Content is king. Your content strategy is queen.
Most rising businesses have the same big dream. They want people to notice them and they want to sell.
While the first idea is evidently linked to the second, in marketing it is highly important to speak to the right audience. In previous blog posts, we have tried to define content marketing and content strategy. For a non-marketer, the two may seem to be mysterious concepts.
Through the first, the owner of a website has the possibility to enrich ideas, finally get noticed by Google and therefore, get discovered by potential clients. The second is practically based on content marketing. The only difference between the two is that, in content strategy, planning ahead is the right spice to perfecting the recipe. CS means not only the actual creation of the content, but also its curation and its distribution.
Content is forever.
Let’s say one day, while driving to work, you see an ad panel that surprises you with its originality. We’ll make the not-so-unusual assumption that after some time, you forget what it was all about. Another week goes by and the ad gets replaced with another one. What was the first one about? It was that tiny detail that you forgot. Perhaps you’d like to remember, but you cannot.
Unlike other means of marketing and advertising, content is forever. Another great thing about it is if you change your mind about what your ideal reader’s profile is, you can always slightly modify already existing posts, so they speak exactly to the right public.
Then, there’s the Adwords vs. content dilemma. You want more leads, you want more sales. We’ll be honest and tell you that Adwords is, indeed, a correct way to achieve this. But if you’re only beginning, there’s a high chance people who click on your ads spend only a couple of seconds on the site. You end up wasting precious money on ads that fail to bring back any revenue. Why do you think huge companies such as Coca Cola still publish articles? One single answer comes out in the horizon: In spite of their popularity, they know communicating with clients is priceless.
So, why should you have a blog?
A blog is a possibility to express yourself freely. Through it, you get to best explain what you intend to achieve. It is with the help of a blog that you can establish communication channels with potential clients and with your existing ones. Customers actually take pleasure in reading information about what you do, especially if you’ve delivered a successful product before, or if you can help them with designing a new one.
Writing on your blog is clearly a new way of creating content, content that is rich in keywords and that helps you befriend Google. It’s a winning approach to generating traffic to your site and drawing the attention of your buyer personas. What does this do for you? It assists in eventually getting new leads.
Let us not forget that owning a blog actually forces you to keep up-to-date with the latest news and events from your industry. Believe it or not, continuously documenting and researching your topics will, in time, turn you into an expert. Through your content, you’ll have the possibility to design the map of your startup’s evolution on the market, making it easy to share both success stories and failures.
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How to get started. What is a content funnel and how does it work?
Simply put, a content funnel consists of 3 things:
- links that refer to your site
- the actual content on your blog
- calls-to-action and an e-mail subscription
How should you get inbound links?
– publish amazing content
– look into guest blogging
– create interviews and initiate collaborations with partners from your field
If you already own a website and a blog, you have by now tried to analyze your competition. Why does your competitors’ content get so many likes or shares? We’ll give you this one. They’re probably thinking their strategy differently: instead of aiming at 3 posts per day, they take their time and create one single breath-taking article. In time, the latter makes them visible to the world.
A short number of suggestions for publishing awesome content:
Your startup’s blog should be imagined as a place for resources for site visitors. Its content must be consistently related to the purpose of the business; the blog posts you ought to publish have to present the story behind it, who you’re working with and what you’re aiming at, but always keep in mind what your buyer personas may think about your articles.
Tip:
Start working with a group of writers. Decided to handle your blog on your own? Then, work closely with employees or colleagues and other influencers from the industry.
Some things to always keep in mind
Remember to publish information that is real, that you believe in and consulted in the past.
Create content that is quotable and memorable. Promote yourself in a couple of words, but do it as rarely as possible. Don’t overdo it. Don’t appear desperate to site visitors.
While planning ahead is a brilliant idea, it is important to reserve some space for new events and/or innovative happenings from your line of work.
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Social media tips
Select your social networks with care.
Let us analyze Tumblr. It’s designed for people who enjoy fun, light content with pretty pictures scattered in between the paragraphs. The same type of content does not, however, speak to LinkedIn users.
Writing tips
Try to write a whole paragraph and then, instead of saying something in 5 or 6 phrases, try to express the same idea in 3 or 4.
Use short. Phrases. That attract. The attention of the audience.
Since content marketing is not an exact science and its results are sometimes difficult to quantify, you have to wait for results to show up. If you intend on measuring the latter after a month of writing on your blog, then you’ll face serious disappointment.
Our recommendation is to measure the results you may be getting from posting blog articles, but be careful to do it after at least 6 months of continuous publishing efforts. Only then may you analyze the impact of your most popular posts and figure out why they became acclaimed in the first place. Your most treasured pieces of writing will become models for your future articles.
How does a CTA help? Why should you get an email subscription?
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As we were saying in one of our latest posts about content strategy, writing for your website is all about getting people to trust you. You’ll have to walk a long and winding road before getting them to know you, trust you and buy what you’re selling.
Calls-to-action are like shout-outs. From a rather simplistic point of view, they are buttons that go somewhere on your blog, either inside your posts or somewhere in the columns. These buttons do exactly what their name is saying: they get site visitors to act in a way that’s evidently beneficial to you. For more information on CTAs, check out this notably informative article published by Smashing Magazine.
Last, but not least, it is through an email subscription that you can initiate communication channels with your potential clients. Every blog post you publish will end up as a snippet in the inbox of your subscribers. Ignore this marketing measure and you’ll be waiting for a long time for results to come by.
In conclusion, try combining all the aforementioned measures in order to perfect a winning content strategy.
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