Content marketing is the fuel of your marketing strategy. Each part of your marketing strategy needs high quality content that helps inform and persuade so your business grows. Creating quality content in a way that aligns with a more thoughtful strategy is how you drive awareness, develop trust, and generate leads through your selected marketing channels of your digital strategy. Without quality content there is nothing for users to find in those channels and therefore your digital marketing strategy will not be effective.
To map out your content marketing strategy you first need to understand what type of content is best for your the different stages of a potential customer’s journey. Each customer goes through a journey when they are trying to solve a problem. That problem may be solved by the services your business provides. Understanding your customers and their journey will help you develop a content strategy for those different stages so you can help guide them to the best outcome. A classic example of the customer’s journey is through the marketing funnel. Potential customers go through your funnel and having the right content providing value will help them progress to becoming a lead.
Building Awareness
This first step in the marketing funnel is when a person has a problem having a strategy and content so potential customers can find you and become aware of your business. A person at this stage of their journey is looking for information. They want to learn about a topic to help solve their problem. They don’t want to be sold on something yet but simply informed and educated. Effective ways to become visible to people doing informational searches is developing content on a business blog which I have a course on. If part of your digital marketing strategy is to have content creation on questions people have related to your business space they can find you in these information searches and become aware of your business.
Other methods of becoming visible to people is developing content on social media that is shared and liked that shows up in people's feeds. You can also invest in pay per click ads that only show up to people searching for targeted topics related to your business. The goal is to create content that shows up to answer questions people have so they can get valuable information and become aware of your business.
Content Strategy On Your Website
Now that a potential customer has found you they are likely to either be on your site per a blog post or visit your website through social media. How is the content on your website? Have you clearly communicated your value proposition and the benefits you provide your customers when they do business with you? If you want to learn more about the value of marketing content on your site check out this article on creating a clear value proposition. Once a potential customer becomes aware of your business and you have provided them with high quality valuable information you want to cultivate that relationship with them so they continue to move down the marketing funnel towards becoming a customer.
Lead Nurturing & Engagement
An important content marketing strategy for lead nurturing is lead magnets and email marketing. Many times customers are not ready to convert and call you or send you an email when they first find you online. If you have quality content in the form of a lead magnet that helps them in their informational part of the journey they give you their email address. Once you have their email you can send emails to continue to build trust with the customer and let them know how you can solve their problem per the value of your services.
