Introduction

Content marketing is a crucial part of a venture's growth strategy. It plays a vital role in building brand awareness, improving visibility online, generating leads, and educating customers and readers on how your solution can help them solve their problems.

One important thing to remember when implementing your content marketing strategy is that it might take some time to produce the first results. It takes time for your content to start showing up in Google Search Engine Results or for your videos to be recommended by YouTube organically. 

Because of this, your content marketing strategy requires thorough planning, which includes considering all details, from topic selection to content promotion channels. If executed correctly, content marketing can become a powerful tool with one of the best ROIs in your growth strategy stack.

Elements of the strategy

Business objectives

All your marketing efforts must be aligned with your current business objectives. Your objectives will help you define the topics you need to cover, the depth and complexity of your content, your tone, channels, and distribution methods, and how you need to measure the results of your efforts.

You will need to set up SMART goals. However, it is tough to do if you have no experience with content marketing and have nothing to base your predictions on because you don't know how each type of content and channel would perform in your particular industry with your specific circumstances. Creating SMART goals will make more sense as you progress and get your first feedback. Also, later on, you will better understand what resources you require to meet your objectives, including marketing budgets and additional skills your team needs to improve on.

Audience

For your efforts to be efficient, you need to know as much as possible about your target audience. Who is your reader? Your current user? Is someone aware of your products but has yet to decide to make a purchase? Is someone currently comparing different products and solutions to their problems? Do your current customers need help understanding how to get the best out of your product? Having a detailed understanding of your customer profile will inform your content decisions.

It allows you to understand how to target your customers and grab their attention by being in front of their eyes whenever they search for solutions to their problems. You need to know whether they read long-form content, read forums, watch YouTube videos, or look for advice on social media. Does your audience hate being sold to? Knowing this will help you figure out your messaging and approach.

The more you know, the more targeted and tailored your messaging will be. Know your customers' pain points, the questions, and the problems they are trying to solve, and you will be able to craft a more precise content piece, position your idea the right way, and have better chances of leading your audience through the sales funnel.

Surroundings

Look at your competition to understand how they attract their customers. Do not copy them; instead, learn how to stand out and cut through the noise.

Understand their messaging and positioning, what topics they believe are important to their users, and how they reach and talk to them. Then, add your unique perspective to stand out. Put yourself in your customers' shoes and try shopping for a solution to your needs. What brands grab your attention? Why?

Look at your indirect competition as well. See what other approaches can solve your audience's pain points and find alternative strategies for building in your market. 

Go technical and do keyword research. Find what exact keywords drive traffic to their content. Look for less-used keywords, too. That will allow you to generate more unique content and beat the competition.

Channels

The channels and content formats that you choose depend on multiple factors. They depend on your budget, audience preferences, and other factors. Some content types require significant production resources. Although video content - especially short-form videos - is all the rage now, it is tough to stand out with low-quality videos on YouTube, even if the content itself is decent. You will need to purchase additional equipment for video and podcast production. Also, some platforms, like YouTube, highlight consistent creators who can commit to posting regularly, adding further pressure on your resources.

On the other hand, written content is more accessible to produce and often serves as a basis for any other content type, be it a short social media post or a video script. Building off of the written blog basis, you can later include social media, videos, email, long-form content, podcasting, and other channels that will have synergetic effects with each other. 

Other non-content marketing channels can also have synergetic effects on your content marketing. For example, a good email strategy (a newsletter or a drip campaign) can lead your subscribers towards a free info product, a landing page with an ebook, boost a post that leads to a blog post on your website, and more.

Tools

The last piece of your preparation work is to have all the necessary tools ready.

These tools include keyword research software. It will play a crucial role in competitive research and in helping you discover new content topics. 

You should also consider project management tools like Trello or Asana to track your content production efforts and have a clear overview of your teamwork. They will become more critical as you and your team produce more content and introduce new channels.

Analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console will provide you with an in-depth overview of your marketing efforts' success, which will be key to setting and adjusting SMART goals along the way.

Last but not least, can't forget modern AI tools. You have to be careful when and what you use them for. They are valuable when generating ideas, proofreading, and polishing your content around the edges. However, be careful if you use these tools for content generation itself. New Google search algorithms track AI-generated content and lower these web pages in search engine results if they fail to fit Google's definition of helpful content. Overusing AI for content generation could damage your whole website's SEO.

How to generate content ideas

Finding content ideas worth writing about is not the most obvious problem for many people. There are many sources available to help you get unstuck.

