An effective content marketing strategy today involves much more than throwing a handful of articles onto your website. It’s broader in scope even than uploading several articles to your site per week. Actionable content marketing has evolved beyond stuffing keywords into blog posts hoping to catch any buyer from anywhere. The state of content marketing currently demands that a marketer create Wise Content backed by carefully researched data. And, it requires implementation of a scalable stream of cross-channel content focused on meeting the right users’ real needs.
While listicles on your blog are fun to read and social media posts with useful tips are great to share, there must be more. Your content marketing needs a strategic approach that considers consumer behavior: motivation, purchasing preferences and buyer enjoyment. It must be all encompassing, reaching every place you already have a presence online and taking you into new digital territories where you’ll find future successes.
Content marketing is complex, whether you’re a growing company or an established brands’ in-house agency. We’ve written before about tips to elevate your content marketing strategy, no matter your organization’s size. Tactics like telling great stories and concentrating on mobile made our list of must-dos. Here are 5 more actionable steps to ramp up your content marketing.
1. Turn Your Focus from Content to Attention
Since we’re talking about content marketing strategy, we’ll assume you know how important content creation is. But, content in and of itself is not going to sell anything. Instead of simply focusing on creating content, shift your mindset to attracting brand attention and the right buyers through content. With science in mind and big data at your disposal, you can strategically create Wise Content that artfully connects your company’s offerings to buyers’ needs.
Using articles, social media posts, photos and even video, call attention to your brand by providing customers with pleasing content-driven experiences that leave them better off than before they engaged with you.
2. Create Content Hubs
As you plan and execute your content marketing strategy, organize your digital assets into content hubs. Existing hubs, and hubs that you will create and expand on. The main goal of content hubs is to support SEO.
By clustering content into hubs, each focusing on a specific aspect of your business or a relevant interest for your target buyer, you create more value for the consumer. And, you give your brand more opportunities to show up online where customers are searching. Content hubs are natural and optimal spaces for deep linking too, and for proving to Google that your website and social media channels offer real value.
3. Build Your Content Marketing Strategy from Knowledge
There’s plenty of data that informs a content marketing strategy. Historical contextual data, such as keywords people use when they talk or search, is a fundamental source for creating content. Through keyword research, a marketer becomes knowledgeable about the digital landscape and the consumer’s place in it.
Using experts, science and the right tools, you can mine the reservoirs of contextual data to find optimal keywords for your content and paid marketing campaigns. To truly connect with your buyers, you need to really know them. Keyword research lets you know their motivation, what they’re searching for and how they prefer to obtain what they want.
4. Focus on Paid Social Marketing
Paid social content marketing is different from the content marketing many companies think of when they’re approaching SEO. When creating paid social content, the goal is to focus strongly on highly attractive and engaging content that’s shareable. There is a learning curve to paid content creation, so many brands start with Facebook as a platform. It’s familiar and it works, so why not?
When you master paid social content marketing, or hire a content creation agency like Galileo who can do it for you, you’ll see an increase in marketing ROI. Twitter, Instagram and even LinkedIn are superb channels for paid content focus.
5. Invest in Analytics
Brands that invest time, money and energy into analytics gain great insight into what’s working and not working. To effectively use content creation as a marketing strategy, you must always have a clear view of how you’re performing and progressing.
It’s important to make ongoing analysis of your metrics a key component in your content marketing and overall marketing strategy. From keyword research to social media paid content, you need to know the impact your efforts have or don’t have on your target buyers.
Want more tips for elevating your content marketing strategy? Contact Galileo Tech Media.
Any tips to add to our list?