7 Top Content Marketing Tips for a Tip-Top Strategy
So you want a content marketing plan. You want a strategy that will help you meet your goals without breaking the bank. It just so happens that we have some free advice for you.
Content marketing plans aren’t as simple as putting up a few blog posts that magically generate leads for all eternity—though that would be really nice and we could probably charge a lot more for our work.
Instead of telling you to put up some magical blog posts, we’re going to give you our best content marketing tips cultivated from more than a decade in the field. If you’ve got the drive and the time, you can create and execute your own strategies without paying us or any other content agency a dime.
(But why would we do that? It’s all part of our content marketing strategy: Proving our expertise, providing free insights to build trust, and using fun gifs wherever we can.)
Spell out your goals
You’ll know your content efforts are working when they’re helping you achieve your goals..
We wrote a whole post about this, but here’s a brief summary:
Goals
You need them
Fill your editorial calendar with pieces that support those goals
Measure your content performance by those goals
Have a firm grasp on the pain points you solve
Did you think our tip would be something like “Create evergreen content”? While that is a great tip, it’s vague, obvious, and … actually probably not a great tip.
If you wanted to create evergreen content, how would you know what to write about? Ah ha, I tricked you! Having a deep understanding of the customer pain points your product or service solves will give you endless evergreen content opportunities.
You know why? Because there are always people out there who need your help.
Too often, organizations use their websites to simply assert the features and benefits of their product or service. That’s certainly important, but it’s not what converts nor is it what customers are searching for. They’re more likely to use search terms like “how to fix a leaking roof” (pain point) instead of “best roofing shingles that do not leak for 25 years” (feature).
People need to know that you understand the problems they face so they trust that you can fix them. If I show you that I have a hammer, will you hire me to fix your roof?
No? But it’s a really nice hammer that hits nails, and I have used it to firmly pound nails before.
With an example this simple, it’s clear that if you want people to hire you to fix roofs, you need to market to their pain points, which include:
My roof is leaking and it makes the inside of my house wet
It’s not safe and the sound is really annoying
Fixing a roof is really expensive
Understanding pain points is about building trust. If I say “Tired of emptying your drip bucket every hour?” you’ll likely say, “Yes, please fix my roof!”
When you understand what your customers need help with, you’ll not only have endless content ideas, you’ll have content that stays relevant for years.
One final aspect to consider in pain points: Who you’re targeting.
Can you believe a content marketer got this far down an article without saying “find your target audience”? Inconceivable. But the “know your target audience” aphorism is true. If you don’t understand your target audience, you likely don’t understand their pain points.
Knowing your audience also means you can target them in other web properties they visit to do some guest posting, perhaps on social media channels, or guest blogging for other related websites.
You can learn more about identifying a target audience here.
Use case studies to demonstrate your results
Case studies are classic marketing gold, but they can often be a bit of a quagmire. Which customers will you ask to be the subject of a case study, and will they say yes? Will they let you use their name? What if they say something you’d rather not hear?
I’ll tell you what I tell my toddler: It’s okay to feel scared.
But for case studies, go with the fear and do it anyway. Especially if you’re a small or new business, people want to know that they’re giving their money to someone who will deliver what they promised.
Case studies prove your mettle using other people’s words. Pick a few friendly, long-time customers, ask them some questions, and write up a short but impactful case study. (Or hire us to do it.) Then put them on your site for your sales team or internet passersby to reference.
It’s best to have at least three case studies of customers who have different pain points. This helps demonstrate that you solve problems for different types of customers. Try to get one case study per vertical, persona, and/or problem that you target.
Conversely, be careful about creating too many case studies; at a certain point, people get overwhelmed and ignore them altogether. Be sure to prove your value propositions with your case studies. Case studies are much, much more than basic product/service reviews.
Get your calls to action in order
Recall that the entire point of marketing is getting people to do something. Simply declaring “I have a hammer” will not suddenly get you clients who want you to build them a new roof.
Likewise, a piece of content does not just inspire people to act. You have to tell them explicitly what you want them to do next. Ergo, you need to know exactly what you want a person to do after each thing they read.
Blog post → Subscribe to our newsletter
Case study → Request a demo
Website/landing page/social ad/blog post → Download our ebook
With CTAs, it’s important to remember the three stages of your sales funnel:
Awareness (top of funnel)
Consideration (middle of funnel)
Decision (bottom of funnel)
Each piece of content you create should correspond to one part of your funnel. And fittingly, each CTA should correspond to the funnel as well. If you’re writing an awareness piece, your CTA should not be “Request a Demo.”
Why? Because requesting a demo is not an awareness action — it is a consideration or decision-making action.
Similarly, the CTA on your pricing page should not be “Learn More.” They’re already learning more! “Request a Demo” that $#!t!
Learn about SEO
There are a large subset of marketers out there who hear “SEO” and (rightly) click the mental snooze button. But technical SEO is crucial to getting found.
We strongly suggest that anyone who really wants to invest in a content strategy get a subscription to SEMRush — and not just because we’re affiliates!
SEMRush is an easy-to-use tool that looks at your web pages and assesses all things search, like your keywords, domain authority, backlinks, a link building strategy, and more. SEMRush can help you determine what people are searching for, then develop new content or optimize existing content to put you in search results.
Of course there are plenty of other tools that can help you with SEO, and you can probably piece together a passable SEO strategy using free tools, it just might take you longer to get there.
The tools let you outsource the expertise of search engines. You don’t have to know how Google’s search algorithm changes week after week. Tools like SEMRush will do that for you and show you what to change about your content to perform better.
Don’t be forgotten
You can’t count on someone coming back to your website weeks after their first visit and thinking, “You know, that website was really great, I think I want to buy from them.”
Does it happen? Sure. Often? No.
Lead nurture, baby — a vital part of any content marketing strategy. Like a spouse you have to remind to put their #@$%-ing dishes in the dishwasher, your leads probably won’t convert themselves (and if they do they’ll demand heaps of praise, amirite?).
A technically simple, low time investment way to do this is an email newsletter. Pick a cadence, like once a month or once a week, and get in front of the people who were interested enough in your product or service to give you their email address.
Newsletters don’t have to be fancy and they shouldn’t be long. Use that opportunity to remind recipients who you are, share any discounts or events, and round it out with some useful content they could look at. (Remember, always tell them what to do next!)
Just don’t get all CTA giddy in your newsletter. Think of one important thing you want them to do or click on and build around that. You can have links to other things like new blog posts, but make sure your one thing is the top button, the top section, and mentioned in the subject line.
Be patient and think long term
One of the hardest things about marketing in general is that instant results are about as rare as a bleeding steak. That’s why you need a solid strategy, content creation that feeds into your goals, good content, and patience.
This may seem like a prohibitive list of attributes. But making a post, publishing it, and then throwing money at it will not help you achieve your goals.
We are so used to reading the heavily promoted success stories that we often operate under the false assumption that we should be getting more leads, more subscribers, more followers and sales faster than we are.
But getting consistent organic traffic, doing email marketing, pursuing link building, and other time-tested strategies simply do not happen or yield results that quickly. Sure, some money might accelerate the process, but only to a certain point.
The secret that doesn’t sell ebooks or master classes? You have to create consistent, engaging content and work hard to build a loyal audience over time.
Yes, that sounds deeply unsexy, but most of the world just isn’t like “Mad Men.”
Want some more free advice? Download our free guide “The Top 7 Tips for Good Content Strategy.”
We also have tons on our blog, and we also offer free 30 minute consultations for new contacts. We hope to chat with you soon!
