If you're new to content marketing, it can seem like a daunting task. It may seem nearly impossible to develop a coherent strategy with all the channels, strategies, and ideas that go into content creation. For many businesses, a content marketing strategy is a significant investment, and the last thing they want is to get it wrong.
It's no secret that content marketing has become a powerful way for businesses to build brand awareness and drive traffic back to their websites. In fact, according to HubSpot, online content generates the second-highest lead volume of all marketing channels, with qualified leads coming in at a 24.1% conversion rate – higher than both SEO (16.3%) and PPC (11%).
What are the best ways to develop a good content marketing strategy? If you're just getting started in content marketing, you may be wondering how to build a strategy that will return results. This article shares six simple steps to get your content marketing on track and create better online buzz for your business.
Table of Contents
1. Identify goals
Before you start creating content for your brand, you need to know what your content marketing goals are. They should be SMART - specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and timely. This will help you focus your efforts on the right things and ensure that you're creating the best content possible.
For example, if one of your goals is to increase web traffic by 20 percent by the end of the year, you'll need to know what you're going to create to do that.
2. Build a brand tone
Before you even think about content marketing, you need to determine the tone of voice you're going to use. You can't just start putting words together and expect them to be successful. One of the most important aspects of any content marketing strategy is tone.
So many businesses fail to realize that when writing content for their website, it has to sound just like how the brand talks. This can be difficult to master as nobody likes to sound like a robot, but it is also one of the most important aspects of your content marketing strategy. The tone of your voice can often determine how customers perceive your brand and whether they consider you to be credible.
So, it is important to make sure that your brand is consistent when talking to your customers. If you can't do it yourself, ensure to hire a company like www.globexwritingservices.com to write your content professionally.
Also, by specifying your brand's tone, you're making sure your audience knows how to take your content and that you're using language they're familiar with. How do you know what tone you should use? Look at your competitors. Look at the tone of voice your competitors use and see how successful they are.
3. Research and segment your audience
Before you can create content that converts, you need to research your target audience. This is called audience profiling. Your audience is anyone who will be the recipient of your content, whether that's via your blog, a video, an infographic, or whatever you choose. But how do you know who your audience is? You need to do some research.
One of the most important steps in building a content marketing strategy is to research your audience and segment them. You want to know who you're targeting in order to create content that will help them accurately, and you want to know what they want so you can create content they will love.
Segmentation is critical because it allows you to gather information on your audience and deliver content that is geared toward the right people. You can segment based on demographics, psychographics, geography, or even by industry. You can even look at other websites or blogs that are in the same niche as you in order to find out what they are talking about.
Blogs with a similar audience to yours can be great sources of information to see what's working for them, and you should use this information to better your own content marketing strategy.
4. Use a content calendar
Content marketing is a great way to build trust and authority with your audience, and it can also drive traffic to your site. If you have a blog, you're doing content marketing whether you like it or not. But, if you're looking to really improve your content marketing game, you need a content calendar.
A content calendar should outline what you intend to publish when you plan to publish it and how you will promote your content. If you're not blogging yet, now is the time to start. If you are blogging, now is the time to get serious about it.
5. Optimized for mobile
it's so important to make sure your website is optimized for mobile users. If a visitor can't easily find the information they're looking for or if they can't easily navigate to the desired page, they're quickly going to give up and click away to another site.
In this day and age, the internet is used primarily on mobile devices. According to a comScore report, there are more than a billion smartphones in use worldwide, and almost 2/3 of people use their smartphones to access the internet. The Google Mobile-Friendly Test is a tool that can be used to test if your site is optimized for mobile devices. However, it is not just about designing a website that is optimized for mobile devices.
You need to have a strategy in place to ensure that your mobile site is easy to use and visually attractive. One of the most important aspects of a mobile site is that it should be quick and easy to navigate. If your site does not load properly on mobile devices or is not easy to use, it will not be as successful as it could be.
6. Analyze and run tests
Content marketing is hot right now. Many think that with the right strategies, you can increase sales and profit by using content marketing. But how can you be sure? You need to analyze every strategy you try. What content works best? Which articles or posts attract readers? And which content isn't worth your time? What are the most important things to look for when analyzing your content? You need to be able to answer these questions before you decide on a strategy.