Content marketing is a powerful way to attract and engage your target audience, build trust and credibility, and generate leads and sales. But it’s not enough to just create content and hope for the best. You need a clear and effective strategy to make sure your content reaches the right people, at the right time, and with the right message.
In this article, we’ll share some content marketing tips that will help you build a successful strategy for your business. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to improve your existing efforts, these tips will help you create and distribute content that delivers results.
Content Marketing Tips
Here are some content marketing tips that you can apply to your strategy:
Get to know your audience
The first step in any content marketing strategy is to understand who you’re creating content for. You need to know their needs, challenges, goals, preferences, and behaviors. This will help you create content that resonates with them and provides value.
One way to get to know your audience is to create buyer personas. These are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on data and research. You can use tools like HubSpot’s Make My Persona or Xtensio’s User Persona Creator to create your own personas.
Another way to get to know your audience is to conduct surveys, interviews, focus groups, or social media polls. You can ask them questions about their demographics, interests, pain points, goals, content consumption habits, and feedback.
Set SMART goals
The next step in your content marketing strategy is to define what you want to achieve with your content. You need to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with your overall business objectives.
For example, some common content marketing goals are:
- Increase website traffic by 20% in the next 6 months
- Generate 100 new leads per month from blog posts
- Boost email open rates by 10% in the next quarter
- Improve brand awareness by 15% in the next year
To set SMART goals, you need to use data and benchmarks to determine where you are now and where you want to be. You also need to use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or SEMrush to track and measure your progress.
Research your competition
Another important step in your content marketing strategy is to analyze what your competitors are doing. You need to know what kind of content they’re creating, how they’re distributing it, and how they’re performing.
By researching your competition, you can:
- Identify gaps and opportunities in the market
- Learn from their strengths and weaknesses
- Differentiate yourself from them
- Avoid duplicating their efforts
Some tools that can help you research your competition are:
- BuzzSumo: This tool allows you to find the most popular content in your niche based on social shares, comments, and links. You can also see who is sharing and linking to your competitors’ content.
- Ahrefs: This tool allows you to analyze your competitors’ SEO performance, keywords, backlinks, and traffic sources. You can also see how they rank for different keywords and topics.
- Social Blade: This tool allows you to track your competitors’ social media growth, engagement, and reach. You can also compare yourself with them on various platforms.
Make a content calendar
Once you have a clear idea of who you’re creating content for, what you want to achieve, and what your competitors are doing, you need to plan out your content creation and distribution process. You need a content calendar that outlines:
- What type of content you’re going to create (e.g., blog posts, videos, podcasts, ebooks, etc.)
- What topic or keyword you’re going to cover
- What format or style you’re going to use (e.g., listicle, how-to guide, case study, etc.)
- Who is responsible for creating the content
- When and where you’re going to publish the content
- How you’re going to promote the content
A content calendar helps you:
- Stay organized and consistent
- Align your content with your goals and audience
- Manage your resources and deadlines
- Avoid missing opportunities or overlapping topics
You can use tools like Google Calendar, Trello, CoSchedule, or Airtable to create and manage your content calendar.
Employ multiple distribution methods
Creating great content is only half the battle. You also need to make sure that your content reaches your target audience and drives them to take action. You need a distribution strategy that leverages multiple channels and methods.
Some of the most common distribution methods are:
- Email marketing: This is one of the most effective ways to communicate with your audience directly and personally. You can use email marketing to send newsletters, updates, offers, or exclusive content to your subscribers.
- Social media: This is one of the most popular ways to share your content with a large and diverse audience. You can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or YouTube to post or republish your content.
- SEO: This is one of the most organic ways to attract traffic from search engines like Google or Bing. You can use SEO techniques like keyword research, on-page optimization, link building, or technical SEO to improve your ranking and visibility for relevant queries.
- Paid advertising: This is one of the most direct ways to reach your audience with a specific message or offer. You can use paid advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or Twitter Ads to run campaigns that target specific segments or keywords.
- Content syndication: This is one of the most efficient ways to expand your reach and authority by republishing your content on other websites or platforms. You can use content syndication networks like Medium, Quora, Reddit, or Outbrain to distribute your content to new audiences.
Track your performance and analyze the results
The final step in your content marketing strategy is to monitor how well your content is performing and what impact it has on your goals. You need to track key metrics and indicators that reflect the success of your content.
Some of the most common metrics are:
- Traffic: This measures how many people visit your website or view your content.
- Engagement: This measures how many people interact with your content by liking, commenting, sharing, or clicking.
- Leads: This measures how many people express interest in your product or service by signing up, downloading, registering, or contacting.
- Sales: This measures how many people purchase from you as a result of your content.
- ROI: This measures how much revenue you generate from your content compared to how much you spend on creating and distributing it.
To track these metrics, you need tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, SEMrush, or Facebook Insights to collect and analyze data.
Repurpose Your Content
One way to get more value out of your existing content is to repurpose it into different formats or channels. This allows you to:
- Reach new audiences who prefer different types of content
- Reinforce your message across multiple touchpoints
- Extend the lifespan of your evergreen content
- Save time and resources by reusing what works
- Why Content Marketing is the Future of Marketing
For example,
you can repurpose a blog post into:
- A video for YouTube or Facebook
- A podcast episode for Spotify or iTunes
- An infographic for Pinterest or Instagram
- A slide deck for SlideShare or LinkedIn
- A webinar for Zoom or GoToWebinar
You can also repurpose a video into:
- A blog post for Medium or WordPress
- A transcript for Rev.com or Otter.ai
- A summary for Twitter or LinkedIn
- A quote for Instagram or Pinterest
- A snippet for TikTok or Reels
im To Serve Instead Of Sell
One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make with their content is being too promotional or salesy. They focus more on pushing their products or services than providing value or solving problems for their audience.
This can backfire because:
- It can annoy or alienate potential customers who are looking for information or education
- It can damage trust and credibility by making them doubt the authenticity or quality of the content
- It can reduce conversions by making them feel pressured or manipulated into buying
Instead of selling,
you should aim to serve with your content. You should focus more on:
- Educating them about their challenges and opportunities
- Entertaining them with stories and humor
- Inspiring them with examples and testimonials
- Empowering them with tips and resources
- Engaging them with questions and feedback
By serving instead of selling,
you can:
Build rapport and loyalty with them by showing that you care about their needs
Increase trust and authority by demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about
Boost conversions by creating desire and urgency without being pushy
Retarget Your Audience With Your Content
One way to increase the effectiveness of your distribution strategy is to retarget (or remarket) your audience with your content. This means showing your content again to people who have already seen or interacted with it before.
This allows you to
Remind them of your value proposition and brand message
Reinforce their interest or curiosity in your product or service
Recover lost leads or customers who have abandoned or bounced from your website
Increase conversions by offering incentives or discounts to persuade them to take action
To retarget your audience, you need tools like Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag, or Twitter Website Tag to track, and segment your website visitors
and show them relevant ads or posts