With people constantly online across the globe and marketing playing a key role in brand awareness, content marketing has become crucial for any brand looking to grow.
A well-crafted content marketing strategy will engage your target audience while driving traffic to your content and brand as a whole. But what exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable and relevant content such as videos, blogs, and social media posts—with the goal of attracting and retaining an audience for your brand. It’s vital for sustaining long-term growth. This is crucial for any company but many struggle with creating effective content.
A great way to streamline these strategies is by partnering with a B2B Podcast Partner who can oversee the entire process, from connecting with ideal clients to feature as podcast guests on your show to growing an audience within your target market. They’ll assist with hosting, management, and the production of SEO-friendly written, audio, and video content from each episode, all aimed at expanding your B2B business.
Below, we’ll explore 19 tips for successfully leveraging content marketing.
1) Understand Your Audience
Before you create any content, it’s essential to know who your audience is. Since content marketing is all about engaging with your target audience, defining them beforehand will make your content more focused and appealing.
Start by sitting down with your team to brainstorm who you’re trying to reach. What are their demographics, psychographics, and other key factors. Clearly outline this information in a buyer persona that you can easily reference when generating content. This will give you an idea of what to include in your content based on what will encourage engagement from your identified audience.
2) Set SMART Goals
There is an overwhelming amount of content you could create for your business. How do you choose what to focus on? The key is to ensure that every piece of content you produce has a specific purpose. Instead of just asking what to create, ask yourself why you’re creating it. What outcome are you aiming to achieve?
A goal like “gain exposure” is too vague. You want your goal to be clear and measurable. Consider a SMART goal template when setting objectives for each piece of content. For example, if you are producing a YouTube video to talk about your founder's story, the goal might be to educate customers on your brand’s origins to build loyalty and foster a connection.
3) Buyer Journey
Not every viewer you encounter will be in the same situation. Your content must be able to target all different types of buyers. All potential buyers will be on their respective buyer journeys. Some might be in the initial attraction stage while others might be in the final research stage before making a purchase. Whatever it is, you need to have content for each stage to push the potential buyer towards the final steps of their journey.
4) Establish a Brand Voice
A brand voice is key to any marketing strategy. You want something that ties all your content together and associates it with your brand. It wouldn’t make sense to have Instagram posts that are funny and Twitter posts that are informational. This creates inconsistency reducing the effectiveness of your content and brand identity.
A strong brand voice unifies all aspects of the brand and promotes a sense of familiarity when customers are looking at your content. All members of your team must have a clear vision of your brand voice.
5) Solve a Problem
People primarily turn to businesses or purchase products to solve a problem. Why did you buy Tylenol? Because you were in pain. Why did you buy a new pair of shoes? Because your old ones were broken. If your brand doesn’t meet a need or solve a problem, it will not be of interest to a potential customer. Identify the problem your brand addresses and emphasize this in your content marketing. If people feel they can gain something from your brand, they will likely look to you for a solution.
6) Don’t Push the Hard Sell
Content marketing is used to create awareness and engagement which will ultimately lead to a sale. However, the direct goal is not to sell something through the content. If you push the hard sell in your content, this may deter customers from your brand. Focus on the value your brand brings and what it can offer. Quality content will naturally drive curiosity leading individuals to learn more about your business.
7) Personalization
It’s always nice to know that a brand truly values each of its customers and provides a unique experience tailored to their needs. A great way to personalize content is through your website. By analyzing what visitors are viewing on your site, you can create pop-ups and CTAs that align with their interests.
For example, if someone spends a lot of time looking at a specific product, you might produce a popup to remind them of the product. That second push will increase their chances of buying the product but it also informs them that you are paying attention to their interests.
8) Optimize the User Experience
It’s not just about the content, but how the viewer receives it. Is it easy to access? Does it load quickly? Is it easy to follow?
Put yourself in the shoes of the viewer. Consider their entire experience when viewing your content and how you can make it smoother and more appealing. The whole experience from start to finish can contribute to how the viewer ultimately feels when viewing your content thus influencing their decision to engage with your business.
9) Repurpose Content
If you've created content that was highly successful, why not use it again? It takes time to create high-quality, engaging content that has good exposure.
