What is a content marketing strategy?

Content Marketing

Do you want your website to generate leads?

Most business owners believe that if they put all their money into PPC advertising (such as Google Ads), they will get results. You will get some, but not as many as you could. 

The key to ensuring your website continues to generate leads, even when the Google Ads gets turned off, is to invest in content marketing. 

PPC reaches the small percentage of users who are ready to buy right now. Content marketing nurtures the vast majority of leads who are on their journey towards making an enquiry. There’s a lot more of them! And investing in content marketing ensures that you pull them into your orbit so that when they’re ready to buy, they turn to you. 

But to do content marketing effectively, you need to build a strategy. What is a content marketing strategy, and how do you create one? Delve in, and discover how great content can generate leads for your business. 

A good content marketing strategy definition: 

A content marketing strategy is “a plan of action that outlines how a business or organisation will create, publish, distribute, and manage content to attract and engage its target audience”. 

A content marketing strategy is a bit like the petrol you put into your car. 

Imagine that your beautiful, shiny new car is delivered to your doorstep, and you just can’t wait to go for a drive and show it off on the school run. There’s only one problem…no petrol! Your new car might be the bees’ knees but it’s of no use whatsoever until you can get petrol in that tank.

The car itself, all its amazing features and benefits, is analogous to the content on your website here. Content marketing, however, that’s the fuel. Content marketing is how you get that fabulous website content you have created, to the right people at the right time. 

The content marketing plan – well that’s how you’re going to get the petrol in the car! 

It involves using relevant and valuable content, through a variety of channels, to attract and retain a clearly defined audience with the ultimate goal of driving profitable customer action. 

So a good content marketing strategy aims to give your website the best quality fuel that it possibly can and make sure that tank is always full, to drive the right people to your site. 

How to build a content marketing strategy 

You might be wondering how to create a content marketing strategy. Well, there are several steps you have to follow when you are thinking about how to write a content marketing strategy: 

1. Identify your goal/objective

Firstly, you have to identify your goals and objectives. Are you looking to: 

• Drive website traffic
• Increase brand awareness
• Generate leads
• Build customer relationships
• Improve sales conversion

Goals help to define your long-term vision, they also drive short-term motivation. 

2. Analyse where you currently are

Now that you have identified where you want to be, you need to determine where you actually are. 

A great way to do this is with a website audit. This should include:

• An analysis of the current website’s content
• An analysis of your current channels (e.g. your social media accounts)
• An analysis of your website’s current performance (e.g. its visibility online, the number of users to the website and how they’re using the site currently.)

Interested? Find out more about our website audits

Using the audit, you can start identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your website and digital marketing efforts so far. 

3. Make sure you know your target audience

It goes without saying that you need to know who you’re trying to reach. You can’t sell to everyone, and saying “we want to sell to everyone” isn’t going to cut it in today’s market. You might end up selling to lots of different types of people, but you need to aim for an audience that will resonate with you. 

To do this, build user personas that describe your target audience. Make sure it’s based on user research and data and not just plucked out of the ether. 

Want to know what user personas are? Look here.

4. Look for gaps

A big part of determining how you’re going to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be is by looking at what you’re competing against. 

Competitor analysis involves analysing what other companies in your industry are going and how their websites are set out and performing in order to determine some steps forward. 

The aim is not to replicate. That would be pointless. If your competitors are well ahead of you, it will take an inordinate amount of time and money and catch them up. Instead, you should look to offer something different to them. This is your USP – your Unique Selling Point. It may include things like:

• A value
• An ethos
• A product or service
• A way of working
• A specialism
• A niche
• Or any combination of the above mentioned

5. Plan your content

You need to develop content and marketing activities that fall across all stages of the marketing funnel. So, from the first time a potential client understands that they have a problem (known as the Awareness stage), right the way through to making that all-important enquiry (known as the Action stage), you need to ensure you create content that will move people along the Sales Funnel. 

Customer Journey Stage	Types of Content
Awareness (the lead is aware they have a problem, but don’t know how to fix it)	Blog posts that answer questions associated with your service or your target audience’s problem. Videos that answer questions associated with your service or your target audience’s problem. Podcasts that answer questions associated with your service or your target audience’s problem. Lead magnets that draw someone in.
Interest (the lead thinks they may have found a solution and now looks for a company that may solve that problem)	Website sales pages, describing the process or unique features of your offering. Social media posts.
Desire (the lead is interested in you and wants to know if you’ll be suitable)	Case studies. Testimonials. Reviews.
Action (the lead has decided to use you and makes an enquiry)	A clear Call To Action (e.g. calculator, audit – whatever the first stage of your onboarding process is)

Then tailor this content based on your customer persona/segmentation model, and make sure you leverage the right channel for the right content type/stage and buying persona. 

6. Plan how and where you will distribute your content to reach your target audience. 

This can involve leveraging various channels such as your website, blog, social media platforms, email newsletters, guest posting on other websites, or partnerships with influencers. 

However, one of the best “routes to market” here is to optimise your content for search engines to improve its visibility and organic reach results (SERPs). This will allow users to find you through search engines. 

This will involve understanding a bit of SEO (search engine optimisation). 

Want to know more about SEO? Learn more 

7. Schedule your content

Develop a schedule or editorial calendar to plan and organise your content production and publication. This ensures a consistent flow of content and helps you stay organised. A Google Spreadsheet will work wonders if you want a free online tool. 

8. Measure the impact

Define key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to track the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. This may include metrics like website traffic, engagement, social media shares, lead generation, or conversion rates. Analyse the data regularly to gain insights and make informed decisions. 

This is particularly important for SEO campaigns as they can take 6 – 9 months for their full impact to be felt. However there are some key metrics that you can keep track of along the way like: 

• Are you ranking higher for your chosen keywords? 
• Are your total impressions increasing?
• Is your website traffic increasing? 
• Are you seeing an increase in backlinks? 
• Are more of your URL’s being indexed?
• Are engagement time and conversions increasing? 

9. Iterate and improve

Continuously evaluate the performance of your content strategy SEO and make adjustments based on the insights and feedback you gather. Experiment with different formats, topics, and distribution channels to optimise your results.

Put effort in, get results out

By developing a comprehensive content marketing strategy, businesses can establish themselves as industry thought leaders, build trust with their audience, and drive meaningful engagement and conversions. The more time you put into planning a strategy, the more impact it will have. The thought process and research at the beginning really refine the end product and ensure you’ll get the leads you want.