Have you tried and tried outbound marketing strategies, but you just can’t seem to gain any traction?
Are you looking to gain leads and increase sales on a budget?
Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.
If you’re new to the content marketing world, that’s okay. We have 10 of the best content marketing tips to get you started.
1. Survey Your Customers
Do you really understand your customers? Their pain points? Their problems.
Do you know who they are? Age, sex, income?
Even if you THINK you know everything there is to know, surveying your customers can be a great source of inspiration for your content.
The key to any successful content marketing strategy is educating your customers instead of selling them. You have to craft actionable content around those pain points.
You also need to know who they are to decide which type of content to produce. Age and sex may determine the social media platform. Are you creating blog posts or videos? What influencers can you include? This is important information that could be discovered through a survey.
You can also find various demographics through analytics.
2. Do Keyword Research
Nearly 80% of users ignore paid ads in search results.
What does that mean for your business? You need to rank organically.
Keywords are the words, phrases, and sentences that your audience is searching for, and you need to use them in your content to rank.
You start with the obvious terms that your audience will be searching for and use tools like BuzzSumo and Google’s suggestions.
Google Keyword Planner is a great free tool to use. This free keyword research tool pulls data directly from Google. Simply input a keyword or phrase to see how popular the term is, how much competition there is, and even how much other businesses are paying to appear at the top of search results for that specific keyword.
Once you find the perfect keyword you create quality content with the word, optimize your website, get backlinks, and be on your way to the top of the SERPs.
3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Have you ever taken a minute to see what your competitors are doing? Are they on every social media platform? Are they blogging or creating Youtube videos? Are they ranking on google? For what keywords?
Understanding your competitors’ strategy can save you a ton of time.
You never want to imitate your competitor, but they can give you a heads up as to what’s working and what isn’t. You can also find gaps in their strategy and execute them.
Maybe you know video marketing will generate leads, but your competitors aren’t doing it. You can beat them to it and give yourself a leg up.
4. Create a Plan
Lack of planning is a sure way to fail. Successful content marketing requires a content calendar, especially if you have a team working to create the content.
A content calendar can be created in tools like Asana or Coschedule, but it can also be as simple as a Google Calendar. Companies like Motion can even help you create a plan.
This will establish your workflow, set deadlines, and assign tasks to your team members. Planning content ahead of time saves you the stress of creating content last-minute or not creating content consistently.
Not planning out your content will show in your execution and results.
5. Fill Content Gaps
Content Gap Analysis is the process of evaluating existing content on a topic and discovering “gaps” in that content to improve upon.
This can be content in search results or your own content.
Maybe you own a real estate agency in Dallas, TX. You google search “real estate in Dallas”. What is missing from the front page of Google that you could tackle?
Common content gaps include:
- Content freshness: When was the content published or last updated?
- Thoroughness: Does the content give you all the deets?
- Usability: Can you easily read and understand what’s on the page?
- Wow factor: Is this content impressive enough to share?
6. Understand the Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is comprised of 4 stages:
- Outreach: attracting new customers
- Conversion: convincing customers to buy
- Closing: making the sale
- Retention: establishing brand loyalty and returning customers
Many business owners think content is only good for getting customers into the funnel, but it’s quite the opposite.
You need content for every stage to engage with your audience and build relationships. There are blog posts, emails, guides, testimonials, and trials that could be used in all 4 stages.
7. Offer Freebies
Creating content and getting viewership but still not getting conversions?
You’re not nurturing your funnel. You have the outreach, but you’re not using content to convert.
Freebies, also known as lead magnets, can increase your conversion rate.
A lead magnet is an offer that you can promote to prospective customers in exchange for their email address and perhaps other forms of information.
This could be a coupon, mini-course, checklist, or template. Not only will you receive the lead’s contact information, you now know that they are interested in your product or service.
8. Create Evergreen and Trending Content
Evergreen content never goes out of style or date. This content can live on your website for its lifetime. Recipes and how-to guides are a great example of evergreen content.
Trending content is just that. It’s trending at the time, such as a discussion on a current event or the Instagram algorithm.
You will need both types of content on your site and platforms.
9. Repurpose Your Content
You spend precious time and money on creating content. Your team is writing blog posts, filming videos, posting on social media, etc. Why should that go to waste?
Repurposing your content is a great way to receive its full value and direct the audience to engage with various channels.
You can turn your blog posts into social media posts or PDF guides. You can turn a webinar into an email series.
Get creative and have fun.
10. Analyze Your Data
Are you split testing your headlines, copy, keywords, or CTAs? Well, you should be.
You should be analyzing everything. What’s working can be applied to future content and what’s not should be changed.
In addition to Google Analytics, there are a number of free tools to use to analyze your content data.
Try These Content Marketing Tips Today
Congratulations on taking steps to grow your business!
These 10 content marketing tips can get you started on the road to more leads, but if you need more tips, be sure to visit our blog.
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