Generate Leads with a Content Marketing Strategy
Our culture is so saturated with advertisements, people have learned to tune things out. Many companies take advantage of advertisements like billboards, magazine ads, direct mail and other advertising methods. While these are very helpful for getting your name out there, another important way to capture the attention of audiences is through content marketing.
Content marketing is a long-term digital strategy that cultivates interest in your brand. It involves creating valuable, original content about your business and publishing it on platforms where your target audience spends the most time. This strategy is a great way to capture attention while building trust and bringing value to your audience—whether they’re ready to buy from you or not.
By creating high-quality content that speaks directly to the interests of your target audience, you are establishing yourself as The Expert. This digital content can be used in multiple ways such as email campaigns, social media posts, podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, and more. This, in turn, can lead to increased website traffic, higher search engine rankings, and ultimately, more sales.
The Benefits of Content Marketing
Creating original content and implementing a strategy behind this content will significantly boost your online presence and help you achieve your long-term goals. A well-planned content strategy will do the following for your company:
Attract New Customers
Consistently publishing valuable and relevant content helps increase your visibility on search engines. This makes it easier for potential customers to find and engage with your business online.
More Online Visibility
By sharing high-quality content online that resonates with your target audience, you’ll create a brand identity that can increase traffic to your website. The more people hear about your company online, the more trust is built as people become familiar with your name.
Establishing Authority
By showcasing expertise in your industry through well-researched articles, infographics, or videos, you’ll position yourself as an authority figure within the market. This credibility will attract new clients who are seeking trustworthy service providers.
Generating Leads and Conversions
Producing effective content that gives a call to action will procure more leads. Things like landing pages, blog posts and social media posts can help you meet people where they’re hanging out (online) and drive them to take action.
Increase Customer Engagement
Regularly sharing informative and engaging content keeps your current customers interested in what you have to offer, making them more likely to continue doing business with you.
Supporting Other Marketing Efforts
A strong content strategy complements other marketing initiatives such as email campaigns or social media advertising by providing valuable material that can be shared across multiple channels.
How to Create a Content Strategy
Alright, before you go posting everything on Facebook, let’s talk about strategy. Having a strategy behind the content you produce is the key to making it count. Rather than randomly putting content out there and hoping it works, you can use strategy to meet your business goals.
Goals & KPIs
Before you start producing and publishing content, you’ll need to set some goals and define what success looks like for you. The points in the previous section (attract new customers, generate leads) are some great goals to have. Some other important goals to have are: driving traffic to your website, generating sales, promoting new products, and more.
Next, you’ll determine how to measure the success of those goals with key performance indicators (KPIs). These will vary based on the size of your business and the number of customers you have.
For some people, success looks like 3,000 views on an Instagram reel. Or a 50% increase in website traffic. Determine what KPI’s are attainable and reasonable for you.
Define Target Audience
Your target audience is the main group of people who benefit from your product or service. Once you learn who these people are and what they’re like, you’ll know better how to advertise to them and what kind of content they’re drawn to.
You can find out who your target audience is by looking at your existing customer base and studying where they live, work, their age, and gender. Your sales team can help you find out more of this information. Another way to learn about your target audience is using Google Analytics data. Look at the “audience” report to see who’s visiting your website.
You could send out a survey asking customers how they browse the internet, and what kind of media they consume (websites, social media, YouTube, blog posts). You’ll also want to study your competitors: what kind of content are they producing, and who is liking and subscribing to it?
Once you’ve determined who it is you’re talking to, you’ll know what their common problems are and how to meet their needs.
The Best Types of Content
More than just amazing content, you’ll need to plan what kind of content to create and how to deliver it. Think about each stage of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, purchase, and post purchase. You can create messaging for each of these stages, encouraging customers to move to the next stage of the journey.
Not only that, once you’ve decided on your messaging, you’ll need to determine how you’re going to present this message. In 2022, the top two media formats marketers used were videos and blogs. Images, infographics and case studies followed closely after.
Videos
While video can sound intimidating, you don’t have to be Brad Pitt to make quality content. Video content is scalable. You can do anything from hiring a professional and making a branded commercial, or using your phone to go “live” and talk about your products. While professional grade commercials are good for a website and landing pages, social media is a more casual platform. People are looking for real life, behind the scenes scenarios—making it easier for you!
Take advantage of Instagram Reels and TikTok. Start with videos that capture your brand, and then let things evolve from there. You can make content out of anything! Capture the behind the scenes in your office, how things are made—anything that tells a story.
Blogs
Informative, long-form blog posts can help establish you as the authority in your industry. People often do their research online before making purchases, and running across your blog, they might just decide you’re their solution. Either way, when you provide content that speaks to the problem and informs them about your industry—they’ll come back for more.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of writing blogs about why your product is so great. People read blogs to be informed on topics, and if you write enough content that brings value to people, you won’t need to push your product.
Get creative with your blog content, with things like client success stories, case studies, interviews with industry experts, product comparisons, answering customer questions, guest blogs, and more.
There are several other types of content you can create, and even recreate. Turn a long form blog into an infographic, or use quotes from the blog to create a graphic for social media. You can reuse content and trim it shorter, like short pieces of a podcast for social media.
Dock Line Content Marketing: There are plenty of ways to create content that presents your business as the authority, provides a solution, and interests people to buy your products. At The Dock Line, we specialize in content creation, and we can help you generate leads and drive traffic to your website with an outstanding content marketing strategy.
Contact us today to learn more about our marketing services.