Content Writing

Essentials of Effective Content Marketing

Writer / Author Christopher Vickers, Atlanta-based Brand, Advertising + Content Marketing & Communications Strategist & Creator

Content marketing is a long-term strategic plan to create, distribute, and measure relevant, valuable content - like social media posts, articles, white papers, videos, and podcasts - consistently over time, to attract and retain a target audience which results in valuable customer action. For most companies this means delivering a combination of information, entertainment and experience that resonates with customers throughout their buyer journey.

Companies use content marketing to engage and typically to educate target audiences about a variety of topics relevant to target interests, challenges, pain points and goals. Relevant content can increase company awareness, familiarity, and consideration and establish a company as expert within a category, growing positive perceptions and associations about it, its employees, products, and services. This in turn can increase likeability, trust, and consideration and more.

Content marketing can help improve search engine rankings, generate leads, complement and supplement sales efforts, increase sales and help grow customer loyalty. For example, a technology company might create and distribute un-salesy how-to videos, buying guides and comparison charts to help educate customers about the category of products and services (including their own) including key factors to consider to help buyers make more informed decisions. The goodwill of free (or almost free, i.e. in exchange for an email address) content can develop and grow positive perceptions about the content provider and generate interest and leads from prospective buyers when they sign up for a newsletter or request more information.

Primary Components Include strategy, creation, distribution, measurement and reporting & optimization. Herein is an overview of the key phases, work and how each is typically performed. For greater depth and insight see my related articles Essentials of Content Strategy and Essentials of Content Creation.

Content Strategy - Is the cornerstone of content marketing efforts and includes a variety of work, typically in a defined sequence. To begin practitioners typically:

• Conduct market research - Including interviewing company sales people and customers, using surveys (e.g., Survey Monkey, Typeform), focus groups, secondary research, and the internet (including Ai) to gain a broad understanding about a target audience, competitors, and market dynamics in the category. For digital content, Ai-powered tools like SemRush's Market Explorer can provide valuable insights into market trends and competitor strategies.

• Develop customer / buyer personas - Including creating three to five detailed personas (aka avatars) of ideal customer types which capture and summarize relevant demographics and persona pain points, challenges, motivations and goals. Tools like HubSpot's Make My Persona or Xtensio can help streamline this process. Ai-driven tools like Crystal can help create more accurate and detailed personas based on online behavior.

• Map the customer / buyer persona purchase "journeys" - Involves outlining the steps ideal customers take from pre-awareness to purchase and beyond to identify key touchpoints for content and experience delivery. Tools like UXPressia or Smaply can assist in creating visual journey maps. Ai-powered journey mapping tools like Pointillist can help identify patterns and optimize customer journeys.

Goals and Objectives - Establishing clear measurable content marketing goals is important to set and manage expectations, define what’s important and thus what should be measured. Examples include:

* Increase website traffic by 30% in six months

* Capture 500 qualified leads (e.g., email addresses) per quarter in exchange for valuable content (e.g., downloads)

* Improve customer retention rates by 15% through post-purchase content

Project management tools like Asana or Trello can be used to track progress towards these goals. Ai-powered project management tools like ClickUp offer predictive analytics to help forecast goal achievement.

Content Audit and Gap Analysis - Includes evaluating existing content assets and identifying areas where existing content can be re-purposed (e.g., converting a long-form article into a video, a podcast and an infographic, reaching new prospects) and where new and additional content is needed to support persona needs and commercial objectives. Tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or SemRush's Content Audit tool can help facilitate the process. Ai-powered content audit tools like Frase can analyze existing content and suggest improvements based on competitor analysis and SEO best practices.

Keyword Research for SEO - Includes identifying relevant keywords and phrases personas use during search to optimize content accordingly. Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz Pro offer comprehensive keyword research capabilities. Ai-powered SEO tools like Clearscope can help optimize content for specific keywords and improve search engine rankings.

