In our digital age, content isn’t only on the pages of a paper, newsletter, or magazine. Instead, it also includes creating and sharing online materials, like videos, blogs, podcasts, and social media posts.
A successful content marketing strategy involves creating and distributing content to attract and engage your target audience to generate leads and increase brand awareness. If you want to make your content marketing strategy more effective, consider the following steps.
Know Your Audience
Before you start writing your blog or pitching ideas for a podcast, you need to know who you are addressing or who will read or listen to your podcast. Creating marketing personas is the first step.
A marketing persona involves creating a character who represents a certain demographic. In other words, it is someone you want to sell a product to. Think of subjects that might be top of mind for that individual, their likes or dislikes, and what tone will best resonate with them. Once you have that information, you can customize your content effectively.
Find Content Readers Will Share
When creating potential pitches or a blog publishing schedule, you might be tempted to fill the calendar with lots of posts. While this might be feasible from your side, it is always best to focus on quality over quantity.
Having a high volume of posts allows you to easily fall into the trap of writing about a topic that has already been covered. Try developing a topic that your potential customers find appealing and makes them learn something new. After all, if they find your content attractive, they will easily share and subscribe to your blog posts and podcasts.
Buzzsumo is a great tool to help you look up a piece of content with many shares. Simply enter a topic using a broad keyword and tap into the viral stories and blogs to gain inspiration.
Experiment With Different Formats
Content doesn’t only have to be in the form of blog posts and articles. You can also explore new formats like infographics, videos, and downloadable PDFs. Many readers might prefer something unique and appealing other than text.
As you create more blog posts and written content, experiment with different formatting options. These could include graphics, bulleted links, and subheadings to engage your readers.
Optimize Your Content
Besides being informative, content can also attract organic traffic to your website. A great way to do that is to optimize your content for one or two keywords. This will give you a better chance of reaching new visitors from more search engines.
If your content is text-based, you can use tools like SEMRush to look up keywords that rank higher in Google search results and use them in your text, page’s title, and headers.
Add Email Signups
If your readers find your content appealing, they will want to return to your website or blog. You will need to create enough value for them to subscribe to your newsletters or blogs.
An effective way to do that is to offer enticements like e-books or free email courses that teach them something new. You can also offer a PDF version of an article or pack extra content in an e-book for them to download in exchange for their email.
Analyze Your Content
A successful content marketing strategy involves analyzing your content to attract and engage your audience. Using tools like Google Analytics is a great way to achieve that. Google Analytics analyzes the audience, behaviours, and conversions of your readers. The reports provide a comprehensive overview of who your visitors are, what they do on your website, and what activities they have completed.
It will take time to see results. As you gradually grow your followers, Google Analytics can help you measure the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. You can always refer to Google’s analysis to revise your marketing strategy and meet your goals.
David Messiha | Staff Writer
