Content strategy: complete guide to success

Generating leads on the Internet has become the number 1 objective of all companies on the web. One of the most effective methods remains content marketing or content strategy. Definition, objective, challenges and benefits: in this article, you will discover all the important elements to know about content strategy.

Definition

Content strategy: what is it? 

Content strategy consists of creating content with high added value in order to spread your company’s expertise. The goal is to make your readers understand that you are an expert in your field. For example, if you are a bakery, you will probably create content about making bread or pastries.

Before applying theory, you need to know it! Content strategy will allow you to prove and demonstrate your expertise to all prospects who are likely to consume your products. To do this, you will need to think in advance about many parameters that will help you optimize this content strategy; it cannot be improvised.

Content strategy, different from marketing automation?

Although these are two different notions, they are above all two highly complementary concepts. One does not work without the other. They are even part of the fundamentals of digital marketing, made up of 3 major concepts:

• Marketing automation
• Inbound Marketing
• Content marketing

Marketing automation, as the name suggests, is the automation of marketing. In other words, it means saving time on time-consuming tasks. It is a set of tools that helps you better convert your leads. For example, it makes it possible to create omnichannel campaigns to educate prospects. 

Inbound Marketing is a process aimed at attracting visitors to your website who may be interested in the products you sell. The idea is not to go after prospects, but to invite them to come to you.

As you have understood, content marketing & marketing automation are techniques used to do inbound marketing. Let’s look more specifically at content strategy. 

Content strategy: objectives and challenges

Understanding the challenges of content strategy

Content strategy alone is not sufficient. Creating content just to create content may satisfy your company’s ego, but it will be useless as it stands.

As we told you earlier, it is important to connect all digital marketing concepts in order to optimize your content strategy. Indeed, marketing automation as well as inbound marketing will help optimize content strategy. You will guide your future prospects toward your conversion funnel to convince them to book an appointment.

A good content strategy goes hand in hand with marketing automation software and an inbound marketing process if you want it to become a powerful lead acquisition lever.

Why integrate a content strategy into a marketing strategy

A well-adapted content strategy will bring you many advantages in many areas. 

First of all, in terms of SEO positioning. Visitors need to be able to recognize your expertise. And there is nothing better than the web to improve your visibility! If your content has high added value, your ranking will only improve depending on the keywords you have decided to highlight.  

Thanks to content strategy, you also collect data about your leads. Indeed, you will regularly provide your expertise in exchange for data such as email address, business sector, job title, company… Whether it is a white paper, a document or a webinar, you absolutely must ask your prospect for information in exchange for content. The more content you offer that interests them, the more willing they will be to provide data about themselves.

This data will allow you to segment your database into different categories according to your criteria. Going back to the bakery example, it can, for example, distinguish people who only buy bread from those who only buy pastries.

Added to this segmentation is lead scoring. Depending on the actions carried out by your prospect, you will be able to assign them a score. The point is to know the moment when they are warm enough to send them the right message. Remember: the right message, at the right time, to the right person! 

The more positive actions the prospect takes, the more points they get, and vice versa. Here are a few examples of actions you can use as inspiration. It is then up to you to determine when you consider your lead to be warm.

Data collection will also make it possible to identify KPIs linked to your objectives. These are powerful performance indicators that should not be overlooked in the strategy.

To make things easier for you, we recommend using marketing automation software that will allow you to automate these tasks and thus spend more time implementing the content strategy.

How to integrate it into a marketing strategy

We have seen above that a good content strategy brings definite benefits to the company. Let us now take a closer look at how to implement this strategy. Here are our tips and recommendations for doing it successfully.

First of all, you should know that content strategy meets a marketing objective. For example, increasing the number of leads by 10%. It is important that this objective be achievable and above all realistic. Here is a list of example marketing objectives that you can define according to the needs of your company:

• Generate leads
• Convert your leads into customers
• Retain your customers
• Improve your brand awareness
• Re-engage cold customers.
• Add-on selling
• Upselling

read also: content creation: what is it?

After defining your strategic objective, it is necessary to create your marketing persona. As a reminder, a marketing persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Write down everything that seems relevant to note about them: age, family situation, gender, place of residence, their desires, their fears, their communication channels. Each piece of information will allow you to make important decisions later. 

Writing your persona has allowed you to highlight their position in the buying process. You will therefore be able to adapt your content depending on whether they are looking for a solution to their problem, whether they are considering buying your product, or whether you want to build loyalty or turn your customer into an ambassador. Let’s take our bakery example again. Imagine that your persona wants to consume better but hesitates to take the plunge. Luckily, the bakery offers bread made by an artisan baker. You will therefore offer them content on the benefits of handmade food, that such foods are tastier, etc… 

If your persona is already a loyal customer of the bakery, offer them a newsletter about the new products of the month. You understand the approach. Nurture your prospect according to their expectations. You can also include existing content and adapt it to your target audience.

Your content will most certainly be present on the web. 54% of people who carry out a search still go through a search engine and 91% of those searches are done on Google. It is therefore natural to go through a search engine, especially Google, to distribute your content.

When writing your content, make a list of keywords that you consider relevant. Search engines work a bit like a supermarket: the products put forward are the products with the highest added value and the most relevant ones. To rank them, search engines need to know the topic of your content.

You must therefore insert your keywords into your content so that search engines favor your page. This way you will be better positioned than your competitors. Also plan your content via an editorial calendar; it is always a plus to have a complete and overall view of your publishing pace.

Now that your content is published online, it is time to promote it. You must promote your content using all the promotional means that you consider relevant for your business sector, but also the communication channels used by your prospects. If you decide to use social media but your target uses newsletters, that is probably not a good idea. Here are a few communication relay ideas you can use:

• Social media
• Blogs
• Newsletters
• White papers
• Dynamic content
• Videos

Finally, performance analysis of your content is essential. You must constantly adapt and adjust your strategy in real time. To do this, use KPIs. 

KPIs are statistics, determined in advance by your company, linked to a marketing action or objective. For example, the open rate for an email campaign is a KPI. Make yourself a list of KPIs to monitor regularly and correct the points that need improving to optimize your results.

Better positioning on search engines, data collection and KPI monitoring are advantages that should absolutely not be overlooked in a company marketing strategy. They allow you to make important decisions and achieve key objectives to ensure the sustainability of your company. With this guide, you now have all the keys necessary for the proper implementation of a content strategy.