Content marketing for business results - Content is king

What is content marketing?

Nearly every marketer is doing it, but it is easy to wonder whether content marketing is really worth it. So let us start with the basics: content itself. Content is the foundation under a great deal of marketing activity. Think about SEO: search engines reward businesses that publish quality, consistent content, and without content there is nothing to optimise. Social media marketing lives off content entirely. And a good story is what drives PR.

But what do we actually mean by content?

Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing content that is purposeful, consistent and informative. It is a technique aimed at a specifically defined audience, with the purpose of driving leads and sales.

It is easy to overthink content. It is simply any form of communication with your customers — from landing pages and case studies to video and infographics, to social posts and public speaking.

Content marketing, then, is the use of that content to meet your marketing and business goals: building brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, acquiring customers and, of course, retaining the customers you already have.

Building a solid content marketing strategy

Like all good marketing, a successful content campaign starts with a solid strategy. In its B2B research, cited here when this article was first published in 2019, the Content Marketing Institute found 63% of B2B marketers had no documented content marketing strategy. Unsurprisingly, the respondents who did have one reported higher levels of success from their content marketing than those working to a verbal strategy or none at all.

Developing a content marketing strategy might sound daunting, but it need not be if you follow a simple process.

Set your goals

As with any marketing strategy, your content strategy should be aligned with your business goals, but you also need specific goals for what the content itself should achieve. What is the purpose of this content? Who are you writing for? What does your audience want from it, and what will they do when it works?

Define your audience

If you have not carried out audience research, or have not done it in a while, developing a content strategy is a good excuse. Take the time to build profiles of the different types of people you want to reach: demographics, personality attributes, behaviour and aspirations, as well as buying motivations and challenges.

Decide what types of content you will create

Once you have your personas, you can identify which formats each one prefers. Refer to your budget here, because some formats cost considerably more to produce than others.

Curate your content

Depending on the size and nature of your business, it is unlikely you will be solely responsible for creating everything. Involve different team members — each brings a different area of expertise and communication style — and bring in guest contributors who complement your work and widen your reach.

You also need to decide who will manage and execute the campaign. All of this belongs in a live content calendar the whole team can access and edit once the campaign is running.

Choose your channels

Now the most important step: amplifying your content. Great content is useless if it is not properly promoted. Choose your channels carefully, because you need the ones where your personas actually spend their time. Decide too whether you will use advertising to promote the content or stick to organic methods. Our article on how to choose the right channels of communication covers this in more detail.

Measure your content

As with any marketing activity, track performance, evaluate impact and put a means of optimising results in place. Return to your goals: which metrics indicate each one, and where will you find them?

Before the campaign goes live, create a template report and a process for optimisation, then set up and test every analytics platform you will be using, so you can measure the campaign from the outset.

Then start creating

Developing a content marketing strategy significantly improves your chances of achieving business results through your content. So put content creation on hold for a moment and give the strategy a go — you will notice the difference.

If you would like to read more on strategic marketing, our article on going from marketing to strategic marketing in nine steps is the natural next read.

Sources

• Content Marketing Institute: B2B content marketing research, cited when this article was first published in 2019