Imagine This—
You’ve developed moderate pain in your wrist that has lasted for several days. You hop on your computer, take to Google, and search for an explanation. Thanks to various businesses’ content marketing strategies, you are met with several resources to help understand your situation. Blog posts, landing pages for urgent cares, suggestions for pain relievers, and more instantly appear at the top of the results to help you alleviate your discomfort.
This is the value of content marketing, a way for companies to reach audiences with products and services that can help solve a variety of questions and problems. And it should be an essential part of your marketing strategy, helping you to identify customers and achieve conversions. But how can you know which content will be the most attractive to your target audience? A content marketing agency, like Gatorworks in Baton Rouge, can help shed some light on the process to assist you in determining which content to share with your audience. But before you begin, it’s important to understand what content marketing is and how it can benefit your business.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a business’s way of reaching out to its target audience with valuable information. This may help them to learn more about your company. Or, it may help them to discover which product or service is helpful to them, as well as how your company can supply what they need. And when they are ready to purchase or connect, you can encourage them to take the next step. This goes hand in hand with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy which helps to put your brand in front of the right audience. Using keyword research to help your content rank in Google searches, optimizing your meta tags and site navigation, and making sure that you have the right internal and external linking can help to push even more organic traffic to your site over time.
The content you create and place in front of your consumer is essential to their buying or commitment process. This can include blog posts, social media content, educational emails, tip sheets, or exclusive offers. Your content marketing strategy nurtures your audience, leading to sales and conversions. Success comes from using your content to draw your target audience to your site, enhancing customer engagement, and educating them on your brand, as well as how your products or services can benefit them. With valuable content, you can help your audience move from awareness of your brand to learning more about what you have to offer, building trust with them, and finally, to a conversion. To know what content your audience needs and when they need to see it, you should first understand the marketing funnel.
The Marketing Funnel
The marketing (or sales) funnel helps you to identify a lead. This is an individual who is searching for the product or service you have to offer. Depending on their stage in the three-part funnel, they may be interacting with your brand for the first time or may already be ready to commit. This is why it is important to understand the three levels of the marketing funnel.
- The Top of the funnel represents audience members with a problem in search of a solution. At this level, educational content will help to entice and draw in customers with possible answers to their problems.
- The Middle of the funnel reaches an audience who has already completed their research. Now, they need help narrowing down their options. Nurturing content can help to lead them to the best decision—and ultimately, a conversion.
- The Bottom of the funnel is your ready-to-commit customer. These audience members know the solution to their problem. Encourage a conversion with discounts and promotions to close the sale!
Content marketing plays a part in each level of your marketing funnel. As your audience works through their awareness of a problem (the top of the funnel), blogs, newsletters, and infographics can help them to explore their possible solutions. Then, as they evaluate their options (the middle of the funnel), free samples, case studies, and customer testimonials can help to influence their final decision. Now that your customer is at the purchasing stage (the bottom of the funnel), you can deliver sales-driven content, such as a free trial, consultation, or estimation.
How to Execute Content Marketing Ideas
Now that you understand the value of a content marketing strategy, where do you begin? From determining your content development plan p to which platforms to utilize, there are endless opportunities ahead of you. Here are six ideas to help get your creative wheels spinning.
1. Get Started
This first step for establishing your content marketing strategy is to start. Your content may not be perfect or high-performing right out of the gate, but it’s better to share content with room for improvement than to sit with no content at all. Research content that would be valuable to your target audience, and then get to writing. Focus on sharing knowledgeable resources that can solve problems for your customers, and begin building your content library.
2. Take Direction From the Experts
It can be difficult to keep generating original content. This is where it can be beneficial to share valuable information from other experts in your field. Create a blog post highlighting important events or trends in your industry, and make sure to link back to these articles. This not only provides valuable resources for your audience, but it also helps to establish you as a knowledgable hub for helpful or current information.
3. Repurpose Existing Content
If you already have high-performing content, this can be useful for creating future collateral. Rather than constantly working on brand new ideas, try refurbishing some of the successful resources you already have available. Refresh a blog post with up-to-date statistics or trends. Create an infographic from a preexisting blog or presentation. Or, try creating an Instagram reel with past photos.
4. Answer Common Sales Questions
Your customers may come to you to help with their unanswered questions. Consider how your content can help solve this problem! A frequently asked questions page or a blog focused on answering common sales questions can be a highly valuable resource for helping customers and driving traffic to your site. And, consider refreshing this content as new questions arise.
5. Collaborate With Your Audience
Your content can fuel audience engagement—so why not use this engagement to produce even more valuable content? Customer testimonials, social media comments, videos, and more can be vital for your brand. And, it can lead to interesting source material for blogs and social posts. This is especially important for sharing more about your product or service. With customer testimonials or reviews, you can garner trust in your brand, explain how your product works, or showcase your company without seeming arrogant.
6. Dive Into the World of Podcasts
If you are looking for other forms of engaging content besides blogs and social media posts, consider launching a podcast that is relevant to your business. This media form gives you plenty of room to connect personally with your audience and showcase more of your company’s personality. Discuss current trends in your business, recent events, upcoming launches, and customer questions. This can be a fantastic resource for cultivating audience interaction.
Your Competitors Use Content Marketing—and You Should, Too
One major reason to implement a content marketing strategy is to stay ahead of your competition. Think about the values of delivering content at each stage of the funnel. If you aren’t able to offer solutions, incentives, or education, know that your competitors likely already are. Offering valuable content establishes your brand as an authority in the industry, and it helps to build trust between your business or product and your audience. And with the help of a content marketing agency like Gatorworks in Baton Rouge, you can discover leads and learn the needs of your audience, how to offer solutions, and how to drive conversions.
There are also many benefits of content marketing aside from pushing a sale. Creating your business’s customized content marketing strategy can help you to determine, understand, and target your ideal customer. Supplying content on current information keeps your brand relevant. And, it further establishes you as an expert in your field. This information, along with other expertly designed and crafted content, nurtures your audience and brings them back for more.
Discover Your Perfect Content Marketing Strategy in Baton Rouge
If you are ready to learn the best content strategy for your marketing objectives, get in touch with Gatorworks in Baton Rouge today! Our capabilities span from content development and creation to web design, search engine optimization, and more. Let us help you develop your brand, create compelling content, and drive greater audience engagement. Call us at 225-924-6109 or send us a message. We look forward to learning about your marketing goals and helping you meet and surpass them!