This post was most recently updated on March 3rd, 2019
Bloggers work hard to build their brand.
I believe that the single biggest benefit to blogging is to develop and showcase your personal brand.
The success of your blogging business depends largely on the strength of your brand’s content marketing strategy.
So I’ve invited a special guest author to discuss exactly that with you, here.
Moss Clement is an expert in content marketing strategy.
So, pay careful attention to his following insights.
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How to Strengthen Your Brand’s Content Marketing Strategy
by Moss Clement
What if I told you that there are exciting tips that would help you strengthen your content marketing strategy?
Would you take advantage of it?
According to research by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) & MarketingProfs, the primary factor for the successes of 85% of top B2B marketers is content creation.
On the other hand, 70% of marketers say their success is a result of developing new content marketing tactics and adjusting their existing content marketing blueprint.
Given this, what practical steps have you put in place to boost your content marketing strategy?
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Before you answer that question, let us take a look at some more statistics.
As of October 2018, Tumblr already had over 440 million blog accounts, according to a survey by Statista.
Another study shows that WordPress users publish 42 million new posts per month.
Thus, with these staggering numbers, how can you stand out from the crowd if you do not have a sustainable content marketing strategy?
Remember, as mentioned earlier, the reason for the success of over 70% of B2B marketers is creating a comprehensive content marketing plan and also adjusting their current content tactics to conform to the latest trends.
However, it might surprise you to know that more than 80% of B2B marketers have a content marketing strategy.
But among these, only 37% have a documented content strategy.
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It means that a whopping 63% of marketers do not have a documented content marketing plan.
Interestingly, those marketers who did not record their content strategy are successful.
But their counterparts who have registered their content marketing processes are even more successful.
Consequently, smart marketers are putting greater focus on content marketing, nowadays.
It has become pretty clear that if you do not boost your marketing tactics, you’re less likely to succeed.
Therefore, here are five actionable steps that will enable you to strengthen your brand’s content marketing strategy and increase return on invest (ROI).
1: Measure Your Data to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy
It is paramount to analyze your marketing processes to figure out what is working for you.
You cannot possibly get things right or fix non-productive marketing practices without evaluating your marketing plan to see what is working and what’s not.
On this account, determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor.
The KPIs you select will enable you to track your content marketing performance.
It will also help you calculate your marketing successes and to make adjustments where necessary.
Hence, to adjust and fix your non-productive marketing undertakings, use web analytics tools to pinpoint areas that are not working for your campaign.
On this note, I recommend you start with Google Analytics.
This incredible tool will enable you to see which marketing techniques are working for you and vice-versa, such as the best marketing channels that are driving traffic to your site, and those that are not.
Another way to measure your marketing data is to run surveys.
You can do this by running a poll on relevant Facebook groups.
I also recommend using survey tools like:
These tools will aid you to determine what your target market is thinking about your brand, your product, or services.
After creating relevant survey questions, send the surveys to your target audience via emails.
Respondents will tell you what you need to know to make the adjustments that will improve your marketing initiative.
2: Understand and Define your Audience
One of the best tactics to boost your content marketing results is to understand your audience.
Without a profound understanding of your target audience, your content marketing plan will fail.
Therefore, it’s important to know who your target market is so that you can develop exciting content, tailored to the buyer’s journey.
How to know your audience
Knowing your audience is not demanding.
Use the website analytic tools in the marketplace.
This includes social media analytics like Twitter analytics or Facebook insights, also called Facebook analytics.
And there are many other marketing analytic tools to determine your audience.
The above tools will enable you to calculate your target audience’s demographics, such as:
- Age
- Sexuality
- Education
- Profession
- Income
Your analytics will give you comprehensive data that will assist you to segment your audience’s journey and create targeted content that relates to your audience.
How can I use Google analytics to evaluate my audience?
To use Google analytics, here’s what to do.
Open the software and click on Audience > Interests > and finally, Overview.
