Guide to Relevant 
Content Marketing

Introduction

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic approach to creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content with the purpose of attracting and retaining a target audience, ultimately driving profitable customer action.

Effective content marketing includes the following elements:

• identifying the target audience and its wants and needs,

• creating content that is designed to educate, inform, and engage the target audience,

• setting goals and objectives, and

• measuring success that involves tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs)

Content marketing, as part of inbound marketing, differs from traditional advertising; it focuses on building relationships with the target audience through relevant, educational, and informative content. It aligns with your marketing and business strategy and drives overall business success.

Is Content Marketing Relevant?

• Content marketing is a $300 billion industry.

• Marketers like it: 91% of marketers believe content marketing is important for their business; 70% of B2B marketers use content marketing. 

• Marketers see the impact:

  • 60% of marketers say content marketing has helped them increase website traffic.

  • 57% of marketers say content marketing has helped them generate leads.

  • 44% of marketers say content marketing has helped them increase sales.

• Content Marketing builds trust:

  • 80% of consumers say they would rather learn about a company through content marketing than traditional advertising.

  • 72% of consumers say they trust content marketing more than traditional advertising.

  • 63% of consumers say they have made a purchase due to reading content marketing.

  • 54% of consumers say they have shared content marketing with friends and family.

Content marketing is a powerful digital marketing tool that can help businesses of all sizes achieve their marketing goals. Businesses can attract new customers, generate leads, and increase sales by creating high-quality, exceptional content relevant to their target audience.

Importance of having a Content Marketing Strategy

A great marketing strategy is crucial for a business to achieve its goals, stay competitive, and build a strong brand. Here are some areas to focus on:

• Understand your target audience: By identifying and segmenting its target audience, a business can focus and personalize marketing messages and engage specific groups of customers.

• Stand out from the competition: Knowing your strengths and weaknesses to your competitors allows you to shape your messaging and overall marketing strategy.

• Meet and exceed your goals and objectives: By setting SMART marketing goals and objectives, a business can measure the success of its marketing strategy and make adjustments as needed.

• Allocate resources effectively: Prioritize activities and allocate required (financial) resources to the most critical areas.

• Increase sales and revenue: As part of a well-executed marketing strategy, content marketing increases leads, sales, and revenue by reaching and converting more prospects.

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing. - Tom Fishburne

Components of Content Marketing

Great content marketing consists of several elements and different forms of marketing that a business can use. Some of the most common aspects of a marketing strategy include:

• Strategy: A successful content marketing strategy outlines the goals, target audience, messaging, channels, and tactics for the content marketing program.

• Content creation: Successful content marketers produce high-quality, engaging, and relevant marketing content that meets and exceeds the needs and interests of the target audience. This can include various types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more.

• Content distribution: Content distribution involves the promotion and distribution of online content to the target audience through various channels, including social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, and search engines.

• Measurement and analytics: Measurement and analytics involve tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your content and make data-driven decisions.

• Continuous optimization: Continuous optimization involves regularly reviewing and optimizing your pieces of content based on the results of measurement and analytics to ensure that the best content consistently delivers results and aligns with business goals.

• Collaboration and cross-functional teamwork: Content marketing often involves collaboration and cross-functional teamwork with other departments, such as marketing, sales, customer success, and product, to ensure that content marketing efforts are aligned with overall business objectives and that everyone is working towards a common goal.

The goal-oriented combination will accelerate the achievement of your content marketing goals and objectives.

Setting Goals and Objectives

Businesses need content marketing to attract and retain a clearly defined target audience and drive profitable customer action. Among the most essential goals in content marketing are:

• Attracting, engaging, and retaining your target audience: The goal is to create and distribute content that resonates with the target audience and keeps them coming back for more.

• Building brand awareness and trust: Content marketing provides an opportunity to establish thought leadership, build brand awareness, and build trust with the target audience.

• Driving profitable customer action: The ultimate goal of content marketing is to drive profitable customer action, such as lead generation, sales, and conversions.

• Enhancing the customer experience: Content marketing can educate, inform, and engage the target audience and improve the overall customer experience.

• Supporting overall business objectives: Content marketing should be integrated with comprehensive marketing and business strategies and support the business's overall success.

By focusing on goals that drive profitable customer action, content marketing will significantly impact the bottom line and increase the return on your marketing investment.

Target Audience

So how can a business identify and segment its target audience and tailor its content to appeal to different audiences, channels, company profiles, and buyer personas?

