Content marketing, especially when done with a solid content marketing plan, offers a variety of opportunities for B2B marketers to boost sales. By posting robust and relevant content to viewers, you can increase your site engagement, build a brand name, and eventually, build profits.
Reports state that about 76% of marketers are of the conviction that organic site traffic is the key metric for calculating the success rate of their content. This shows that although other channels are driving traffic, organic is still vital when it comes to content. Another report claims that it takes 65% more time to write a blog than it used to take back in 2014. These statistics signify the growing importance and effectiveness of content marketing as a powerful weapon for a successful B2B marketing campaign.
Let’s explore eight steps for creating an exceptional content marketing plan.
1. Build Your Brand
Whether you realize it or not, branding is essential for a good marketing plan. Your brand and its product should have an aligned voice for the audience. It helps in setting the right image and attracting the target audience. Questions like these will assist you in specifying your branding:
- Who are my existing customers and targeted ones?
- What kind of impression do I wish to set in front of the audience?
- What is my competitive landscape?
- Do my competitors have a specific strategy they use for their brands?
- How do I set the brand tone unique?
2. Analyze Your Existing Campaigns
So many companies from various industries are out there to market their venture. The emerging trend of content analysis or content audit is catching up with the marketers. There are around 1.6 billion websites, and more than 70 million blogs posted each month. This calls for an analysis of your existing content marketing plan. Developing content that is not related to your audience’s interest is a waste of resources and creates confusion. As a marketer, you must analyze the existing set of content and understand if it needs improvement or removal.
3. Pick Your Objectives Wisely
It is vital to know your goals and KPIs and set them right. This enables your employees and you to work in sync. To ensure you meet your goals, organize your content marketing plan accordingly. It can help you in accomplishing both short- and long-term goals. While you may be comfortable in your traditional framework, it is essential to look around the new opportunities that work best for achieving your objectives in this fast-changing environment. You can consider your aims as a challenge and set deadlines to meet them. With the help of the final assessment, you can scale your progress from 0 to 10. This will keep you motivated and drive success faster.
4. Define Your Target Audience
To get success in your content marketing, define who your audience is. To do so, you need to sketch their lifestyle, concerns, problem areas, expectations, etc. The audience is not always a group of people who are buyers but also site visitors who might make a purchase in a longer run. Therefore, it is essential to deliver content that will convert your potential site visitors into customers. Once you understand what your site visitors like to read and take an interest in, you will have a successful content marketing plan.
5. Allocate Evenly
Allocation plays a vital role in presenting the right content on the right platform. It may be time consuming, but create content based on specific platforms. Every digital platform has a different audience, and content type, keeping this in mind to allocate your content. As a marketer, you must set your priorities. Is traffic is essential for you to or genuine prospects? Find relevant topics related to your field and set the journey of related exciting content.
6. Plan Out Content Development
Before creating content, identify the purpose for which you are creating the content. Make sure your content covers your objective and stands interesting enough to be read. It should sync with your brand tone and create awareness in your clients about the new trends, a new product launch, or related topics.
Not all content has to come in lengthy formats, therefore diversify the content in forms like blogs, articles, newsletters, infographics, brief social media posts, etc. Your content should be SEO-friendly and be purposeful. About 35 percent of web engagement comes from organic search. Therefore SEO (search engine optimization) plays a crucial role in setting your content marketing plan right.
7. Create a Multi-Channel Approach
Be consistent and omnipresent with your content marketing plan. To provide the finest experience to your customers and prospects, create a multi-channel approach by catering to all kinds of clients on all sorts of platforms. Identify which platform works best for your brand and be consistently present through your content. Social media posting can be automated to create a seamless client experience. It is time-efficient and innovative too.
8. Analyze Your Performance
For any marketer, the best way to understand if the content is reaching the audience and making an impact is to analyze their content performance. Your viewers will send across their choice about what interests them and make it easier for you to bring newness in the content that excites them to read. Content metrics is based on four pillars:
- User behavior – bounce rate, visitors, etc.
- Company Revenue – lead generation, existing leads, conversion rate, etc.
- Engagement type – shares, likes, comments, etc.
- SEO Results – like organic traffic, backlinks, etc.
Content marketing is a seamless experience of quality content, reaching to the site visitors in different forms. The process is enriching as the reader or audience takes away useful insights. Use these tips to create a successful content marketing plan and execute it.
