Tired of using the same old marketing tactics with little to show for results?
How about we give you simple and universal content marketing strategies that never get old?
Content marketing strategies involve a myriad of different methods and techniques that are further divided into lists of strategies based on the industry/business. In this article, we’ve curated only the best content marketing strategies that are relevant and applicable to all types of industries and businesses.
Let’s dive right in!
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing involves creating content for marketing that will attract and engage customers. It can also be used for specific purposes like selling a product or service to a potential customer.
Content marketing provides exposure for your brand and helps increase consumer engagement. It also helps move your consumers along the buying journey while giving you valuable insights into your customers’ responses.
8 Content Marketing Strategies That Actually Work
1) Determine Your SMART Goals and KPIs
Setting SMART goals should be at the top of any content marketing list. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. Goals that tick all these features are easier to achieve, which also makes this strategy customizable for every business or industry.
Once your SMART goals are established, you can then move on to determine the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). KPIs are a quantifiable method used to measure the result of a campaign. KPIs need to be specific to your goals. For example, your goal could be to measure and increase brand loyalty. To do that, you need to run a marketing campaign and then assess the number of referrals, reviews, and promotions after the campaign for a difference. This will tell you how consumer loyalty for the brand has changed following the campaign.
However, defining SMART goals and KPIs does not mean you can’t change them later on. Businesses also need to modify their goals as society, trends, and products evolve. But make sure you have certain core goals, so your brand messaging is consistent with the brand image.
2) Use Audience Segmentation
Segmentation is a process of dividing potential consumers into different groups. This segmentation is based on the diverse characteristics of the group such as geographic, demographic, behavioral, or psychographic.
Segmenting your audience can help you target different groups of customers based on factors such as their unique preferences, priorities, and high-spending behavior. Once you know what a group wants, you can target them with specialized ads and offers.
Segmenting your consumers means you must also create consumers’ buyer personas. A buyer persona is an ideal fictional character that represents your target consumer. Predicting the behavior of this persona allows you to empathize with your consumers, thus helping you gain insights into the perception of your marketing message.
3) Create a Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar can help your content marketing team stay on top of yearly promotional activities. You can schedule important events, campaigns, festivals, etc.
Not only can you use this calendar to plan content for the year but also communicate with other teams about activities planned throughout the year.
The most important reason to create a calendar is to align your goals to a fixed timeline. It thus helps you accommodate any changes that come along the way.
4) Create Content Your Audience Will Love
How do you know what content your audience will love?
Research can help you figure it out. Developing deep connections with your customers is critical to understanding what they love and hate.
You could take a look at previous campaigns that have worked for your brand. You could also check the activities of your strongest competitors. But make sure the content and message suit your brand’s tone of voice, or you’ll end up confusing your customers.
Another method is trial and error, to keep trying diverse types and forms of content to see what works. In an industry with few competitors to research, this method can prove useful.
Make your content more engaging by using images, infographics, podcasts, videos, etc. The aim is to make your content evergreen, be widely relevant, yet not be too general. Try thought leadership or personalization approaches when creating content.
5) Study Results, Reviews, and Testimonials
Studying the results of previous marketing campaigns is a great strategy for brands. You can use the KPIs to see how effective or ineffective earlier strategies have been.
Make sure to regularly measure all your marketing activity. It will help you fix areas that are making no difference in your KPIs.
6) Leverage Social Media
If you aren’t using social media to distribute your content and engage with your customers, then you’re missing out.
These statistics on global social media usage are no joke, and the proportion of social media users is only going to grow.
Besides, social media is the most cost-effective tool you’ll find.
7) Leverage SEO and Google Ads To Drive Relevant Traffic
Doing keyword research is also a proven strategy to rank higher on google search. This is not only true for text-based content but also for your images.
You can also use keywords to create content for your PPC campaigns. These ad campaigns are cost-efficient and help you run A/B tests. A/B testing is a fast way to check the best of two ads, make changes, and increase conversion rate. All this at no additional cost.
While using keywords to increase your SEO ranking is a proven strategy is good, it is also important to make your content readable for real humans and not only algorithms.
Here is an article that can prove useful to you when creating content for humans using emotional keywords.
8) Repurpose Your Content
One benefit of creating evergreen content is that it can be repurposed and re-shared.
Pick content that has a high level of engagement, is timeless, and is relatable. Then re-share this content on different channels and see how audiences react to it.
Re-sharing content is a great way to use old content. It also creates a stronger recall and connection with existing customers.
However, re-sharing content is not something you do simply by copying and pasting. It should be done methodically, and with purpose. Read more about repurposing content here.
Summin’ It All Up
It is important to follow a strategy and create content as scheduled. The most difficult task, though, is consistently delivering content without going overboard. That’s why, in content marketing, as with everything else, quality comes before quantity.
So, go ahead and use these strategies for your content marketing. Let us know which technique worked best for your brand. We’d love to hear from you!
No comment