used on a whim. You need a solid strategy to get the most from your content assets.

Other research shows that despite knowing its importance, 63% of businesses don’t have a standard content strategy. Don’t let this be your business.

It’s important to develop a clear and effective content marketing strategy that helps to achieve whatever business goals you want to achieve through it. Read ahead for tips on how to create a content marketing strategy that is ideal for your business.

1. Create A Content Marketing Plan
2. Focus On Your Target Audience
3. Use Analytics
4. Sales Funnel
5. Repurpose
6. Take A Specific Direction With Your Content

1. Create A Content Marketing Plan

If you want to adopt content marketing best practices, start off by making a content plan that incorporates a good mix of different types of collaterals, including blogs, videos, podcasts and more. This is a great way to ensure that you have a multi-pronged approach to content marketing.

Make a calendar that can guide you through the strategy-building process within a set timeline. Be sure to account for special dates like industry-related events and major holidays and leave a few blank areas to cater to any unpredictable relevant topics that require content.

Besides planning what to post, you can also use the calendar to note down where you will post a certain piece. A multimedia strategy, PR, and guest posting are essential to incorporate in your strategy and how you can distribute the content across them depending on your sales strategy throughout your timeline.

2. Focus On Your Target Audience

Your audience is the most important part of your business, and you have to consider them when you create your content marketing strategy. By understanding your audience's problems, concerns, lifestyle, and requirements, you can create effective strategies that attract them to your business.

It is also essential to keep in mind that everyone in your audience is not a buyer. Many will interact with your brand before they prepare to purchase from you.

As a result, you have to make content strategies that attract potential buyers before they begin their buyer's journey. Then, follow it up with content that reflects the usefulness of your brand so it can help them take action when they are ready.

Additionally, use empathy maps, a collaborative tool to get better insights into your target audience. It has a detailed approach that shows the customers' perspectives to help you devise strategies based on what they feel, think, hear, or see, improving their overall experience.

3. Use Analytics

One of the most important aspects of a content strategy is producing top-quality pieces rather than creating a pile of one low-quality content piece after another. This is an essential component to attract your target audience and keep them hooked to what your brand has to offer.

Content strategists have to be aware of the effectiveness of their content. If you know how to use your content in one phase of the sales funnel, you can work out how to do the same in the subsequent ones as well.

Track, monitor, and report the numbers carefully to update your strategy and refine it for better conversions continuously. When you continuously test your approach through data, you'll be able to gauge your audience's interests better, purchasing behavior, and preferences. Then, understand your content's performance to progress to the next step.

Ask the following questions to improve your overall strategy:

• How well are different apps, platforms, and tools performing?
• Is all the content blending?
• What needs improvement and refinement?
• How can you optimally use resources and time with regards to the conversions?

4. Sales Funnel

Every buyer has a decision-making journey, and the sales funnel defines that. This includes the awareness, evaluation, and buying phases, which need to be properly assessed to understand the reasons behind the buyers' movement through the sales funnel.

Content marketing generally lies at the sales funnel's top, and outsiders might consider it to be away from the funnel's main sales (money-making) phase. Another stage that follows the conversion stage establishes brand loyalty. As a result, content strategists must consider four essential funnel stages:

• Outreach: to attract new customers
• Conversion: to convince customers to purchase a product
• Closing: to make the sale
• Retention: to establish brand loyalty with returning customers

All lead generation and brand awareness take place at the sales funnel's top part, where you can get in touch with most of your customer base, build your audience, and engage with them for a better view of your complete strategy.

Your goal should be to engage with customers at every funnel stage and help them cycle through it.

5. Repurpose

Another essential aspect of an ideal content marketing strategy is considering how various content pieces work differently, the impact they create on your marketing, and different ways to save your resources and time by using different content combinations.

For instance, you can establish yourself as an authority through blog formation with email series, guest blogging, and social media usage to create groups.

Some ideas you can consider are:

• Use old blogs to make PDF guides
• Create purchasable email courses series from a webinar
• Make slideshows from infographics or vice versa
• Produce blogs that you can later use to make whitepapers or case studies

6. Take A Specific Direction With Your Content

It isn't enough to have content, writers to create, and analytical tools to check its effectiveness. As a content strategist, you have to understand different content pieces in the marketing framework.

One way to go about using effective content marketing tactics is to categorize content types according to the four funnel stages mentioned above:

• Outreach: landing pages, Facebook ads, infographics, explainer videos
• Conversion: informative blog posts, social media, quizzes, case studies
• Closing: reviews, email series, questionnaires
• Retention: whitepapers, contests, exclusive offers, emails, surveys

Prepare all your content and keep it ready for roll-out according to the timeline. Understand where the different types of content perform better depending on the audience and platforms.

Let Epitome Digital Marketing Create A Stellar Content Marketing Strategy For You

As the digital landscape evolves, the content delivering methods also change to attract prospects in unique ways. However, these methods remain the same, led by a high-quality and effective content marketing strategy that’s built on concrete data and analytics.

Why not count on our digital marketing experts to get your content strategy off to a great start? We use powerful tools to gather unique insights and data that can strengthen your content and help you market your business for some exciting results.

Let’s get started today. Call us at (980) 404-9250 to create a content marketing strategy that can deliver you more leads!