Skip to content
It’s no surprise that content marketing is a vital part of a strong marketing strategy. Take a moment to consider how important content is today. You see it everywhere; it’s on websites, in blogs, on billboards, on TV, in social media, even on the radio. Content at its most basic level is everywhere and it is continuously used to boost marketing campaigns in countless ways across the globe. As we become more and more digitalized, this only becomes more and more apparent. The common saying “content is king” is not said over and over again for no reason. That beings said, we can safely say that content rules the digital world.
With so much content everywhere, it can quickly become overwhelming, regarding the right way to use it to boost your own business. Not only is content crucial for maintaining your marketing strategy, it is also very versatile. Content comes in many different forms and it can be shared and utilized through a variety of channels, where it can touch multiple audiences. If your content addresses your targeted reader’s concerns or interests effectively, you will not only promote engagement that will help boost your business, which will lead to potential conversions! Of course this will take work and a solid plan. And that’s where building a content marketing strategy comes into play. With the right tailored approach through a content marketing plan, your business can find great success.
The Power of the Content Marketing Strategy
The truth of the matter is that content marketing is no longer a luxury but a necessity. If you want to be successful and build a strong marketing strategy that delivers, you must have a fully developed content marketing plan in place. You need to integrate it into your marketing approach for optimal brand awareness. Content marketing offers a treasure trove of benefits that can have lasting, positive effects on your business.
Today, many B2B marketers from companies of all sizes and industries are taking advantage of the benefits of lucrative content marketing. A primary reason behind this is because content pushes demand generation to the forefront in what is called the Full-Funnel Marketing approach. Full-Funnel Marketing is a style of marketing that can be useful in leaving a lasting impression with that potential customer and their decision to buy.
The funnel works with the upper portion reaching the targeted audience (including those who may not yet be looking for your products or services). The lower portion of the funnel focuses on the prospects you have gained up to the point of purchase. You can use content to keep your business front and center in the minds of your prospective customers, with this model. The model is fairly simple but very effective. Content helps to generate demand by driving awareness which leads to engagement, which leads to conversions later on.
Building an effective content marketing strategy with this in mind is the key to building strong branding, successful search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), and enhancing PR. More and more businesses are taking advantage. According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, 86% of B2B marketers use content marketing. They also found that 70% of B2B marketers plan to increase content marketing spending next year. So we can safely say that content marketing has become a proven matter of course and is here to stay, which is why YOU need a content marketing strategy.
Strategy is the “Secret Sauce” of Effective Content Marketing
At its core, content marketing is all about strategy. And while some marketers do not initially think about content marketing as a strategic operation, they should. If you want better results, now’s the time to start including strategic efforts into your content marketing recipe. The same study by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that 54% of the most effective B2B marketers had a content marketing plan that was fueled by a documented strategy. Those who paid special attention to their strategic efforts when building their content marketing plan were the ones who saw the most effective results for their business.
Starting Your Content Marketing Plan
Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, said that those who want to create their own content marketing program should first begin by focusing on the key type of content that you want to focus on. This means, you should decide on whether you want to work with audio, textual, visual content. Next, you should then decide upon one particular key platform with which you plan to deliver your content through. Will it be via a blog or website? Will it be through a social media channel such as Facebook or Twitter? Perhaps it might be through iTunes or on YouTube. Hash these details out first. This will help you with laying a solid foundation for your plan later.
Once you’ve got the above key elements down, focus next on a defined niche. This will help you to in turn discover the type of audience you want to present yourself to. The better defined your niche market is, the easier it will be for your to better define your audience. Identifying the niche market is a wonderful way to really narrow down the playing field so you can approach your content marketing plan with a concentrated strategy. If we look at how content marketing was five years ago, as opposed to content marketing today, what will we see? We will see that we’ve come a long way since then. Long gone are the early days of data experimentation and hit-or-miss marketing campaigns.
Nowadays, companies are starting to build a smart, more integrated and strategic approach to their content marketing strategy. Today, we have learned more about what types of content best drives business and we have also learned how we can incorporate that into our creative marketing process. Defining your niche early on is part of this.
Looking Forward
When it comes to an impressive content strategy, planning and execution are important. Carefully blending advertising with relative information in order to build a loyal audience is the ticket in a successful content marketing strategy. If you want to become an industry leader and eventually grow into a brand worth talking about, make content marketing the center of your attention. No matter who you are or what your budget might be, it is possible to develop a winning marketing strategy through effective content marketing. We will delve even further into the details on building a strong content marketing plan in our next installment of why content marketing is necessary for a strong marketing plan.
