How to create effective content marketing campaigns
Your business is growing, and you want to increase your reach. You know that effective content marketing will get you in front of potential customers who are keen to buy… but how do you create an effective content marketing campaign? Follow these steps to up your game.
You don’t need to be a marketing guru to create effective content that can grow your business. Simple steps with simple tools can help you convert lookie-loos into customers and customers into loyal fans.
- SEO Keyword Research
Before you roll your eyes or look at us blankly, you CAN do this, and we’ll tell you how. Every great piece of content starts with the right keywords. Without them, you could write the next best-seller but if no-one sees it, it won’t help your business. Once you have a topic in mind, you can use Google itself as a simple and free way to give you some rudimentary keywords.
Go to Google and start to type the key topic of your content. Google will start to suggest endings, and these can be used as keywords. Think of a few variants and start to type them in to get a list of 2-3 keywords that are crucial to your piece.
You should also pay attention to what your competitors are posting. While you should never plagiarize their content, it may well give you ideas and potential keywords to target.
- Social media research
You can also get effective content marketing ideas from social media. This can be as simple as leveraging what is trending (although this only works if you can get content out quickly) or seeing what has performed well in the past by using tools such as BuzzSumo.
You can also use social media to see which pieces of your content have done well with your followers in the past. If you had high engagement when you posted your must-have interior design items list last year, then the chances are a refreshed piece for 2021 will do well too!
- Choose an enticing title and main image
Most people will click on a piece of content because they feel drawn to the title or the main image. Create a title that includes adjectives, invokes intrigue or emotion and isn’t too long (or it will be cut off on search engines!). Your image should fit with the aesthetic of your brand and be relevant to your topic although you can get pretty metaphorical here.
- Edit, edit, edit
No matter how much experience you have as a writer, every single piece of content must be thoroughly proofread and edited. Effective content marketing strategies only work if the content is good! Once you have created your content, walk away from it. Come back later to read it afresh. Once you’re happy with it, run it through spellcheck. Then use an additional tool, such as our favourite free option, Grammarly, to check it again!
- Market your content
If you quietly pop some awesome content up on your site, it may get noticed from time to time through SEO. But we want bang for our buck here! You put in the effort and wrote a great piece of content so now it’s time to market it to your audience.
If you have an active mailing list, add new content to your newsletter. Add it to social media accounts too. Tremendous pieces of content or those giving something away make great Google and Facebook ads too, drawing in people who otherwise wouldn’t see your content or interact with your business.
- Backlinks
A backlink is when another site links to your website, usually on the merit of a piece, or due to collaboration. This helps to boost your SEO ranking but also gives you access to a new audience. Backlinks can be free (many sites incorporate them to boost their authority ranking) but can also be paid for.
Local backlink opportunities will vary depending on your business, but Connecting Albert County publishes articles that it believes will be of value to the business community on a monthly basis.
You may also want to look at any associations you are part of, collaborations with other local businesses, or guest spots in relevant places for your industry.
Need a helping hand?
The creation and marketing of digital content aren’t for everyone, and if it’s not for you, that’s okay! It can be a steep learning curve and a time commitment many business owners simply don’t have. If you want regular or one-off content created or marketed, we’ll be delighted to discuss your needs.
Cyber PR Army Solutions Inc.. Understand where you want to be, and we’ll help you get there.