You should start with the most obvious source of inspiration - your product/service and focus on the problems it helps your customers solve. Dissect the core issue into smaller components and try to solve separate problems through content, thus providing your readers and viewers with free value. Focus on your customers' pain points and lead them to your products and services as the most convenient way of solving their issues.

Another good source of ideas is keyword research, which I mentioned previously. Through the keyword research tools, you can discover high-traffic/low-competition keywords in your industry and aim to start ranking for those keywords to get more eyes on your products organically, avoiding competing on high-competition keywords.

Look at your direct and indirect competitors for inspiration and see what topics they discuss in their content.

Research forums and Q&A sites like Quora to discover some of the pain points your audiences are currently trying to solve.

Lastly, if prompted correctly, AI tools can become a rich source of new topics worth discussing in your content. You can learn more about other methods in a separate article.

How to find the right format

The content format depends on your business, target audiences, and objectives. 

Does your customer appreciate high-quality visuals or has no time for long-form written and video content? Does your target audience need more education before making a product/solution purchasing decision? Do your customers spend a lot of time on specific platforms, making it crucial for your business to be present on them?

Writing is a focal skill and simultaneously a marketing channel that helps you test your content ideas and is easily repurposable into other content formats like video scripts, ebooks, tweets, and more. So, I suggest first focusing on this format as the foundation for your entire content marketing strategy. 

Master the funnel

Funnel stages

Understanding the marketing funnel and how customers behave at each stage allows you to generate the right content at the right time and distribute it through the right channel.

Generally, marketing funnels can be broken down into four stages: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. They go from top to bottom, going from the widest-reaching content to very niche and specific the lower you go. Also, the further you go through the funnel, the more you should start educating your customers on your product offering. 

Here is a short breakdown of the funnel stages and the kinds of content and channels corresponding to each.

Top of the funnel: Awareness stage content. Usually, education or brand awareness is the focus. You might also focus on spreading your mission to  highlight your values, and solidify your positioning.

Middle of the funnel: Consideration stage content. Specific keywords and product comparisons. It can also include customer education.

Conversion. Customer conversion content should focus on your specific product, service, or solution. It includes sales content, landing pages, conversion emails, and other types of content. This content is about you.

Loyalty: Retention stage content. It is the additional value that customers get from using your product. It is especially important in more technically complicated products. Focus on growing your customers within your product ecosystem (Webflow tutorials).

Engaging customers at different stages

Customers with different intents need a targeted approach throughout the funnel. You need to stay on top of their minds or be in front of their eyes when they make purchasing decisions or consider their options. Thus, knowing what platforms and campaign types are the most efficient at each particular stage is crucial.

Awareness stage methods are usually organic and need proper SEO, guest blogging, and careful social media strategy so that your brand can be easily found. Here, your potential customers may be unfamiliar with the solution to their problem. What they would do to solve their problem is ask Google "how to" do it. It means that the content you write should answer these how-to questions. Your answers should be aligned with your strategy of gradually leading readers towards your products as the most efficient method of solving their needs. At this stage, providing a good answer to their queries will contribute to your reputation as a company that knows everything about its domain. Engage your readers like that consistently and try to grab their emails for newsletters or product demos. You build rapport at this stage, so providing free value in the form of educational content is essential.

The consideration stage content helps customers decide what approach is better when solving their issues. They have a defined problem and know multiple ways of solving it. Customer education on what's available in the market and how your specific method of helping them is better will help push your readers toward your products. You need to go more in-depth with your content and provide more value to your readers. Here, you should start introducing more long-form content, such as ebooks and webinars, and more creative content marketing channels, such as checklists, infographics, or calculators. These lead magnets capture leads that are more open to engaging with your brand more closely than newsletter subscribers.

Conversion stage content shows clear benefits of using your products against your competitors. Your readers know what brands exist in the market and now want more clarity on what would work better for them. Direct brand comparison queries are now what you need to focus on to highlight your offering. Your calls to action need to convert your readers into buyers by leading them directly to the purchase page or to contact sales, depending on your main growth strategy. Live demos are another form of content that might help your customers decide. This is especially true in high-ticket businesses, where commitment to a solution is costly. 

Loyalty content is necessary to grow your clients, and the best way to do this is to show your users how to get the most out of your product. Demonstrating best practices, providing tutorials, or even onboarding your clients is a form of content marketing in which your main focus is managing your churn and increasing your customers' LTV.

Generally, you need to ensure that all funnel stages appear in your content strategy. It is important to optimize throughout the implementation of your strategy. See what content pieces attract more attention and see if you can expand on the ideas and start leading readers/viewers towards your solution or a lead magnet, expanding the ideas of the original piece to warm leads.

