A content marketing strategy is the process of creating valuable, quality content to attract, inform and build an audience , while promoting your brand. Buyers and consumers are already searching the web for the answers your brand can offer. The benefits are:
Increased brand awareness – As potential buyers search the web for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems, your brand continues to appear.
Increased brand preference : Content marketing helps further establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry, strengthening relationships with buyers.
Greater reach at a lower cost : This is not a short-term strategy, but over time, your content will continue to reach potential customers and interested buyers.
The market we live and work in today is radically different from that of a few years ago. Salespeople and workers used to be the experts, and brands and companies just had to wait for potential customers to need their services. Today, buyers and consumers are independent, so it is up to companies to go and find them in the channels where they are present.
Content marketing is the answer to the new relationship-based, buyer-oriented digital marketplace.
Your content design goes beyond color choices and stock photos. Understanding your audience and knowing your brand’s marketing goals will give you a foundation to start building your strategy on. Every piece of content you create should be useful to your target audience and true to your brand’s voice . A solid content marketing strategy includes a variety of content types:
Blog Posts
Focus your content marketing strategy on your blog. Your company blog can gmx email list and should be used to promote other content. Make sure to keep posts on a consistent schedule. This is one area where you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to improve your SEO, so if you don’t have a member of your team who is familiar with SEO , you may want to consider outsourcing your content to your company.
Ebooks
Ebooks should follow a narrative structure and include good visual design. The goal of an ebook is to educate (rather than entertain), but don't neglect the conversational tone - it should be consistent with the voice you use in the rest of your content.
Cheat Sheets
These “cheat sheets” are short (two or three pages at most). This means there won’t be much room for large images, so you’ll want to use good text formatting to make it easy to read quickly. Link to other resources to provide more information to people who are interested.
Work templates
A great way to keep your brand in front of shoppers, while offering something truly useful, these resources should be designed for printing and should be as interactive and practical as possible.
Whitepapers
They are similar to an ebook in that they are primarily educational materials, but whitepapers are less graphical and use slightly more professional language. They are also useful for creating opportunities to partner with other organizations.