The information will show you the segments of your audience.
Another interesting way to know your audience is to get their “feedback.”
Audience feedback will help you understand their pains and problems to create content that connects.
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Use the survey tools mentioned above to collect customer feedback.
Your blog’s comment section and social media groups are equally terrific avenues to collect audience remarks.
Create buyer personas
Use the data you gathered to create customer personas.
The Customer persona or customer profile will assist you to reach your ideal customer with less stress.
That’s because it is related to the complete guide that enables you to connect with your buyers.
It offers you a clear picture of what interests them in terms of content, product, services, and so forth.
Accordingly, use the buyer persona to form a target market for your content marketing plan.
3: Establish a Content Publishing & Distribution Strategy
Readers, buyers, and potential customers appreciate consistency.
They need to know that every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for example, they will get new content from you.
Thus, develop a content publishing and distribution strategy to enable you to maintain consistency.
Create a content calendar and use social media automation tools to schedule your posts across channels.
Although your content schedule might vary from one social media platform to the other, what matters is that you retain your plan and stick to it.
Build “Content Upgrades” + “Landing Pages” Into Your Blog Posts, Seamlessly & Fast
Make sure that you send out valuable content frequently.
It will make your readers adjust to your publishing schedule and keep coming back.
4: Create Different Content Formats to Boost Your Campaign Effort
Many content formats will skyrocket your marketing practices, such as:
For example, gated content is known to generate leads.
Notwithstanding, let us discuss a little about video content because the benefits of video are incredibly high.
Recent research shows that marketers are producing 65% more leads with video content marketing than any other content type.
Further study reveals that video marketing would account for 80% of all website traffic by the year 2021.
Are these statistics something to take home?
Definitely!
For instance, take a few moments and browse through the Facebook news feed.
What do you see?
The apparent dominant content you’ll notice is video.
It shows that more marketers are turning to video as their dominant content format to drive massive traffic and boost their content marketing strategy.
As a result, I suggest you create a video that shows what your brand is doing behind the scene.
Provide your customers with an inside view of your business.
The video could be a demonstration of your product–how it works, and so forth.
Make sure to create short videos because they perform better than longer videos, according to a recent study.
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But in some cases, the brand message you want to convey may need a longer video to highlight the major points.
To that end, create longer videos in series of:
- Part 1
- then… Part 2
- and… Part 3
- Etc.
Due to this, you will transmit your brand message correctly and to the point.
5: Get Documented On Third-Party Review Websites
In research by Avanade, 60% of B2B buyers look to third-party review sites before approaching a business.
The same survey indicates that 40% of these B2B buyers will review a company on a third site before making contact.
Further study by Yotpo shows that one of the best search engine optimization (SEO) tips that aid marketers to drive more website traffic is “reviews.”
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However, although marketers strive to gather the best review pieces they could, many are more concentrated on internal reviews rather than being documented on third-party review websites.
Why get listed on third-party review sites?
As you may already know, internal reviews (your website review) drive web traffic.
But if you document your website review on a third-party site, it attracts more views and effectively drives more website traffic.
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As you can see from the graphic above, 50% of respondents say, ’after reading positive reviews of a website, their next move is to visit the site.’
So do the math — more traffic to your website.
Thus, it is logical to say that third-party review sites will assist you to improve your SEO and Google search ranking efforts, thereby strengthen your brands content marketing strategy.
How to get documented on third-party review sites
There are many review websites on the internet where you can record your brand details.
Many are search engine-optimized with significant influence.
But the others are just there trying to get their heads up.
Hence, it is vital to find those that are well-optimized for SEO and submit your brand details so you can cruise along with them and enjoy the SEO benefits.
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Nonetheless, submitting your data to top influential review sites is not all that is required.
You will have to upgrade your game by collecting more reviews.
Why?
According to an article on the Clutch blog, Clutch reveals that doubling your reviews will increase your company’s visibility by up to 60%.
