The 2023 Guide To Content Marketing

This guide to content marketing was written by a junior digital marketing associate in the Hyperwave Content training center.

Nowadays, content (i.e., usually in digital form) marketing is one of the great methods to promote a brand, product, or service awareness. Additionally, content marketing can induce credibility and authority online, leads, web traffic, and sales. However, incorrect use of content marketing strategies, types, and tools can be counterproductive and a waste of effort. To avoid such a predicament, keep on reading this article.

Content Marketing 101

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that generates relevant content that promotes your business or company and results in customer attraction, retention, and eventual sales. 

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a process of generating essential content which goes through the following phases:

• Planning
• Creation 
• Distribution 
• Sharing 
• Publishing 

Additionally, your business can perform content marketing through various channels such as software applications, blogs, social media platforms, podcasts, websites, print publications, and much more. We must recall that content marketing has a primary purpose: to reach prospective customers, thereby increasing business brand, product, or service awareness, engagement, sales, trust, and loyalty. (source)

Does Content Marketing Work? 

Most of the world’s population now has access to the online web, which is a massive venue for marketing opportunities. It is where the essence of content marketing comes in. One of the best methods to build an audience or customer awareness is by reaching out to people who are consistently online. One accomplishes this by using social media platforms and portable devices (e.g., laptops and mobile phones). 

In this scenario, content marketing does work. Research indicates that content marketing increases engagement and awareness in numerous businesses and is an excellent lead generation tool. (source)

Additionally, a common mindset of marketers is that no one wants to miss out on getting more leads. 

Creating A Content Marketing Strategy 

Content is crucial to consumers, search engines, and businesses. To prevail in the market competition of your business niche, developing a content marketing strategy would be essential. (source)

The following sections will feature some tips for producing a good content strategy. 

Setting Out Your Mission, Objectives, And Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Establishing your content marketing mission would be the first step. It consists of a short statement that features your target audience, how you will engage the target, and what the reader will receive upon having your content. (source)

Here is an example of a good content marketing mission set by Speedo, a leading swimwear brand. 

Business objectives are a significant part of the process. It establishes what your business will achieve from content marketing. Ideally, this covers the following (source): 

• Revenue improvement
• Generating more sales
• Gaining more traffic on the web
• Gaining authority and influence
• Success in search engine optimization (SEO)
• Reduction in marketing expenses
• Engagement in social media platforms 

Lastly, you would need to indicate how to measure success. These would be your KPIs, and these are usually attached with numbers. Several examples are the following (source): 

• Revenue target
• Gain more sign ups
• Additional email subscribers
• Increase in website traffic
• Improvement in the search ranking
• Receive a specific number of shares, comments, and mentions of your content
• Receive an invitation to participate in certain key business niche events 

Determining Your Audience Or Target Consumers

A significant consideration in any content strategy is determining whom you are marketing to, as this will aid you in correctly aiming your content to the appropriate audience. It is essential since marketing performs best when it is necessary. Otherwise, when you produce content for all, it pertains to not creating it for anyone. (source)

To start, you may acquire demographic data through social media platforms, email, and google analytics. It will help determine your target audience or customers’ income, age, gender, and education. Additionally, you may acquire customer feedback or reviews to give you an insight into their priorities. This data helps you to decide where to engage them and expand on your buyer personas (i.e., customer avatar). Consequently, buyer personas will then aid you in creating the correct content, how it will help your customers, and what will lead them to care about it. 

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Planning Your Process

It is imperative to plan the steps in creating good content. Specifically, you consider the following: 

• Person/team in charge of generating content
• Person/team in charge of content maintenance and updates
• What are the resources needed for creating content
• What is/are the schedule/s of publishing 
• Who has the final authority to approve the content
• What is the workflow of your content production 

Begin With A Blog

A blog is crucial to any content marketing strategy and is an essential marketing tool. It gives a venue for all other content marketing types you intend to use. To maximize blogging, here are some blog post ideas that are known to work well: 

• How-to guide articles
• Tutorials
• Checklists
• Case studies
• Expert advice
• Interviews 
• Business insights and news 

Ideally, blog posts should have these key attributes to perform well: 

• Educational
• Useful
• Controversial
• Entertaining / fun / interactive 

Audit Existing Content

Whenever your content is ready, it is imperative to perform an audit of your content. Doing this would give you an idea of whether you are meeting your goals and addressing your KPIs. This process involves the following: 

• Log what you have
• Determine whether it is working
• Look for content gaps

Here are several tools you may use for logging in to your content: 

• SEMRush
• Screaming Frog

These tools aid you in looking for duplicate pages and determining missing descriptions and titles. It could also help you assess the content length, social shares, and inbound links. Consequently, data from both tools can help you see whether the content is working, what needs improvement, and what needs editing or replacement. Moreover, you can also determine gaps in content where adding new content would aid you in addressing your goals. 

