Content Strategy Creation: A Pregame Checklist Published On: February 17, 2020 Before we jump into the checklist, let’s take a minute to go over what the crucial elements of content strategy creation include. For content marketing to be successful, your content needs to make it in front of the right eyes. Then, once your content has sufficiently inspired this group, they need somewhere to take action. Lastly, once a visitor has become a lead, you need to be ready to start nurturing that prospect into a customer. In other words, you can see how strong content can form the foundation of a larger plan to get better leads and more paying customers, but also that content alone can’t do the job. Before you publish your next content masterpiece, review this checklist so you get the most from your marketing budget. 1. A Good Website Not just any website will do, and this needs to be the first step of any content strategy creation as your website must be ready to serve as the hub of all your marketing efforts. Not only will you need a well-functioning home for your company blog, but you’ll also need a destination for all the leads you’re hoping to attract with your content. If you try and do it the other way around—do your content strategy creation and then focus on your website—you’re likely to lose any attention you’ve attracted from your content as there’s no clear path for your audience to take. Remember, people on the web want instant and easy access to solutions. If there’s too much resistance, most people will simply click the “back” button and try somewhere else. 2. An SEO Plan Along with directly driving leads, one of the other jobs for your content is to improve your ranking among organic searches. Of course, it’s impossible to know which topics and keywords to use to improve your SEO without an SEO plan! When working on content strategy creation, SEO is a great place to start. Take the time to research how people are using search engines to learn about your industry and the kinds of solutions your company provides. Then, you’ll have a better idea of which topics to cover with your content, and which keywords to target using your website pages, blogs, and content on other digital assets like social media. 3. A Distribution Strategy Posting content to your company blog is only the beginning, not the end of the process! Plus, not all of the content you create should be destined for your blog. Instead, your content strategy creation should include paths for reaching both a steady audience and for reaching new people to build up your base. For example, most content distribution strategies include social media as these platforms were made to showcase content and share it with other people. Email is another important distribution channel and it can incorporate all the people who have signed up for your newsletter and promotions as well as directly message active contacts such as previous buyers. 4. A Plan for Contact Management Most companies juggling many customers and prospects use some form of customer relationship management (CRM) software, but even the smallest outfits will benefit from an organized method for tracking and managing interactions with people. It’s also important to have a process in place before you get your content marketing motor running and have a bunch of leads on the line going stale because you’re not taking action. CRM software such as HubSpot or Salesforce keeps tabs on everything from phone calls made to a customer to a list of resources he or she has downloaded from your website. It tracks emails and interactions with those messages to improve drip marketing and lead nurturing, and it makes it easy for different people in your organization to get this information because it’s all centralized. Even if you don’t use a formal CRM program, you must have a plan for what you want to happen when prospects start interacting with your content. For example, a very basic plan could include content distributed among social media accounts, links in the content back to a landing page on your website, a form on that landing page to collect contact information from leads, and a monthly outreach email to send to any leads received from that pipeline. 5. A Point Person The last piece to have in place is to designate one person to be responsible for keeping all these pieces together. That person doesn’t necessarily have to be the one doing the writing or the keyword research or plotting the specifics of social media distribution. In fact, it’s probably more efficient to have a team of people with specific talents in writing, social media, and SEO or to outsource different aspects of your marketing. However, every content strategy is going to have a lot of moving pieces that need to remain coordinated if they’re going to be effective. Someone should be designated to spearhead your content strategy creation and to manage the different pieces to ensure they come together cohesively. Now You Can Create Content The good news about this checklist is that you probably only need to go through it once. All of these elements are foundational, so once they’re in place, you’ll only need to check in and update periodically—not every single time you create content! If you’re struggling to get these pieces in place or need an experienced point person to sort it all out, we can help! Start by telling us a little bit about your current process or what your goals are, and we’ll let you know what’s next. 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Digital vs. Traditional Marketing: What You Need to Know Published On: January 27, 2020 With so many individual tactics to consider, figuring out how much to spend on marketing and how much to allocate to each activity can be tricky for business owners. We spend most of our time focusing on digital methods, but traditional marketing approaches have their benefits, too. Here’s what you need to know about each, and what results you can expect so you can make smart decisions. Read More
Content is King Published On: December 23, 2019 Search engine optimization is all about getting your pages to the top of the list of search results so potential customers can find you, learn about your products and services, and hopefully choose you when they are ready to buy. When trying to improve youar SEO, there are a lot of technical details to keep track of and there can sometimes be an air of mystery surrounding “what it takes” to get to the top. Read More
How are Product, Service, and Blog Web Pages Different? Published On: December 9, 2019 It may seem like the primary difference between your website’s pages is the content they contain. However, each page and type of page serves a very different and important function. For example, your site’s home page serves as sort of a catch-all and should be used to inform visitors who you are, direct new visitors where to go next, and help returning visitors find what they are looking for. What, then, is the purpose of all those other pages and how are they different? Let’s take a look. Read More