Content Development Planning and Creation - Includes developing a comprehensive editorial calendar based on personas, objectives and resources. It should include short persona descriptions, content topics, formats, and timing. Tools like CoSchedule, Monday.com, Asana, or Airtable can help with the creation of editorial calendars for content planning. Content types and tools which can streamline, enable and manage creation, distribution and measurement include:

* Blog posts, articles, white papers, and case studies (WordPress, Medium)

* Videos and audio, e.g., expert interviews (YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes, Spotify)

* Infographics and buyer's guides (Canva, Piktochart)

* Social media posts (Buffer, Hootsuite)

Effective content is typically engaging, insightful and valuable to buyer personas and is aligned with a company’s brand and goals. This might include product tutorial videos, insightful social media posts and educational articles around a company's field of expertise, e.g., Hubspot writing about how to use Ai in marketing automation. Tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor can assist with composition and editing, and Canva or Adobe Creative Suite help with visual content creation. Ai-powered writing assistants like Jasper.ai or Copy.ai can help generate ideas, headlines, and even full drafts of content, significantly accelerating the content creation process.

Content Distribution and Promotion - There are a variety of paid, owned, and earned channels in which to distribute and measure content including:

* Company-owned analog and digital media and events including websites and trade show / conference exhibits

* Search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo

* Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Youtube, and Facebook. Hootsuite and Sprinklr are popular management tools.

* Email platforms like Mailchimp and Constant Contact.

* Influencer partnerships (see AspireIQ and Upfluence) and industry publications (see BuzzSumo and Traackr).

* Paid promotion on relevant platforms, including search and social media like Google, Bing, X, and Threads.

Each channel has strengths and weaknesses based on persona interests, challenges and goals, buyer journey, channels competitors use, budget, objectives and so on. Ai-powered tools like Lately.ai can help automate content distribution across multiple channels and optimize posting times for maximum engagement.

Measurement and Analysis - Key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, time on page, engagement (like, share, comment, re-post), CTR (click-thru) conversion rates, downloads, lead generation, etc. should be established and measured. Analytics tools like Google Analytics, HotJar, Crazy Egg, Mixpanel and Amplitude can deliver insight and refine content strategy over time. Ai-powered analytics tools like Google's can help identify patterns and trends in your data that might be missed by human analysis.

Reporting and Optimization - Colleagues, managers and clients can be kept up-to-date with regular reports that highlight KPIs, insights about persona behavior, recommendations for optimization and forecasts for future efforts. Data visualization tools like Tableau or Google Data Studio can summarize data and educate and inform effectively. Feedback which helps refine strategy, focusing on what resonates with personas is typically valuable. Ai-powered reporting tools like Automated Insights can generate natural language reports from data, making it easier to communicate results to stakeholders.

Case Studies - Two popular examples of exceptional content marketing include Red Bull energy drinks and John Deere agriculture equipment. Below are summaries.

Red Bull Energy Drinks - Red Bull needed to differentiate itself in the crowded energy drink market to engage a young active target audience. They predicted creating high-quality content which associates the brand with extreme sports and adventurous lifestyles, i.e., high energy, would be valuable and beneficial. Red Bull created Red Bull Media House, an internal agency which produces high-quality content including videos, TV shows, magazines, music, and more featuring extreme sports and daring feats. They use platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and their own website for distribution. Some of their best and most exciting programming is broadcast on network TV. As a result, Red Bull has become synonymous with extreme sports and adventure and, in the process, expanded its brand recognition and grown sales and market share. Its YouTube channel has almost 20 million subscribers and succeeds in creating a unique brand that extends beyond the product.

John Deere Agriculture Equipment - John Deere wanted to build long-term relationships with farmers and establish itself as an authority in the agricultural industry. The company determined providing valuable, educational content to farmers to help farmers improve and grow their businesses would build positive associations and contribute to increasing Deere brand familiarity, consideration and trust, and contribute to growing sales. John Deere launched The Furrow magazine in 1895, focusing on educational content for farmers. The magazine continues today in print and digital formats, offering insights on agricultural technology, farming best practices, and useful industry trends. They've expanded their content strategy to include a robust website, social media presence and YouTube channel. As a result its efforts have helped John Deere build and maintain a position as a trusted leader in the agricultural sector for over a century, fostering customer engagement and loyalty.