Leading through the funnel

SEO efforts ensure that your content (written or video) is always in front of your customer 

Lead capturing through long-form content (such as gated ebooks or courses) opens other opportunities to convert readers into paying customers through email and other value offerings.

Remember interlinking content within the blog. One idea should lead into another, solving your customers' problems and eventually leading to a better (your) solution.

Make sure to have some document (Miro board) that links all your efforts together and shows how each content piece supports another one and your whole strategy in general.

Editorial calendar

Being consistent and having an editorial calendar is important because it takes time to see any traction from your content marketing efforts. It will take time to start ranking in Google Search engine results pages for the important keywords. Besides, some platforms and mediums, like social media or YouTube, reward creators who can commit to a consistent upload schedule and show their content to broader audiences, which is crucial if you use video as one of your promotion vehicles.

So, it is important to have a plan in front of you to avoid wasting time figuring out what to produce each week. At the same time, it is advised to keep your plans flexible since you or your team might need to develop some content ad hoc, for example, in the case of feature release support. 

Develop quarterly, six-month, and annual content plans, test out ideas, gain initial traction, and see what topics get a better response. Make sure you leave plenty of time to lead your content pieces through all the production stages within a reasonable and consistent timeframe. I recommend starting with delivering around 1 or 2 blog posts per week, depending on your available resources. 

Focus on delivering core, long-form content that will act as a pillar on which you will create smaller content pieces and lead your readers further down the marketing funnel. Expand on the ideas in that content piece and eventually release a gated content piece based on validated ideas. Aim for one gated content piece explicitly designed for lead generation once a month to have a consistent flow of lead magnets.

Aim to grow your content output by adding other channels, expanding into new topics, or experimenting with formats as you progress through the strategy and receive feedback on your initial content.

When it comes to measuring the success of your content, you will have to start with lead business metrics like views, articles making it into the first pages of Google Search results, and so on, since you don't have anything to base lag metrics on for now. Update your plan with lag metrics later.

Strategy example

To put all of this together, here's a simple example of the strategy development process. In our sample strategy, we consider a B2B SaaS company with users unfamiliar with our company's product solution. These users usually find answers to their questions by Googling or going on forums.

First, we conduct keyword research to discover ideas for our blog based on our product offering and the problems it solves. We then start building up core content for our blog by focusing on answering repeated problems and providing free educational value. This way, we also build awareness and establish our company's domain authority as opinion leaders. 

At this stage, we also focus on getting backlinks from other sites and producing quality content to engage readers and potentially convert them into newsletter subscribers. All content that we produce can be repurposed into other formats, such as social media posts and video scripts, and used as the foundation for future ebooks, landing pages, and webinars, all of which will allow us to capture high-intent leads.

Then, we will start producing the next level of content, educating readers on our solution and how we can solve their issues more simply. Webinars are a perfect format for this purpose since they allow us to collect lead information for further engagement through email marketing and will enable us to dive deeper into solving their problems through workshops or other means. Webinars also develop our company's professional image and build trust with users.

Continue engaging leads with email marketing, providing them with more free content and soft-promoting a free trial or a subscription plan, eventually converting them into users.

Continue educating clients to help with onboarding by generating a knowledge base or collections of best practices for using your product.

Agile approach to content strategy

Although strategy requires a thorough sequence of actions to move you toward your business objectives, it is important to practice a flexible approach on the tactical level of campaign execution. The lean product development approach provides a good framework that can also be implemented in content development. The trick here is to balance rapid iterations in topics, formats, and channels to find the most efficient channels and long-term nature of content marketing. In other words, do not switch too often before you can confidently say that this or another tool or format doesn't fit your business needs. 

Crucial elements of the agile framework can be implemented in your strategy beyond simple content development and can help you inform your product, positioning, and messaging decisions. For example, engage with your customers often by directly discussing their goals and issues with your solutions. Consider using Q&A sessions during your webinar engagements to better discover possible product updates or positioning experiments. A comment section in your blog can provide the feedback you can build on. The sheer amount of data you can get from these engagements could influence many of your business decisions, including informing your approach to content marketing strategy.

Test different formats with the same topics as well. It could be the case that you might find your customers on LinkedIn faster than through SEO, but you wouldn't know it before you try it. Remember to scale content that performed well. Repurpose it to other channels. Turn a successful blog post into a video or pivot to a different social media channel if you see good traffic or feedback. Turn your successful webinars into courses, ebooks, and masterclasses. See what type of content works well and gets traction. Remember to test your channel and messaging hypotheses often.

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