You’ve heard it all before: “you need good content to drive new leads” or the more famous “content is king”. But regardless of how hard you try, nothing seems to move in the direction you want.
While it’s true we live in a content-oriented world, the old marketing principles still apply. This means that, even though your content is good, there’s a high chance that it won’t turn readers or viewers into customers.
You need to know what type of content to create and when to publish it in order to drive the audience through the sale funnel. This is what marketers call content strategy and today we’re going to have a look at what hides under this term.
Better Connection with the Audience
The number one rule of marketing says to “understand your target audience”. The same applies to content creation and strategy.
After all, if you don’t know who you’re making content for, it’s pointless to expect results. It’s just as pointless to think of a strategy since you don’t know what drives these people to make a purchase. As such, before thinking of the articles you are going to post or the videos you are going to make, try to get into your viewers’ head.
Once you know their needs, preferences, and overall expectations from your business and brand, it’s easy to create content that’s relatable and engaging. It will also make it easier to target the content at the right people and convince them your product is the best.
Different Content for Each Stage
One of the main reasons businesses invest in content is to boost sales. Good quality content attracts more viewers to the site, keeps them engaged, and convinces a percentage of them to become customers.
Still, you have to be aware of what marketers call the sale funnel. This technique takes three different stages into account:
- Top, where the viewers are just browsing or looking for information
- Middle, where people are familiar with your product and are more likely to buy
- Bottom, where people know what they want, like your product, and are ready to press “Buy”
As such, you should create content that takes viewers through the funnel, considering their stage. As such, the type of content you publish needs to be a part of your B2B content strategy and your B2C strategy.
For instance, list type articles are mostly for information and viewing purposes. On the other hand, a case study is already for people who are really interested and want to know more details.
Saving Time & Energy
Content creation is a time-consuming task that takes its toll. As such, you end up losing focus on the goal which leads to a sloppy approach that doesn’t increase the conversion rate.
This can be prevented by creating a publishing calendar. This way, you can take a day or two to plan your content for an entire month and decide when it should be published. For this, it’s important to know the audience and understand the type of content they want. Whether we’re talking about a landing page, a blog post, or a video presentation, it’s important to know where it fits in the schedule and why.
Overall, content strategy is all about planning ahead so you won’t get stuck or derailed later on. Of course, nothing is set in stone and things can be changed, but when you approach content creation as a whole and with a final goal in mind, things get a lot clearer. Not to mention you won’t have to be fishing for ideas anymore!
