5 Tips for Better Content Marketing

Vinny La Barbera
Written by

Vinny La Barbera

Are you struggling to generate enough traffic to your website or blog? Or, perhaps you’re generating traffic, but it’s not the right type of traffic that you need to grow your business? If so, there’s no need to feel defeated as these pain points are very common amongst many business owners and marketers.

In this article, we are going to help you start driving more quality traffic to your website with one of the best online marketing strategies you can implement – content marketing. Our 5 tips for better content marketing will help you to craft and implement your own effective content development strategy to get you the traffic you need to create new business.

Content Marketing

What is Content Marketing?

Content is king when it comes to growing your website’s online presence in the most organic way possible. Websites with little to no quality content continue to get buried by resourceful, authoritative websites filled with great content.

For your website to experience consistent growth spurts it must push out great content. This strategy, also referred to as content marketing, involves…

developing unique, quality content (in various forms) that speaks directly to your target audience(s)

Content can come in many difference forms – not just articles as many people still think. Some of the various forms of content that can and should be used in a content marketing strategy include, but are not limited to:

  • Articles and Blog Posts
  • Whitepapers and eBooks
  • Images and Infographics
  • Videos and Podcasts
  • Data Charts and Graphs

A strong content marketing strategy will include all of these different forms of content and an equally aggressive promotion strategy. Just creating content will usually not attract as much exposure as a solid promotion strategy can achieve. By leveraging creative social media marketing plans, targeted paid search marketing campaigns and effective email marketing strategies a good piece of content can become a great (and widely shared) piece instead.

The best promotion strategy will not make a bad piece of content good. And the best piece of content can be completely ineffective if it does not get the proper exposure. So, before you put up anymore content or pester your Facebook friends to “like” your update, it is important to know how to (1) create better content and (2) promote your content more effectively. Our top 5 tips for better content marketing below should help.


How to Improve Your Content Marketing Plan

Before you can improve, or start, a content marketing plan it is necessary to take inventory of your available, necessary resources.

Here are some questions to ask yourself, or your boss, to know what your content development and content promotion resource limitations are:

  • Is there someone who can write compelling content about our business, its story and our services?
  • Is there someone who can design / create creative images, graphics and data visualizations to liven up our content?
  • Is there someone who can script, produce and edit interesting video or audio content?
  • Is there someone who knows how to create, manage and engage a community of interested prospects?
If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, then you either need to consider finding an agency to help you or start looking at hiring some internal resources to take ownership of these necessary components.

 

Top 5 Content Marketing Tips

If you have the resources above taken care of, then you’re ready to pull off an effective content marketing plan. Here are our top 5 tips to get the most out of your content marketing strategy:

Content Marketing Tips

Define your audience and your purpose. To produce the most effective content you must know who it is aimed at and what it is meant to do. For example, knowing that your audience is made up of mommy bloggers and your purpose is to build brand awareness through social shares and reposts, then you would know that you need to craft your content piece to fit those things.

TIP: Create a list of your target readers / prospects as well as the results you expect from the content you put together to target them. This simple exercise will change how you approach content development.

 

Map it out. Before you just start writing or designing content, try mapping out your strategy. Create a spreadsheet that logs your content topic ideas and the type of content you plan to produce out of those ideas.

TIP: Although it’s ideal to map out your plan for the entire week or month, it can be overwhelming. To prevent burnout and procrastination, tackle one content piece at a time by coming up with one headline and then adapting it to the different types of content you can create out of that.

 

Tell a story. If your content development strategy primarily consists of you talking about your products and services, then you’re going to struggle to see great results. Prospects (whether B2C or B2B) need to be engaged and convinced to perform the actions you want them to. The best way to do this is to make connections through telling real stories about your business.

TIP: Stop talking like a marketer in your content and start talking like the person who started the business out of their passion and love for what they do. Get people to buy in to why you do what you do, not just what you do.

 

Mix it up. It used to be that a content strategy could get by on just writing a bunch of articles or blog posts. Although articles and blog posts are still incredibly important, they should not be your online types of content. Diversify your content plan by mixing in different types of media such as videos, infographics, podcasts, eBooks and data charts.

TIP: Go through articles or pages already on your website or blog and think about how you can turn them into another type of content. Take an old article that got a lot of traffic and make a video or podcast with that content to get more out of it.

 

Get it out there. Even the most well written article or beautifully designed infographic can fail…if not enough people see them. As with launching a new website, you need to properly market and promote your website to get people to it. The same applies for your content pieces. Leverage your social media networks, launch a paid advertising campaign or send a message to your email subscribers announcing your new content.

TIP: Social media is fantastic for promoting new content. Pay to promote your new content on your social networks and use a tool like Followerwonk to find influencers to help you extend your reach.

 


BONUS OFFER

Content Marketing Plan Template

To make it easier to get started we have created a CONTENT MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE that we would like to provide to you…for FREE.

To access the template simply leave a comment below (make sure to use your actual email address) about how you use content marketing and we will send you the download / access link.


Better Content Marketing Starts Here

Provided that you have the resources to get going, the tips above should help you start generating more quality traffic and more qualified leads / sales from your website. Just remember that this is a process, not a project, so stick with it and let us know if you could use some more guidance.

If you’re one of the many business owners or marketers that simply don’t have the time, resources or patience to pull off a successful content marketing strategy, then we can also help you there. Our team of consultants, copywriters, designers and online marketing specialists are available to be your content marketing team.

All you have to do is click the big orange button below to learn more.

Are you ready to speak with a content marketing consultant to finally put an effective plan into action?

Yes, Let’s Talk


15 Comments

    November 8, 2012

    Good article. Would love to see the marketing strategy template.

    November 9, 2012

    Thanks Fran! We sent the template to you yesterday. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best of luck with your content marketing efforts…

    November 9, 2012

    Good read! Look forward to seeing the marketing strategy template.

    November 9, 2012

    Thanks Paula! We sent the template link to you via email. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best of luck with your content marketing efforts…

    November 10, 2012

    Very interesting!

    November 10, 2012

    Thanks Ted. Let us know if you’d like to receive our FREE content marketing plan template. If so, we will email it over.

    November 12, 2012

    Great information. For old and new agents it is always good to read this material

    November 12, 2012

    Thanks Oscar! Let us know if you’re interested in getting access to our Content Marketing Plan template.

    February 13, 2013

    In order for any business to prosper online, it is especially essential
    to begin or enhance its current content marketing campaigns to increase
    traffic and improve search engine rankings. Unique, engaging and
    informative content are the key to successful content marketing. Good read.

    February 14, 2013

    Well said. Thanks for the comment / feedback.

    February 16, 2013

    Hi there. I’ve been reading a number of your marketing strategy posts the last few days. They’re great! Easy-to-read, concise, and useful. Would love to see the content marketing plan template too. Thanks.

    February 17, 2013

    Thanks so much for reading and leaving feedback, Aaron!

    We’d love to send you our Content Marketing Plan Template. Just go ahead and complete our simple form here and we will shoot it over right away: https://www.imforza.com/bonus-offer

    May 12, 2014

    We utilize content marketing for nwsletters, our website, and speaking engagements to keep in fornt of our clients.

    October 29, 2014

    great clean content on your site – thanks

    December 9, 2014

    Great

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