Four Ways to Optimize Content Marketing in Business Strategy

Whether you are an established brand or a young startup company, content marketing needs to be at the heart of your business strategy. Content is everywhere and takes many forms from written content like blogs, social media posts, and e-books to visual media like infographics, digital ads, and videos. When designed and executed correctly, content marketing connects you with your audience, builds a recognizable brand, and accelerates sales through. Here are four ways you can optimize your content strategy to create compelling content that adds synergy to all your operations. 

Keep it Customer-centric

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” 

Let’s focus on the word “valuable” for a moment. How can you tell if your content is valuable? While there are measurements you can use (we’ll get to that later), you can evaluate your content by asking some simple yet essential questions:

1. Does my content focus on the problems my customers are trying to solve? 

2. Am I clearly communicating what we do?

3. Is my content easy to consume?

4. Is my content easy to access?

5. Is my content relatable?

These questions have one major theme in common: they are customer-centric. Keeping your content customer-centric is key to success in content marketing because it is how you build trust with your audience. While you should celebrate your achievements and highlight the things that set your company apart from the competition, do it with your customers in mind. They want to know that you know about their concerns and that you know how to solve them. If you are not sure where to start, ask your customers! They will tell you what they want to see and what formats resonate best with them. From there you can design and execute your strategy to meet their needs and connect them to your value proposition. 

Build Content for All Stages of the Funnel

Today’s customers are more informed and empowered than ever before. Technology advancements have accelerated global business growth, and there are no shortage of options for them to buy from. What they need from you is information, and they need it at every stage of the funnel. Let’s review what those stages are:

1. Awareness- Your customer knows they have a problem or need, but does not know that a solution exists in the market

2. Research- Once they realize there is a solution, they begin to educate themselves on the various options out there (including yours)

3. Consideration- The customer weighs the pros and cons of each solution available to them in terms of their need

4. Buying- The customer selects a vendor to purchase from and moves forward with the relationship

It is important to create content that adds value at every stage of the funnel. Doing this allows you to tailor your content to diversify your offerings based on customer persona, solution value proposition, and customer need at each stage of the funnel. Asset Digital Communications makes some great suggestions on how to use the various forms of content at each stage of the funnel. Some examples of content for each stage could include:

• Awareness- Blogs, newsletters, infographics, social media posts

• Research- White papers, e-books, videos, guides

• Consideration- Case study, customer testimonials, demo video, product-focused paper

• Buying- Pricing page, ROI calculator, free trial, quote or estimate

You know your customer journey better than anyone else. Having the right content for every stage of the funnel helps you help buyers buy and makes you more of a guide than a salesperson, which accelerates trust and builds better customer relationships. 

Prioritize Quality, Then Quantity 

There is no shortage of content in the digital world. Businesses everywhere want to spread the word about their solutions and establish themselves as thought leaders in the various industries they serve. So how do you stand out? By adding value at every step. 

While consistency is important to gaining traction, the quality of your content is what will keep customers coming back for more and will drive real results in the form of sales. In a recent article, HubSpot shares some benefits of producing high-quality content. Some of those benefits include:

• Brand Loyalty- your audience will see you as the best source for truth in their industry and will be more likely to continue to give you their time, attention, and money.

• SEO- search engines have become more sophisticated and prioritize higher quality content over market saturation.

• Low Cost ROI- quality content is a resource that moves the needle in the present while giving you a way to consistently bring in longtail traffic over the long-term.

As long as content is king, good content will reign supreme. Consider the experience your customers will have as they consume your content and they will reward you for the focus you put on adding value to their business and  their lives. 

Measure Everything

All of your content strategy is driving towards one thing: conversions. Whether that conversion is turning an MQL into an SQL or turning an SQL into an Opportunity, you want to know that your content moves the needle. Gone are the days of wondering what your marketing efforts are doing. In today’s world, you cannot afford to not know your marketing conversion rates and how they contribute to pipeline and overall revenue. 

As you set your goals and expectations for your content marketing strategy, consider the tools and systems you will need to measure and analyze your efforts. Some top CMS platforms include:

• HubSpot

• WordPress

• Wix

• MailChimp All in One Marketing Platform

• Squarespace 

• Google Sites

If you are just starting out or your company is a little more sensitive when it comes to your marketing budget, take a look at this article from the Content Marketing Institute for their recommendations and views on the best free tools for measuring content marketing.  

To increase your ROI with your marketing budget, think about the data that you should leverage to optimize your marketing campaigns. Customer centric data in marketing is becoming more prevalent than ever. Data will continue to shape the future of marketing to position companies to be even more customer focused than ever before. Consider how you can incorporate data into your marketing strategy, where you need more data to make educated decisions on the next campaign, and what data you can collect from your campaigns. 

Content marketing is the present and future of marketing, especially in the B2B world. Take the time to do it right, and it will be a gift that keeps on giving. If you need help getting started or managing the process of setting and executing content marketing strategy, let’s have a 30 minute session to discuss how we can help you make your content work for you.