Content marketing is a powerful way to attract, engage, and convert your ideal audience. But how do you use content to generate leads, nurture prospects, and convert customers? In this article, you'll learn the basics of content marketing strategy and how to apply it to your business goals.
The first step of content marketing is to know who you're creating content for. You need to understand their needs, challenges, interests, and preferences. You can use tools like buyer personas, customer surveys, and analytics to create a clear picture of your target audience. This will help you tailor your content to their pain points, goals, and stage of the buyer's journey.
The next step is to create content that provides value to your audience. Value can mean different things depending on your content type, format, and purpose. For example, value can be information, education, entertainment, inspiration, or persuasion. You can use various content formats, such as blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts, webinars, or infographics, to deliver value to your audience. The key is to make sure your content is relevant, useful, and engaging for your audience.
You simply cannot hope to get engagement without a focus on what your content is about. The most powerful framework available today is contained in a book called ‘They Ask You Answer’ by Marcus Sheridan which outlines the 5 big content areas ( price, problems, comparisons, reviews and best of). On top of these educational content around ‘What is…’ and ‘How do I…’ is always good. Content must never be sales content. This will simply never engage people. It must all be useful, educational and designed to help people be more informed about everything in your market place. And yes, that means reviewing your competitors!
The third step is to distribute your content to reach your audience. You need to have a plan for how and where you'll share your content. You can use channels like your website, email, social media, search engines, or paid ads to promote your content. You also need to optimize your content for each channel, using keywords, headlines, meta tags, images, and calls to action. The goal is to make your content easy to find, access, and consume for your audience.
The fourth step is to generate leads from your content. Leads are potential customers who have shown interest in your content and your offer. You can use content to generate leads by adding lead magnets, such as free downloads, trials, or consultations, to your content. You also need to have a landing page and a form to capture your leads' contact information. You can use tools like CRM, email marketing, or automation to manage and track your leads.
You should think carefully about the amount of information you want to collect from people when they reach your landing page. You might be tempted to ask for a lot of data to help qualify the lead. While that might be valuable to you, it could turn off people who visit the landing page and cause them to leave without completing your form. Consider testing different forms of varying lengths to see how people respond and look for ways to capture more information over time as people respond to multiple pieces in your campaign.
The fifth step is to nurture your prospects with content. Prospects are leads who are qualified and ready to move further along the buyer's journey. You can use content to nurture prospects by providing them with more value, education, and trust. You can use email marketing, drip campaigns, or newsletters to deliver relevant and personalized content to your prospects. You can also use content to address their objections, answer their questions, and showcase your benefits.
The final step is to convert your prospects into customers with content. Customers are prospects who have decided to buy from you. You can use content to convert prospects into customers by creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, or exclusivity. You can also use content to offer incentives, discounts, or bonuses. You can use tools like landing pages, checkout pages, or payment systems to facilitate the conversion process. You can also use content to follow up, thank, and delight your customers.