You may have heard a thing or two about content marketing. It’s quickly become the modern marketing strategy for companies of all shapes and sizes.
CMOs are rushing to hire writers, in many cases former journalists, to crank out keyword-laden content to drive awareness and demand. But while content marketing has certainly gone through the hype cycle, in many ways, it isn’t anything new. Marketing has always been about solving problems for buyers. The only difference is the Internet created a more even playing field for smaller companies to compete with larger ones on the basis of content.
Buyers are increasingly researching solutions to their problems online, and companies are increasingly found by their digital footprint. Content marketing is merely a way to expand that digital footprint so you are more likely to get found. However, before you embrace content marketing and start creating assets at scale, make sure to ask yourself these three questions first.
>> Related: So, You Wrote Some Content. Now What? <<
1. Define Your Content Marketing Goals
Before you create a new asset, figure out why you need it, and how you’re planning to use it to achieve one of your content marketing goals. Choose 1 of the following 4 content marketing goals, which are aligned with the different stages in the buyer’s journey:
- Acquisition: generate web traffic, social shares, and/or other high-level engagements
- Conversion: drive conversions, where previously anonymous visitors turn into actual leads
- Nurturing: convince leads that they should become your customers
- Engagement: provide ongoing learning and delight amongst your customer base
It’s easy to skip this step when rushing to publish content. But knowing which stage each asset targets is crucial—it guides how you measure success. For example, if an infographic doesn’t convert viewers into opportunities, you might think infographics don’t work. In reality, they’re used early in the buyer’s journey, so traffic, social shares, and influenced leads are better performance metrics.
Setting the right goals also helps when reporting to sales and executives. When the CEO asks how content marketing is performing, they often mean lead generation. Manage expectations by explaining the buyer’s journey stages and how each asset aligns. Then measure results against stage-specific metrics to show what’s working and where improvement is needed.
2. Determine Your Target Audience
Okay, so you have an idea in mind for a best practices guide and you correctly identify that its purpose is to generate leads. Now, who’s it for? If you aren’t using personas at your company, now’s a good time to do so. While defining your buyer personas can easily become a significant effort, especially if you’re trying to drive alignment and understanding across multiple departments, it doesn’t need to be. Just write down the 3-4 different kinds of people you’re marketing to, and then pick the ONE that this asset is for. Why just one? Because the whole idea of content marketing is to help prospects solve their problems, and you can’t really be helpful when you’re talking to different kinds of people at the same time.
I used to work for a company that sold enterprise software, and we had a lot of different people involved in the sales process, including IT and business. We were working on a best practices ebook, and the whole way through the piece I just felt lost. I couldn’t tell what it was trying to get me to do as the reader. Then I realized it was because we were trying to talk to IT and business executives at the same time. In doing that, the advice we were giving was so high level it became meaningless. It was so muddled that there was no way we could make a meaningful impact. This happens all the time so consider yourself warned – before you write a single word, figure out who you want to read it and orient the whole piece around them.
3. Choose Your Format(s)
Okay, so you’ve got the idea, the persona, and an outline together for your new asset, a best practices guide. Now you need to decide what format to use – is it an ebook? A podcast? A webinar? The format will dictate how you layout the remaining content, how quickly you can go live, who needs to be involved, and how you promote the new asset. For example, I haven’t had a lot of success promoting webinars through PPC but ebooks perform very well. While certain formats are more appropriate for different stages of the buying cycle, you will know best which formats resonate better with your audience. Use the graphic below as a guide, and combine that with your own experience to settle on the right format for your new asset.
Remember that the first asset can spur a whole slew of other assets in the future as well. For example, I once ran a webinar with an industry expert on The Art of Dashboard Design. It was so popular we turned it into an ebook, then ran a webinar on 30 Dashboards in 30 Minutes, which became another ebook, a webinar on Dashboard Design Before & Afters, several blog posts, and a session at our user conference. One asset quickly grew into 10, all built around content that resonated with our audience.
All Things Considered
There’s a lot more to content marketing than just content creation. To make content drive results, set the right goals, write for one persona at a time, and use the right formats. If you’re disciplined in these three areas, you’ll be well on your way to driving demand from inbound.
