Content marketing strategy: guaranteed to work!

Content marketing is one of the most effective and sustainable ways to attract and retain customers. Content marketing achieves many goals, which is why it is one of the most proven strategies in online marketing.

In our guide, we show you what content marketing is, what goals you can achieve with it and how you can generate sustainable users with the right strategy.

Content marketing strategy: simply explained!

Classic advertising has long since lost the importance it once had, because since the 1990s at the latest, so-called “advertising blindness” has been developing. It is a consequence of more and more advertising in our everyday lives. Especially multi-screening now leads to the fact that classic push marketing is hardly noticed anymore. As soon as the next commercial break on TV starts, our eyes wander to the smartphone, tablet or notebook. So how can advertisers reach their customers these days? One proven and versatile method is called content marketing.

A content marketing strategy is not primarily about directly promoting a product or service. The primary goal is to provide the user with helpful information, solve problems, answer questions, or tell stories that convey a specific message. In this way, a basis of trust should be created which can serve as a basis for future action. That’s the rough principle of the (ancient, by the way) strategy.

Interest aroused? Here I’ve highlighted 7 reasons for content marketing that will convince you.

“Fake it till you make it”?

It’s a very bad idea, because content that doesn’t offer any added value can now be recognized by most users in no time at all. Not to mention, there’s already way too much of it!

So if you really want to reach your target audience and deliver them with good content, a carefully planned and well thought out content marketing strategy is imperative.

A content marketing success story: Marvel

A very fascinating example for me is the Hasbro company in 1982. In search of an idea to bring their action figures G.I.JOE to the man, they came up with an unusual and in retrospect very successful idea.

In cooperation with Marvel, they created a fictional world around their new product and used it to tell the stories of the little plastic figures: it was the birth of comics.

As soon as the comics were released, every boy wanted to own one of the action figures . Only the story and the universe of the figures, have made them the cult object that they still are today. This is content marketing at its best!

Goals of a content marketing strategy

The right content marketing strategy will help you position your brand/business, generate leads, and attract and retain new customers. A further distinction is made between short-term and long-term goals:

Short term

– Increasing the range
– Strengthening of the link profile (through noteworthy links due to good content)

Long-term

– Building a community
– Building brand authority
– Optimization of closing rates
– Better visibility on Google
– Active readership
– Sustainable customer relationships (through trust in the brand) – thus customers who come back.

The goals of your content marketing strategy should always follow the “S.M.A.R.T.” Follow principle! That means the targets must:

– Specific
– Measurable
– Attractive
– Realistic
– Be terminated.

Capture the target group using personas

Without Buyer Personas, you shouldn’t set up your strategy That would be just as unwise as ordering tires for your car without knowing which ones you need – that can only go down the drain!

So think carefully about your target group and what topics they are interested in. With (buyer) personas you create fictitious people who reflect the personalities of your target group, have certain needs and are in different life situations. That way you can better empathize with your clientele. You can findout more about personas and user intentions here.

So how do you find out what topics really interest your potential customers? There is more than one way to do this. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and others provide a good basis for this task. Here you can not only find out what your persona likes, but also what questions they have. Facebook Audience insights are a particularly helpful tool for this.

Social media platforms also provide you with many groups where your target audience hangs out. Here you can find out a lot about them, identify issues and even communicate with them directly. In our guide to effective keyword analysis, you’ll also find helpful tips on how to:

– Define niche topics correctly
– Evaluate the intentions of keywords correctly
– analyze Google Trends and
– further helpful tools that help you with the analysis.

Planning your content

Once the groundwork is done, the topics that have been developed need to be planned and structured. The analysis of the target group results in certain topic areas, also called topic clusters. Topics for the content can then be derived from this.

When creating content, the content traffic light is a very good help. Using this table, you can ideally align your content with regard to the most important quality criteria.

The right format

Also, think carefully about what type of content is right for your target audience. Does your audience tend to prefer content in the form of videos, blog articles, or even podcasts? In most cases a combination of the formats makes sense.

When creating content, always consider the different needs of your persona (such as financial situation) so that they feel directly addressed.

Storytelling: the ultimate in your content marketing strategy

If you’re really serious about content marketing, you’ll want to keep this part in mind.

Big companies like Red Bull, Ikea & Co. are masters of storytelling. The marketing campaigns of the aforementioned companies have long since ceased to be about the product itself, but about conveying a value, a feeling or a certain message. Everyone knows the effect of messages, if only from Disney movies.

A special example is the storytelling of “Aktion Mensch”. In 2018, they ran a very touching storytelling campaign called “Mission Future”. Here it is shown how a world without prejudices and a common coexistence of people could work, even if people have physical or mental impairments.

This type of storytelling is not about drawing attention to the brand, but about conveying a specific message. This puts the company in the desired light.

But the reaction of some people proves that one can also encounter headwinds. Nevertheless, Aktion Mensch used this hook directly for the next campaign.

Storytelling is very important these days to get the attention of your target audience. However, you should be clear beforehand which messages you want to convey and by which means.

Use the right channels for your strategy

Whether Facebook, your own blog, Youtube or even TikTok is the right channel for your content strategy depends fundamentally on your target audience.

On the basis of your target group analysis you determine, for example, the age of your target group. This is an important step in choosing the right channel.

Measuring performance in content marketing

If you have defined your goals according to the S.M.A.R.T principle, you can measure whether you are achieving your goals.

For this, the right KPIs must be defined beforehand. Exactly which ones you should define depends on your goals.

Typical KPIs are:

– Awareness: this counts the time users have viewed, listened to or read your content, page views, click-through rate and traffic coming to the site.
– Turnover: will the number of orders / sales increase?
– Cost: cost per lead, cost per sale, etc.
– Engagement: interactions (Facebook & Co.), more subscribers (e.g. newsletter).

The return on investment (ROI)

ROI is the process of determining whether a campaign is worthwhile.

Like all measures in marketing, they must be worthwhile – that is, they should be yield more than they cost. The key figure for this is called ROI (return on investment).

The two factors to calculate are costs and benefits . Insofar as the goals were defined with the right KPI`s, one can also calculate an ROI here. An essential key figure is the traffic that leads to the corresponding article (content in the form of blog articles, etc.).

It is also important to measure traffic over a certain period of time in order to obtain a useful indicator.

If you multiply the number of traffic with a click price (e.g. from an ads campaign from the topic environment or even from one of your advertising campaigns for the article), you know approximately what the traffic is worth. This can also be calculated based on the ranking keywords around the corresponding traffic value.

Conclusion

Content marketing offers extremely many advantages, but not only! Above all, the time factor plays an essential role. A good content marketing strategy, unlike traditional advertising, cannot achieve quick wins. If you don’t show the necessary consistency or have no professional knowledge, it will also be laborious or even impossible in the long run.

For this, there are agencies that can help you plan and create the content.