Content Marketing Resources - Whether internal or external resources should be used depends on company needs, internal SMEs, timing, budget and more. In any case ensure contributors have requisite skills including research, strategy, SEO, creation (writers, designers, audio / video producers), distribution, and measurement / analytics. Project management tools like Basecamp and Monday.com can help coordinate and streamline team efforts. Ai-powered talent matching platforms like Toptal can help with identifying and finding skilled content marketing professionals.

Content Governance and Workflow - Whether a company employs 20 or 20,000, establishing clear guidelines for content creation (including authors and contributors), approval processes (especially by internal subject matter experts/SMEs and legal, especially in heavily regulated industries) and brand is vital. Implement efficient workflows to streamline content production and ensure quality control. Tools like Workfront or Wrike can help manage content workflows. Ai-powered content governance tools like Acrolinx can help ensure brand consistency and quality across all content.

Current Tools and Technologies - Additional tools and technology which help make content marketing efforts more efficient and effective include content management system (CMS) platforms like WordPress and Drupal, analytics platforms like Google and Adobe Analytics, and collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Marketing automation platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, Eloqua (Oracle), and Marketo (Adobe) are all-in-one creation, distribution, measurement, and management tools which help organizations schedule and automate repetitive tasks like email, schedule and manage social media, and capture, store, and track leads, accelerating and streamlining the content marketing process. Ai-powered marketing automation tools like Pardot (Salesforce) can help personalize content delivery and optimize lead nurturing processes.

Emerging Technologies - While there are many, none are disrupting, improving and accelerating content marketing more than Generative Ai. Some recent applications include:

* Personalized content recommendations based on user behavior and preferences (e.g., Adobe Target, Dynamic Yield)

* Automated content creation for product descriptions and basic marketing copy (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.)

* Chatbots for customer service and guided shopping experiences (e.g., Intercom, Drift)

* Predictive analytics for content performance and audience targeting (e.g., Albert.ai, Cortex)

Some of the advantages of using Ai in content marketing include 1) Increased efficiency and scalability; 2) Enhanced personalization capabilities; 3) Data-driven decision making and 4) Improved customer experiences. Some of the disadvantages include 1) Potential loss of human creativity and nuance; 2) Data privacy concerns; 3) Additional costs of time and effort to learn and implement successfully and 4) Risk of over-automation leading to impersonal interactions, similar to 2).

Based on my experience and news and reviews to date, the pros far outweigh the cons. For most companies Ai has been and will continue to be an easy-to-learn tool which substantially improves content marketing efficiency and effectiveness, radically saving time and reducing costs.

Evolving Content Formats - A variety of newer content formats have and continue to emerge, including:

1. Interactive content like configurators, AR product try-ons using tools like Ceros and Thinglink

2. Voice-optimized content for smart speakers and voice search, leveraging tools like Voiceflow and Alexa Skills Kit

3. User-generated content campaigns which boost authenticity and engagement, facilitated by platforms like TINT and Stackla

Ai-powered tools are also enabling new content formats, such as:

* Personalized video content created with AI video generation tools like Synthesia

* AI-generated podcasts using text-to-speech technology from tools like Descript

* Interactive AI chatbots that can engage users in personalized conversations about your brand or products

Depending on the type of business, target audience and goals, most are worth a look and exploration.

Conclusion Content marketing offers organizations a powerful way to connect with customers and other types of stakeholders to increase engagement, consideration, sales, and loyalty. Content marketing can help companies establish thought leadership in their categories and create meaningful relationships with their audience. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, those who adapt and modernize their approach and use of content marketing will be best positioned for success. The integration of Ai and generative Ai tools in content marketing strategies will be crucial for staying competitive and delivering personalized, engaging content at scale.

References: Hubspot, AhRefs, eWizard, Hootsuite, BackLinko, Wordstream, Buzzstream and Jasper.