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It means that when you increase the number of your company reviews, your traffic also increases.
If you get three reviews, for instance, you might receive 150 profile views per month.
But if you double your reviews to six, you can expect to receive a 60% increase or about 240 monthly views.
As a consequence, ask your friends, co-workers, clients you’ve worked for, those you’re working with, and so forth, to give you a review.
Getting more reviews can explode your visibility.
Wrapping Up
Your brand’s content marketing strategy should be carefully and artfully prepared to enable you to boost your return on investment (ROI).
Starting from a deep understanding of your target audience.
Then set the best marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor.
Finally, you must consider every step of your reader’s journey–from the first interaction to the ultimate conversion goal.
However, your marketing techniques might not always work as planned.
So a vital element of your content marketing success must be trial and error.
Therefore, test your strategies and take appropriate steps to fix what is not working.
Then improve on those that are working.
It will strengthen your brand’s content marketing strategy and assist you to increase the ROI of your content marketing efforts.
So, be open to continually change and re-evaluate your content plan.
Learn More About Donna’s Top Tier Mentoring Program
How to Strengthen Your Brand’s Content Marketing Strategy
What’s your brand’s content marketing strategy?
Has this article helped you understand the things you need to do in order to strengthen it?
Please leave me a comment below, and also share this article on your social sites.
–Moss
About the Author
Moss Clement is a blogger and content marketer at Moss Media.
He is also content marketing manager at Writers Per Hour.
Moss shows bloggers and businesses how to use effective content marketing strategies to build their brands while attracting more visitors and generate leads.
Hi there, This article must have taken you a long time to put together. It is Fabulous because you made it easy for us to pick and choose what will work best for our business.
Hello Donna,
Indeed, when you know your target audience, you can create content that’s going to resonate with them.
Target audience analysis is an integral part of any marketing strategy.
The only way to know what you should talk about in any marketing campaign is to know who you are talking to and what they want to know.
Thanks for sharing these worthy facts for us and will going to maximize productivity of individual as well as firms.
With best wishes,
Amar Kumar
Hello Donna, I must appreciate your great work on writing content marketing strategies. You must make sure the activities followed by the business marketing strategy is right enough. In the world of digital marketing trends, content marketing plays an attractive role to impress the audience.
Hello Donna,
This article was extremely helpful. Now I have a huge list of tactics I want to try on my own clients’ sites that will keep me busy for years! I especially liked the ideas about creating different content formats, re-purposing content into different forms of media (i.e., Infographic, Video and Podcast) is a great way to expand your reach out to the various members of your target audience.
Thank you and God bless you more! 🙂
Chester Loke recently posted..How to Save Money on PPC Advertising
Twitter: marquitaherald
March 4, 2019 at 11:14 am #
Fascinating! Thank you for this valuable information, Donna and Moss. I do have a question about video graphic – what types of videos are typically included in the 1 to 2-minute range? I can only think of something like Facebook stories or ads. Lots of great actionable advice here!
Marquita Herald recently posted..The Secret to Bridging the Gaps in Life
Twitter: MosClement
March 4, 2019 at 7:06 am #
Hi Donna,
I so much appreciate the opportunity you offered me to contribute on your site. It is well appreciated, and the way you tweaked my author bio is excellent, that’s why you are an expert in the field. I will be using this bio byline in subsequent posts. Thank you so much.
Moss Clement recently posted.. 8 DIGITAL MARKETING TIPS FOR BEGINNER SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
Hi Moss
You did a wonderful job, here.
I think people will learn a lot about how to run an effective content marketing strategy to promote their blogs and their brands.
So many people want to promote themselves, but just don’t know how to do it well.
This is going to get many of them started in the right direction.
And, yeah… glad you like the way your bio came out 🙂
Great job my friend!
-Donna
Donna Merrill recently posted..3 Reasons You are Blogging Wrong and How To Fix It