Introduction
Content marketing is a process that any business can use to drive more traffic, leads, and sales. But it’s not as simple as publishing content on your website or blog. To get the most out of your content marketing strategy, you need to plan with a well-organized approach to help you create valuable content that resonates with your target audience and converts them into buyers.
Target audience research
It’s essential to know your audience. If you’re a small business owner, this might mean finding out who your ideal customer is and what they want from their experience with the brand. For example, if they’re looking for information about how to use a new product or service, writing blog posts that provide tips on getting started would be more likely to resonate with them than simply advertising the product itself.
If you’re working on behalf of an organization like The United Nations Foundation (UNF), it could be helpful for marketers there to understand why people might donate money or volunteer time instead of just asking them outright: “Don’t we all want world peace?” For UNF’s content marketing strategy–which includes everything from videos featuring celebrities talking about climate change awareness campaigns–to work effectively over time requires knowing what kinds of messages will resonate with potential donors or volunteers who may not have even considered getting involved before seeing these types of letters in their feeds!
Content audit
A content audit is a method of analyzing the quality and effectiveness of your existing content. It can be used to identify areas for improvement, as well as opportunities for creating new content that meets the needs of your audience.
To perform a content audit, you’ll need to:
- Conduct research on what topics are relevant to your audience. This can include conducting surveys or interviews with them, analyzing Google search results related to your company or industry (and competitors), reviewing competitor websites and social media accounts (including Facebook groups), reading news articles related to those topics–or any other data points that might help identify trends in demand for information about those topics among customers who are likely interested in buying from you.
Content strategy
A content strategy is creating, publishing, and promoting your content. It’s an important part of any digital marketing strategy because it helps you understand what kind of content will work best for your audience, how often they want to see it, and how to use social media to share it.
The first step in developing a good content strategy is figuring out who your audience is–and where they hang out online. Do they read blogs? Are they into podcasts? Or do they prefer watching video tutorials on YouTube? Once you know where your target market lives (or at least spends time), the fun part comes: coming up with ideas for what kind of things would interest them enough that they’ll share them with their friends!
Buyer personas
Buyer personas are fictional characters that represent your ideal customers. They’re based on research, interviews, and analysis of historical data to create a profile of an individual or group of customers.
You can use buyer personas to understand what your customers want and need so you can create content that is relevant to them. They also help you determine how much time they spend researching products before making a purchase decision, making it easier to determine how much effort should go into creating content for each stage of the buying process (e.g., awareness vs. consideration vs. purchase).
Buyer personas are used by marketers across all industries, including B2B businesses like ours at HubSpot; however, if we were starting today, I would still recommend using this technique because it will help guide our efforts as we build out our overall strategy in the future.
Keyword research
Keyword research is a crucial part of your content marketing strategy. It helps you understand what people are searching for online, what they are looking for, and what they are buying.
It can also help you find out who your competitors’ target audience is or what keywords they use to attract readers or customers.
You need to know the exact terms people use when searching on Google so that when someone searches these terms in Google, your business shows up first on the search results page (SERP).
Content creation
The most important part of your content marketing plan is creating great content. And it’s not just about what you create, but how you create it.
Content creation is a process and not an event. You have to have a process that allows you to consistently create high-quality content on schedule so that when someone visits your site or social media pages, they see new material every time they go back there again (and they will).
This means that if you want to be successful with this type of marketing strategy, then don’t think about each piece as something separate from the larger whole–it needs to be part of an ever-growing library of useful information that people can refer back to over time (and again).
Blogging
Blogging is a great way to reach your target audience. It’s also a great way to build trust with them and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
This can be done by writing blog posts that are:
- Informative – Your content should provide valuable information for readers, whether it’s tips on how to do something better (or faster) or simply educating them about something they didn’t know before reading your blog post.
- Educational – You should include at least one solid piece of educational content each month so people keep returning for more!
Infographics
- Use infographics to share your content.
- Use infographics to educate and inform.
- Create a visual statement with an infographic that will stand out from the crowd of boring, text-only articles on any topic you want to promote.
- Make your content more shareable by making it more visual, which can help increase traffic as well!
Video Marketing
Video marketing is a great way to reach your audience. Videos can promote your brand, products, and services, educate your audience, or entertain them. They can also inform them by providing helpful information on using your product or service.
Video marketing has become popular because it’s easy for people to consume content in this format on their mobile devices when they’re on the go. This makes it an ideal choice for businesses who want their message delivered quickly without spending time reading articles or blog posts explaining something in detail over multiple pages of text.
Social media marketing
Social media is a powerful way to reach your audience, but it can be hard to know where to start. Here are some tips for creating a social media marketing plan:
- Decide which platforms best fit your brand’s goals and audience. If you’re trying to drive leads or sales, Facebook Ads are likely the right choice; if brand awareness is more important than direct conversions (e.g., Coca-Cola), Instagram might work better than Snapchat.
- Create content that matches each platform’s unique strengths and weaknesses–and always test! For example, videos perform well on YouTube but poorly on Twitter because of its character limit; photos perform well on Instagram but poorly on LinkedIn since there’s no image upload option available within their platform (you need an external website).
Email marketing
Email marketing is an important part of a content marketing strategy. It’s one of the most effective ways to get your message across to your audience and can be used to build relationships with them. It also can drive traffic back to your website or landing page by providing value through free resources like ebooks, white papers, or downloadable guides.
Email is still one of the most widely used channels for marketing messages because it’s convenient for both businesses and customers alike: unlike social media platforms where people expect frequent updates from brands (which may not always be relevant), emails tend to provide not only timely information but also relevant offers based on past purchases/engagement history, etc., making them more likely click through rates than other channels like Facebook Ads or Google AdWords campaigns.
Lead magnets
Lead magnets are a way to get people to sign up for your email list. Lead magnets can be anything that helps you generate leads, such as a free ebook, video course, or guide.
The best lead magnets offer value in exchange for contact information. For example, if you’re selling dog beds on Amazon and have many reviews from happy customers who’ve bought them, consider creating an ebook with tips and tricks on choosing the right one for your pup’s needs (and maybe even include some testimonials). This can be distributed through social media or email campaigns–it’s up to you!
To create effective lead magnets:
- Determine exactly what type of content will work best for driving conversions (e-books vs. videos vs audio courses) based on where your audience spends most of their time online.* Create valuable content that addresses their pain points or questions about what problem-solving solutions exist within these areas.* Package all this information into something easy-to-share/accessible via multiple platforms like Facebook Messenger bots too!
Section. Landing pages. Conversion rate optimization.
A landing page is designed to be the destination for visitors who click on an advertisement. A good landing page will have one goal: getting people to sign up for your email list or give you their contact information.
You should include the following:
- A headline that clearly states what you want them to do (e.g., “Subscribe To Our Newsletter”)
- An opt-in form that asks for their name, email address, and/or phone number (it’s best if it also has fields for first name and last name so you can segment your list better)
- A short paragraph explaining why they should subscribe/sign up today! This paragraph should answer any questions about why this offer is so amazing–and what benefits they’ll receive from taking action now (rather than later).
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve covered some of the most important elements of a content marketing plan. We hope it helps you create a strategy to help your business grow and thrive in today’s digital world!