Repurposing content is a great way to leverage the popularity of your old content in a new way. You can share it through a new platform and make slight updates. This will bring the content back to the attention of previous viewers while potentially reaching new audiences.
10) Remarket Content
We’ve talked about repurposing content, but you can also remarket content. Rather than taking old content and turning it into new content, you are trying to re-engage users with content they’ve interacted with. These users might have seen your content before, but didn’t have enough interest at the time to take further action. By remarketing content, you open up the possibility that they might be in a position where they are more inclined to engage with your business than before.
11) Utilize Video Content
Videos are a great way to engage your audience and bring a different edge to your content. They are extremely effective when executed well and can aid your optimization strategy. Consider creating a YouTube video or making video posts for your social media. Written platforms are very useful as well, but the combination of written and video content will make for the best content marketing strategy.
12) Use Multiple Channels
You should never rely on one source to achieve your goals. This applies to your content marketing. Don’t use one channel for your marketing content, use several. This increases exposure and reach, leading to more traffic towards your brand.
13) Publish Research
Content marketing can come in many forms, but many tend to forget about original research. This may not be the best fit for everyone, but it could make sense depending on your business.
Publishing research helps to establish yourself as a credible and knowledgeable source. It establishes your place in the market and let’s others know that you have something to offer. You can conduct studies and publish your findings. For example, if you are a financial consulting firm, you could publish research on the economy, investments, financial markets, etc.
14) Long vs Short Content
Longer content generally performs better on search engines, enhancing the optimization and the potential traffic your content can attract. In-depth content offers more information to viewers, addressing a broader range of their questions. This is only true if you avoid adding fluff and focus on valuable content.
This is where knowing your audience comes into play. By knowing what they are looking for, you are better equipped to create in-depth content that will address all relevant concerns while boosting your ranking on search engines. This approach works particularly well for formats like blogs, which lend themselves to more detailed content.
15) Native Advertising
Native advertising is a form of paid advertising that matches the format and function of the media source it’s on. This helps the content to feel more assimilated and natural. Sometimes ads can seem outofplace on a webpage and will push viewers to ignore it. An ad that is cohesive with the platform its on will encourage viewers to engage with it.
16) Use Statistics
There are many ways to get creative with your content to entice potential customers. Despite this, there may be some who are still hesitant. A great way to appeal to most individuals is to provide cold hard facts they cannot deny. If you can back up your statements with a statistic, you are more likely to make a sale.
For example, if you are selling a facial cleanser, you should state in your content that X% of users reported clearer skin within X weeks. This shows that your product works and that others have experienced it. Always provide references for your facts or proof of study if you conducted it yourself.
17) Content Optimization
The goal of content marketing is to increase brand awareness, so it's essential that your content gets noticed. How can you achieve this? By optimizing your content. Optimization helps improve your content’s visibility on search engines, making it more likely to be seen by people searching online. The more you optimize your content, the better it will rank thus increasing its exposure.
18) Track Performance
While quality content is crucial, performance data is what reveals what’s truly effective. By tracking data, you can quickly spot what isn’t working and make necessary adjustments. You can also identify what content is gaining the most attention. This might inform future content based on what’s popular.
Not only should you consider what content is getting the most views, but what content is leading to the highest conversion rate. Ultimately, the goal is to create content that leads to sales or a loyal customer. This data can also indicate which channels or media formats are most effective in building brand awareness. Without monitoring this data, you risk continuing with content that isn’t delivering results.
19) Be Consistent
Content marketing is an ongoing process. It’s important that you regularly create content and release it. This will ensure continuous exposure to new markets and loyal customers.
In addition to being consistent, ensure your content stays up-to-date. Go back to the old content you’ve created and make updates as needed. This will ensure that your content stays optimized and relevant to search engines helping to boost rankings.
Conclusion
While this may seem like a lot to take in, it reflects the complexity of content marketing. It’s not easy and involves many moving parts. To successfully create content that attracts customers, you'll need a well-thought-out, comprehensive strategy. But with the right approach, you’ll turn these challenges into opportunities and watch your brand stand out in the crowded digital landscape.
Written by Kaitlin Duong
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Jony Studios is a content marketing agency specializing in B2B podcasting and audiobook services. They have worked with many clients, from startups to larger organizations such as Penguin Random House, Amazon, University of Waterloo, Freakonomics Radio, and many others.