Identifying and understanding the target audience and the personalization of your approach is crucial in creating effective and engaging content.

Personalization is not about saying "Hello, <First_Name>," it's about understanding a customer's needs and tailoring the experience to them.    - J.C. Penney

By understanding the target audience, the content marketing team can identify the channels and platforms where they are most active, allowing for a more targeted distribution strategy with excellent content. This leads to improved reach, engagement with the target audience, and, ultimately, better results.

One way to describe your target audience is to create buyer personas and fictional representations of the ideal customers. A buyer persona description includes demographic data, interests, pain points, buying habits, and decision-making processes. Creating buyer personas will help you better understand your target audience and personalize your marketing messages to appeal to them.

Having a defined target audience and understanding their needs, pain points, and interests help the business build a deeper understanding of its customers and inform other business areas, such as product development, sales, and customer success.

For example, a business might segment its target audience into different groups, such as:

• Demographic: Based on age, gender, income, education, etc.

• Behavioral: Based on buying behavior, usage rate, customer loyalty, etc.

• Geographic: Based on location, climate, regional differences, etc.

• Psychographic: Based on personality, values, interests, lifestyle, etc.

• Technographic: Based on technology adoption, usage, skills, etc.

By segmenting the target audience, businesses can create more targeted and relevant content that speaks to the specific needs and customize their marketing messages and product offerings for each group.

If you want to attract and retain customers, you need to create content that they care about.    - Joe Pulizzi

Optimal Formats

There are several types of content marketing and formats used for creating engaging and targeted content; some popular online content marketing examples include:

• Blog posts: Blogging provides thought leadership, industry insights, and educational content in a conversational tone.

• Infographics: Visual content that presents information and data in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format.

• Video marketing: Audio-visual content can be used to demonstrate products, tell stories, or provide thought leadership content.

• Social Media content: Short-form content with crisp messaging to engage followers to promote your content and learn more. 

• Case studies: Written or video content that showcases a real-life example of how a product or service has been used to solve a problem or meet a specific need.

• E-books: Long-form written content that provides in-depth information on a specific topic, often used for lead generation.

• Webinars: Live or recorded events that provide educational content, thought leadership, or product demonstrations.

• Podcasts: Audio content that can provide thought leadership, interviews with industry experts, or educational content.

By selecting the suitable format for each type of content, tailored to what works best for your buyer persona, content marketers define engaging content that is easily consumable and aligned with the target audience's preferred method of consuming information.

Measuring Success

How do you analyze a business's success using content marketing and use the information to improve your marketing strategy?

Measuring success in content marketing refers to tracking and analyzing the results of a content marketing strategy in order to assess its effectiveness and make data-driven improvements.

There are several elements to measuring a company's content marketing success, such as:

• Website Traffic: Measuring the number of visits to the company website and the sources of that traffic help to understand the reach of the content and the effectiveness of the channels used to promote it.

• Engagement: Identifying the level of engagement with the content, such as the number of likes, shares, comments, and downloads, helps to understand how well the content resonates with the target audience.

• Lead Generation: Tracking the number of leads generated from the content marketing efforts, such as contact form submissions, webinar sign-ups, or e-book downloads, helps to understand the effectiveness of the content in generating interest in the company's products or services.

• Sales: Measuring the number of sales generated from the content marketing efforts helps to understand the impact of the content on the bottom line.

• Return on Investment (ROI): Calculating the return on investment (ROI) of the content marketing efforts helps to understand the financial impact of the content marketing strategy and whether it is a worthwhile investment for the company.

By tracking these key metrics, companies can understand the impact of their content marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions to improve their content marketing strategy and achieve better results, such as conducting a SWOT analysis. For example, if a competitor has a strong online presence, your business can focus on building its online presence to compete. Or if a competitor is targeting a specific niche market or channel, your business can consider targeting a different niche market to differentiate itself.

Implementation

Let's review a practical step-by-step guide for implementing a content marketing strategy, including budgeting, resource allocation, measuring the strategy's success, and getting you to become a blog expert.

Content Marketing is like being on a first date. The objective is to get the other party to come back for a second time.

Implementing a marketing strategy involves taking the goals and objectives set in the earlier stages and turning them into actionable tactics and activities. Here are some critical steps in implementing a content marketing strategy:

• Budgeting: Allocate a budget for your marketing activities. This can include advertising, content creation, and event expenses.

