Content marketing is a really useful strategy for all kinds of businesses, particularly for ones that work mostly online. Content marketing is the creation, publication and distribution of online content, with the goal of reaching a specified target audience, converting them to paying customers. But how do you get the most out of content marketing? The right marketing solutions can boost your content strategy to really help your business.
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Set Measurable Goals
There are a lot of different options for different kinds of content, which can be overwhelming when you start out. With options including blog posts and Instagram stories to eBooks and podcasts, how do you know what’s working for you?
Set a clear goal for each piece of content you create to help you measure success. For example, if you’re working with podcasts, you can’t just record the content and expect it to work. You need to identify the right target audience and work out how the content will serve them. Use analytics to ensure your content finds the right people via search. Tie the content back to your business, to help viewers convert to customers.
Understand the Journey of Your Buyer
A well-crafted content marketing strategy needs to catch the reader at any stage of their buying journey. While online content is mostly done to attract new visitors to your website, it should also do double duty to convince an existing customer to make a purchase or hire you. Quality content keeps those customers loyal as well as attracting new customers.
Identify any issues causing customers to decide not to purchase and create content to try and correct them. For example, perhaps customers seeing your product as too difficult to use? Content from your team like a series of simple instructional videos can help to convince potential customers otherwise, encouraging them to buy.
Track Performance with Analytics
Your content should be converting site visitors into new customers. Analytics is the easiest way to track whether this is working. Track and report on the numbers to see which content is working and which isn’t, and identify what you can improve on.
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As well as web traffic, look at conversion rates. For example, if your Instagram only has 1000 followers, but your blog has 7000 readers, it might seem that the blog is more successful for your company. However, if Instagram has an average conversion rate of 7%, while your blog only has 0.5%, this shows that your Instagram is doing a better job of converting sales, and shouldn’t be forgotten about.
Paying close attention to the analytics helps you to improve your strategy for the future. For example, if the analytics numbers show that you bring in the most readers on blog posts about print marketing, then you know to generate more content on that topic in the future, increasing traffic even more.
Keep Content Up to Date
Don’t forget your old content. Keep it up to date so it stays relevant to search engines. Leave the year out of your URL when optimizing your content. Instead, include the year in the title. Revisit the content yearly to update the title tag, meta description and content itself to keep it up to date. Don’t change your URL when you do this so you don’t break any existing backlinks.