How to Create a Robust Content Marketing Strategy for Your Customers

If you are at all familiar with content marketing strategy, you have heard time and time again that "content is king." Website visitors, social media followers and email subscribers have no way of understanding your brand or business without content, and that is why it is “king." 

In 2019, buying and selling is much different than it was in 2018, let alone what it was in 2009. The buyer’s journey has completely changed as to how people make buying decisions. All types of buyers, whether consumers or businesses seeking products and services from other businesses, want to purchase from someone or somewhere they trust.

Think of your business as a stadium. To fill the seats in your stadium, you first need to attract interest. Then, you need to position your company so that those interested feel comfortable engaging with your website further. When the time is right, customers will start transacting with your business online.

How can you attract interest to fill the seats at your stadium? Through creating content that solves the problems of your ideal customers.

Key Aspects of a Robust Digital Content Marketing Strategy

Gated Content Offers

This type of content lives behind a form on a landing page which outlines details of the elements included within the offer. Gated content should be centered around valuable information that is unique to your business as those who seek to download it are required to provide some personal information before they receive the offer.

Typically, in the B2B space, asking for first name, last name, email and company name at the very least is standard. This helps better gauge whether or not the person downloading the offer is a qualified lead or not, so lead ownership can be distinguished between your sales and marketing team(s).

Want to learn more about qualifying leads or need help managing your leads? See how we can help.

Types of gated offers you can use in your digital content strategy are:

• Whitepapers 
• eBooks
• Guides

Here are a few other examples of this type of content.

Case Studies

Another way to solve your customers’ problems through an online content strategy is to display your customer success stories on your website. This helps bring what you do to life and gives concrete examples of how you have solved customer problems in the past. Content such as this also gives prospects and leads another way to validate that you are the right choice. To bring your customers’ successes to life, make the title relatable to a common problem your customers have. 

Here’s how one company incorporated digital marketing into their business strategy. 

Blogging

A robust content generation rhythm and system positions you and your company as a thought leader in your industry, helps keep your business at the top of the minds of readers who might not be ready to start the sales process and is another way to push your website to the top of search engine results pages. It also is a way to keep readers up to date on industry trends as well as best practices and can be a knowledge center for others in your industry. 

If you are regularly publishing content geared towards solving your customers’ problems and answering their questions, your company will be positioned as a reliable resource and therefore build trust amongst current and future customers. A blog should not be sales focused; it should be kept general so that people feel comfortable coming back without fear they’ll be contacted by a salesperson when they aren’t ready.

To build a blog strategy, start by making a list of the questions your customers are most frequently asking. From there, leverage the expertise of your team to write posts that answer those questions. Don’t forget to include relevant keywords, an author and a publish date.

Website Content

In 2019, your website should be your best salesperson. As the go-to hub for everything there is to know about who you are and what you do, your website should include content about your company in general, what services are offered or products sold and a way to contact you directly at the very least. Outside of having baseline information about your business, there are five key elements of a website you should include in your strategy as well. 

One of the best ways to leverage all of the content you create is through pillar pages. These types of pages tie together all of the information on a topic available on your site, build credibility with Google and help visitors choose their own path on your website.

What Does a Successful Content Strategy Process Look Like?

Whether a top-selling product or a popular sales person amongst your customers, leverage that success and expertise to start your online content strategy. Then, once you start filling seats in your stadium, start thinking about other ways you can engage your audience. Is there another unique solution that differentiates your product or service from the competition? Is there a topic that excites customers? Continue to create content around all the different facets of your business as they relate to your customers and their problems.

Trial and Error

A digital content strategy often takes a bit of trial and error. Monitoring the success of your gated content through tracking conversion rates, analyzing blog traffic through views and bounce rates and maintaining your website to be up to par with Google are all ways you can ensure your content is working and provide you with concrete data to pivot your strategy when it’s not. 

Are you ready to put these best practices in place? Learn how you can get started in this guide.