Conduct Keyword Search And Generate Content

Another significant point of creating content is conducting keyword research. Specifically, you would want the audience or customers to locate your content online, thereby visiting your website. Keyword pertains to the terms the audience uses to search for content. Similarly, it is also the terms Google utilizes to determine what your content is talking about. (source)

Types Of Keywords You Should Be Aware

• Short keywords: emphasis on a broad topic or group of products (e.g., swimwear)
• Medium keywords: emphasis on narrowing down a topic or group of products (e.g., men’s swimwear) 
• Long-tail keywords: specific details about a topic or product (e.g., men’s jammer type trunks swimwear) 

Search intent is the process where keyword/s in the content have to aid searchers, and Google matches your content with what they are seeking. There are various types of search intent.

Search Intents

• Informational: audience attempt to get an answer to a question
• Investigational: potential customers narrow down choices before purchasing 
• Transactional: customers are ready to purchase
• Navigational: audience search for a particular website

How To Determine Keywords For Content Marketing

• Utilization of keyword/s research tools to locate appropriate keyword/s to be included in your content
• Checking in Google Search Console and Google Analytics to determine what keywords tend to attract searchers to your website 
• Brainstorming excellent ideas 

By the time you have determined the keywords you will need for your content, here are several vital sections to use these keywords.

Vital Sections For Keyword Usage

• Title of content and website page
• SEO title of your website page or content 
• Meta details for your content
• Across the body of your content
• Social updates of that content and links to that portion of the content 

You may use the All in One SEO plugin to conveniently add keywords to these sections. 

Deciding On The Lead Magnet

As mentioned, content is a leading generation tool. A method to achieve more leads using content is to produce a lead magnet. Typically, a lead magnet should: 

• Provides a reliable solution to a problem posed by your target customers or audience
• It gives an easy-to-follow and quick solution
• Showcases your expertise
• Informative and valuable

Several examples of lead magnets are the following types of content marketing: 

• Webinars
• Case studies
• Ebooks
• Checklists
• Reports
• Quizzes
• Mini-courses

Content Promotion

Another crucial point in content creation is promoting the content you have produced to address your marketing goals. Here are several methods to conduct promotion: 

• Email marketing
• Social media marketing 
• Link building on content marketing 

We will further discuss these methods in the following sections. 

Techniques For Content Promotion

Here are several strategies to promote content. 

Email Marketing

The majority of people access their emails for information. It would be an effective way to keep your customers engaged and establish a good relationship with them. For example, you can advertise discount subscriptions to your long-term customers to keep them loyal to your brand and services. An ideal email marketing content should be:

• Scannable
• Short
• Compelling headline
• Not being overly promotional

Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms are in abundance these days. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and many more, can effectively provide you with the opportunity to increase your content visibility. It is imperative not to ignore this element in content marketing. For example, you can highlight your brand, product/s, or service/s on the mentioned platforms by using high-quality and eye-catching infographics or videos to attract and engage the audience. Additionally, those platforms may use keywords on hashtag posts to attract more attention. 

Link Building On Content Marketing

Another way you can do this with content is to establish links, which are crucial in SEO ranking. 

It is imperative to create links when producing content. These would aid search engines and searchers in navigating onto your website and locating additional content/s. It would be a benefit for SEO. 

Moreover, linking with authoritative sources in your created content is advisable to ensure credibility from your audience. 

Growth Hacks and Tactics In Content Marketing 

Various reliable content marketing tactics ensure businesses market more effectively to their customers. It includes the following: 

• Guest Blogging – You can promote your business brand, products, or services by contributing relevant information to other business websites and responding to customer comments and shares. 

• Gated Content – This method hides relevant content information to entice customers to subscribe to your business. You can gate content such as blog posts, downloadable resources or tools, webinars, research, and many more. 

