Content marketing is a marketing strategy that is quickly growing in popularity. While it has been around long before the internet, companies have taken advantage of current technology to maximize their reach and grow their audience. When looking to improve your content marketing strategy, take the following steps to analyze your existing strategy to optimize your efforts.
What is Effective Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy aimed to increase conversion rates by creating consistent and valuable content. By cultivating a loyal audience through content creation, customers are likely to return to a trusted brand that has provided them with valuable resources before making a purchase.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, to put it simply, effective content marketing’s goal is to build and maintain a defined audience, ultimately driving customers’ profitable actions.
Content marketing can take on many forms, from blog posts and white pages to videos and podcasts if you have the resources. Essentially, any type of content outside of the services or products the company provides can be utilized in content marketing.
However, despite the limitless possibilities, content marketing is most effective when you hone in on and take the time to produce a specific type of high-quality content your demographic responds to.
Improve your content marketing by researching your demographic to determine the content they would find the most interesting and valuable. Use the research you may already have on hand, such as age ranges, careers and other pertinent information.
Consider your resources and time and pick a form of content you can create at a high quality and on a consistent basis. Consistency is key. It is crucial to your content marketing success that the audience can rely on you for relevant, high-quality and engaging content.
Maximize Your Reach with Social Media
While it is important to rank high on search engine results pages, Google searches aren’t the only way people can find your content. When looking to improve your content marketing, maximize your reach by posting sharable content on social media.
However, creating shareable content isn’t easy and is, unfortunately, getting even harder. This is partly because of an influx of competition but also a shift in people’s social media habits.
According to Coschedule, people are more interested in personal connections than brands, meaning they are more likely to pay attention to an influencer they follow than a corporate brand.
People are also shifting away from certain platforms. For example, Facebook was once the most popular social media platform for teens between 13 to 17; however, the percentage significantly dropped from 71% of teens in 2014-2015 to 51% in 2018, according to Pew Research.
So how can one breakthrough? Shareable content is content that speaks to an audience. Consider your demographic’s interests and the industries they care about. Tell a marketing story by considering your demographic’s problems and how your products or services can solve them.
Coschedule suggests researching competitors’ social media presences to help determine which social media platforms to use to maximize your reach. Which platforms do they use and which ones are the most active? Scroll through their posts for the past six months and take note of what types of posts performed the best.
While social media gives you access to the masses, it does not mean you will reach them. Instead, focus on cultivating a loyal following through consistent posting, sharing high-quality blog posts, or other types of content marketing.
Establish Measurable KPIs
All of your efforts poured into improving your content marketing strategy will go to waste if you don’t have a clear, measurable way to assess your progress. By establishing clear key performance indicators, you can easily determine achievable, short-term goals while gauging your content marketing’s performance.
According to Portent, every stage of the conversion funnel, which describes the steps a customer takes before they make a purchase, will lead to one of three types of content marketing goals: conversion, reputation, and engagement.
KPIs used to measure conversions are leads, transactions and revenue and analytic goal completions, Portent writes. Reputation KPIs include keyword ranking and sentiment analysis. Lastly, engagement KPIs include time on page, page per session, comments and scroll depth tracking. Many of these metrics are measured by a web analytics service.
Once you can quantify your efforts, you can establish a path to follow and determine when it’s time to reassess.
Playing the Long Game
Content marketing is not an overnight success strategy. It takes time and consistency to build a loyal audience that will ultimately lead to conversions. When improving your content marketing, optimize your efforts by honing in on a few types of content you can do well. Choose quality over quantity and build quantity later.
Once you’ve chosen the best-performing type of content, maximize your reach through social media. Be sure to choose the platforms your demographic frequents and promote the content they care about in a way that resonates with them.
And lastly, establish clear and measurable KPIs to assess your progress. Be ready to tweak your strategy as you go, and don’t be afraid to try something new until you find something that works.
Help with Content Writing
Strategy and creation of content marketing can be challenging. If you are ready to embark on a content marketing journey for your brand or business, consider entrusting this work to a dedicated team of experts. Contact Wordsmyth Creative Content Marketing today for help with all of your content marketing needs!