• Resource allocation: Allocate the necessary (financial) resources, such as team members and partners, technology, and equipment, to implement your marketing strategy.

• Tactical plan: Outline the specific tactics and activities that will be used to implement the marketing strategy. This plan must include each activity's target audience, marketing messages, channels, and timelines.

• Implementation: Define a detailed plan for executing the tactics and activities required, and specify realistic deadlines, roles, and responsibilities. 

• Monitoring and measuring progress: Monitor and measure the progress of its marketing strategy using metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and revenue.

• Adjusting the strategy: Adjust the marketing strategy as needed based on its monitoring and measurement results. It is vital to pivot, reinforce, accelerate, and expand what is working and modify or stop what isn't. 

Following the above steps will allow you to implement your marketing strategy effectively.

Content marketing is not just about creating content, it's about creating content that resonates with your target audience and helps achieve your business goals.

- Kristin Tynski

Conclusion

Content marketing is a crucial aspect of modern marketing that allows businesses to reach and engage with their target audience meaningfully. Whether a small business is just starting or a large enterprise looking to stay ahead of the competition, a well-executed content marketing strategy can benefit your brand.


Timeline

The timeline for implementing a content marketing strategy can vary depending on the size and complexity of the system, as well as the resources and budget available. However, a general timeline for a content marketing strategy could look like this:

• Planning: This phase can take 1-2 months and includes researching the target audience, defining objectives, conducting market research, and developing a content strategy. This time also creates a content calendar and produces high-quality, engaging content.

  • Whom are you looking to engage?

  • What do you have to sell?

  • Define targeted pillar topics,

  • develop an SEO strategy, and

  • establish a content deployment plan.

• Implementation: This phase typically takes several months and includes launching the content marketing campaign and starting to promote and share the content. Then, the process continuously produces and publishes content, promotes it, and measures its success. Refine the content marketing strategy as needed.

  • Create high-quality and engaging content,

  • analyze and report,

  • optimize content, and

  • execute content promotion strategy to amplify reach and impact.
    
    

Resources

The resources required to implement a content marketing strategy will vary significantly depending on your business's specific goals and objectives and the tactics, activities, and timeline included in the outlined goals and objectives. However, some of the most common resource types required to implement a content marketing strategy include:

• Financial resources: A budget is required to fund the marketing activities, such as advertising, content creation, and event expenses.

• Human resources: A marketing team or a marketing person typically needs to research the target audience, analyze the competition, create a tactical plan, and execute the tactics and activities.

• Technology: Depending on the tactics and activities included in the tactical plan, technology such as marketing software, analytics tools, and social media management tools may be needed.

• Equipment: Depending on the tactics and activities included in the tactical plan, equipment such as cameras, video editing software, and audio equipment may be needed for content creation.
  

• Partnerships: In some cases, collaborations with other companies or agencies may be required to execute specific tactics and activities, for example, content creation, SEO, or event marketing.

In addition to allocating these resources, a business must clearly understand its target audience and a well-defined marketing message that resonates with them. Clear and consistent messages are the critical element of any content marketing strategy, and it will require considerable time and effort to develop, refine, and maintain.

Key Success Factors

There are several critical success factors for the successful implementation of a content marketing strategy, which include:

• Set clear and measurable goals and objectives: Understanding what success looks like and setting specific goals helps to focus the content marketing efforts and track progress over time.

• Understand the target audience: Knowing the target audience and their needs, preferences, and behavior helps content marketers create relevant and engaging content that resonates with them.

• Creating high-quality, valuable content: The quality of the content is critical to the success of the content marketing effort. High-quality content that provides value to the target audience is more likely to be shared and generate engagement.

• Selecting the proper channels and formats: Choosing the suitable media and formats for each type of content helps to reach the target audience where they are and in the format they prefer.

• Building a content marketing plan: A content marketing plan that outlines the goals, target audience, content formats, channels, and measurement helps to ensure that the content marketing effort is organized, consistent, and practical...

• Measuring and analyzing results: Regularly measuring and analyzing the results of the content marketing effort helps to identify what is working and what is not and make improvements over time.

• Continuous improvement: Content marketing is an ongoing effort and requires constant improvement and adaptation based on the changing needs of the target audience and the market. Don't be afraid of mistakes, and don't be overly confident in thinking that you figured it out.

If those are not enough, we'd love to give you a hand.