• Content Repurposing – This method pertains to taking in existing content and reusing it in a different format. It can also aid you in extending the coverage of your content. 

• Content Curation – This method utilizes tools to create content that can save you time, effort, and money. Pinterest, Nuzzel, Listly, Klout, and Flipboard are free tools. 

• Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)  – This marketing type urges customers to purchase your product or service to not miss out on others who have them. 

• Urgency – This tactic is also relatable to the FOMO of customers. For example, you advertise a countdown on discounted rates of your products, enticing customers to purchase them. 

• Geomarketing – This tactic pertains to marketing to specific locations of your audience or customers. 

Various Types Of Content Marketing

Blog Post Articles

This marketing strategy best suits SEO, thereby inducing traffic to your business website. Utilizing this content type allows you to easily feature and advertise your expertise, knowledge, products, or services. A high-quality blog post article can entice your audience and add awareness to your products and services. Consequently, you can sway customers to prefer your product or services. 

Videos 

It is a valuable marketing strategy as it encompasses a broad coverage of products and services promotions. Consumers appreciate seeing videos of products or services that spark their interest. For instance, a video demonstration on properly sailing a catamaran for high-speed propulsion and stability during long-distance travel can attract the desired audience to buy a double-hulled boat for crossing large oceanic waters. Additionally, a famous swimming athlete using your product in a video advertisement can entice swimming fan customers to purchase your product. 

Podcasts

Podcasting is an effective marketing strategy due to its accessibility anywhere. In particular, you can listen to a podcast episode whenever it is accessible. For instance, you may listen to podcasts while working out or during a delay in your flight. It provides a venue for an audio advertisement of your product/s or services. 

Live Streaming

Live streaming is famous nowadays. Numerous YouTube influencers have utilized the platform to generate income. This content marketing provides a venue for your products to be discussed. For example, you may use an influencer or brand ambassador to promote your product or services through their live stream. 

Images Or Photos

Images have been a typical content marketing strategy for quite a while, providing a venue for your product or services advertised. You may use this method on various social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. For instance, you could feature a fancy dish image (e.g., baked scallops) on your Twitter account. That is if you were a restauranteur and baked scallops, a dish served in your restaurant business. Moreover, you can advertise the landscape image of a garden on brochures in a garden business office or website. You get the idea.

Stories

It can serve as a series of images and videos commonly observed on various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. On YouTube, these are known as “shorts,” while on Twitter, people call these “moments.”. Similarly, you can feature a series of dish images on your Instagram account. That is, dishes served in your restaurant business. Alternatively, you can use groups of videos to feature your garden landscape ideas. 

Tiktoks Or Reels

This type of marketing content is a short stand-alone video. It is also an effective strategy when creating a short yet catchy video for your audience. For example, a dance studio business can utilize this marketing content usually seen on Tiktok with people dancing. 

Engagement Text

An engagement text pertains to sending customers enticing text messages via a platform. For instance, this can serve as a chatbox on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, promoting your product and services. For example, you decide to have a seasonal discounted sale for your products, which would be an appropriate content marketing strategy. 

Case Studies

This type of content demonstrates the use of a product or service effectively. In particular, it highlights a product or service without sounding promotional. Still, it showcases how the product or service achieved promising results in real-life scenarios. Additionally, this finds use regularly by business-to-business (B2B) brands. 

Whitepapers

This type of content emphasizes the in-depth research of a problem or concern after providing a solution. It is suitable for businesses in a highly-competitive environment as it would promote customer education and lead magnets. For instance, an internet security business could discuss its proprietary solution from a virus or ransomware threat a customer may encounter. 

eBooks

EBooks tend to be more general in nature and less detailed than whitepapers. Nevertheless, they are still suitable for a wide variety of businesses. For example, a business brand can write an ebook correctly using its product. Alternatively, they can create inspiring series of booklets about their products and place them online. 

Checklists

This type of content is suitable for businesses where customers tend to ask numerous questions that you can quickly answer. For example, what are the essential things to prepare before traveling to Europe which could prove beneficial for a travel industry based in that area? On the other hand, medical companies use checklists to account for patient symptoms, thereby promoting the selection of their products upon consultation with a physician. 

Webinars

This type of content provides an excellent venue for teaching and sharing expertise. Consumers and professionals become more informed and aware before choosing a product or service. It also allows you to distinguish yourself and your business as thinking leaders in your industry. 

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