What is a CMS and Why do I Need One? Published On: December 2, 2019 Whether you’re considering a new website for your business or are looking for ways to make your current site more effective, you’ve probably run into the word “content” plenty of times along with a few mentions of how important content is to your marketing strategy. Content can be anything from photos, graphics, and videos to the words on your web pages and blog posts. Keeping tabs on all your bits of content can be overwhelming, and that’s where a Content Management System (CMS) comes in. Read More
Skimmable, Snackable Content Published On: November 4, 2019 When creating content, two conflicting worlds have to come together if the content is to be successful. The first is that longer content tends to make it to the first page of a Google search result. In fact, the average length for first-page results content is up to 1900 words! The second, however, is the fact that human attention spans are shorter than ever before. You now have about eight seconds before your readers get bored and move along. Read More
Stop Reinventing the Wheel and Start Stretching Your Content Published On: October 28, 2019 A successful content marketing strategy relies on a steady stream of fresh content. Of course, creating all that original material can be a strain on your time and resources. Rather than struggle to create enough content or, worse, publish less material, there are better ways to keep the content pipeline full with less effort. Read More
Prioritizing Your Website Optimization Published On: June 19, 2017 With so many possibilities and so many experts telling you that every piece is “essential” or “must-have,” how can you know where to prioritize limited resources to get the most bang for your buck--and effort? Here are the areas of your website that we think are the most important. Read More
The Art of Promoting Your Content Published On: June 12, 2017 Once you’ve taken the time to put together an amazing content marketing strategy and your team has created all the pieces for your blog and social media feeds, how will people know it’s there? When you post a new blog, how will your ideal audience find it? Promoting your content is an essential part of content marketing; here’s what you need to know to do it right. Read More
The Skinny on Omni-Channel Marketing Published On: June 5, 2017 A “marketing channel” refers to the various ways that customers will contact and interact with your brand. From traditional print channels like newspapers and magazines to digital channels like social media, blogs, and smartphone apps, today’s consumers flip between different forms of media without fully realizing it. What this means for you is that you not only need to be present on a variety of channels, but also that the experience for the user must be a seamless one. Read More
4 Reasons You Need a Professional Copywriter Published On: May 29, 2017 So, you’re sold on the idea of content marketing and you’re ready to jump into a schedule of weekly blogging. You’ve dedicated the necessary resources to create a content marketing strategy and set some goals. You’ve done your homework and have solid buyer personas that you want to target. All that’s left is to churn out a few blog posts. Easy, right? Maybe not… Read More
Social Media and Content Marketing Published On: May 22, 2017 Social media can play a significant role in your content marketing strategy. While some may dismiss it as an unnecessary distraction, we think it’s something that every business should try before deciding it isn’t a good fit. Here’s what you need to know about including social media in your marketing. Read More
More Than Words: Types of Content that Get Results Published On: May 15, 2017 Blogging is the most important component of your content marketing strategy. Your blog is where people will go to find information, and where search engines like Google will go to see who you are and what you do. On the other hand, an established, well-running blog is only the beginning of your content journey. Here’s a look at other types of content that will get results. Read More
The How and Why of Business Blogging Published On: May 8, 2017 Your business blog is the heart of your inbound marketing operation. It is your most valuable online asset as it is a space that you have complete control over. How you define your company and values, what people should expect from your company as well as your products and services, and how search engines like Google decide to send searchers to you--all of this happens on your blog. Read More
Know Your Audience - Why Creating Personas is Essential Published On: May 1, 2017 The idea of “knowing your audience” might seem like an obvious one. After all, you can’t advertise and market without at least a little targeting. Understanding demographics and broad audience segments may have been enough when running a TV commercial or newspaper ad--channels that tend to have a very broad reach. When it comes to content marketing, the wide-net approach isn’t going to work nearly as well. The idea behind inbound marketing is to gently lead buyers down a path, not rope them in and subject them to ads at every turn. A new approach to understanding your market is necessary. Read More
Setting Goals for Content Strategy Published On: April 24, 2017 In our last post, we laid out a roadmap for you to use as you create your content marketing strategy. The first step in creating that strategy was defining your goals. This post will guide you through the process of good goal-setting so you can set achievable objectives that make sense for you and your company. Read More
The Strategy: Your Content Marketing Roadmap Published On: April 17, 2017 Posting useful and engaging content on a regular basis is the cornerstone of a good content marketing campaign. Posting whatever comes to mind is better than doing nothing at all, but with a well-planned content marketing roadmap, you can create a reliable stream of website traffic as well as plenty of new leads to pursue. Read More
Benefit by Adding Content Marketing to your Mix Published On: April 10, 2017 We already know that content is the fuel that fires an inbound marketing strategy, but does content marketing and inbound work? In other words, will you get more customers? In a word: yes. Not convinced? Allow us to prove it to you. Read More
What is Content Marketing? Published On: April 3, 2017 By now you have probably heard of content marketing, or you have at least stumbled upon the term here and there. If you are not sure what content marketing means or how it can help you get results on the web, then you have come to the right place. Read More