Beginner’s guide to excellent content marketing strategy
Content writing is an indispensable part of conducting business. Moreover, 60% of firms have increased their content marketing budgets. Content marketing involves developing and distributing relevant content using blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails and videos to current and potential customers.
Your content can convey expertise, common values and even trustworthiness when done right. This month, Vantage is here with content marketing guidelines highlighting the basics of content marketing, the risks of hiring freelance content writers and common writing mistakes every business must avoid.
Basics of content marketing
Do you find yourself buried under an avalanche of content-planning activities?
Content marketing is not a replacement for other promotional techniques. Instead, content works best when used to complement other marketing efforts that support your business goals. If you want your business to reach its full potential, it is important that you understand what content marketing is, the goals that content can support and how content works on different platforms.
Let us start with the basics of content marketing.
- Businesses with blogs get 67% more leads than other companies.
- 47% of buyers view 3 to 5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative.
- Companies that use content marketing observe 30% higher growth rates.
- 72% of B2B marketers say content marketing increases audience engagement and also helps in generating leads.
How does content marketing work?
- An artisanal cheesemaker.
- A corporate consultant.
- A social entrepreneur.
All of these people can use content marketing to attract leads. To use it effectively, your business must deliver the right content at each sales cycle stage – from the awareness stage to the consideration and closing stage. This known as the Buyer’s Journey. If this sounds complicated, do not worry – we are about to break it down at a basic level so you can understand and apply it to your product or service.
Awareness stage
In the first stage of the buyer’s journey, your content should focus on your audience’s top concerns. Writing about their pain points, challenges and questions give you the best chance to engage them and retain their attention.
Content at the awareness stage can be educational or how-to advice. Save your selling for the consideration and closing phases. Following are the best content types businesses can use at the awareness stage.
- Articles
- Blog posts
- E-books
- Videos
- Newsletters
Examples
- How to plan a menu for a graduation party?
- 3 ways to choose the right bike trip
- Questions to ask before hiring an architect
Consideration stage
In this stage, content should lean towards the products and services your business offers to the end-user. The content should provide information about the features of the products and services and how they will address the needs of the customer. Following is the list of content that suits best during the consideration stage.
- Case studies
- How-to articles
- How-to videos
Examples
- 8 ways to improve your content strategy
- How to travel sustainably?
- What is an effective content marketing strategy?
Closing stage
Content marketing is very important when a prospect is close to buying. At this closing stage, your content should be your expertise, knowledge, features and benefits of what you sell.
The best content for this stage – user-generated content, case studies, product video and research report.
Examples
A travel agency creates a blog listing a favourite destination to visit in December – shaped by favorite things to do, food items to buy and places to visit.
A design agency creates short videos showcasing the variety in its work across different industries to demonstrate its diverse expertise.
Put content to work for your business. With some planning and systematic content marketing, you can reach the right people and inspire loyalty to your brand. If you are looking for expert advice on content marketing, contact Vantage ITeS to know more about our services.
Different content for different platforms
The essential part of content creation is to grab the attention of the target audience in one go. Anyone reading your content should be curious to know more about your brand. Following are some content types you must focus on to get the best results for your business.
- Infographics
- Blog content
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Social media
To get detailed information about each content type, click here to read our blog.
Before we jump to our next segment, let me tell you something. Content marketing differs from writing for a personal blog, publication or newsletter. The next segment of this article will focus on why hiring freelance writers as a company might not always be the right model.
Why do businesses struggle with content?
As an employee or business owner of the company, you know the most about your target audience and how the product can fulfill their needs. But, sometimes when you expect a freelancer to help your company deliver quality clients, you might end up losing more.
And if your target audience reads those articles, how do you expect them to take you seriously?
The right approach is to hire a team of qualified professional writers.
Finding someone who is a great writer or expert is very rare. Therefore, your business needs someone who pays attention to your audience and creates content that turns into leads.
When hiring freelance content writers for your business, you may consider the following points to ensure better delivery of your content to the customers.
- Find someone who pays attention to your audience
- Find someone who is great at storytelling
- Find someone who is not constantly worrying about word count
- Find someone who takes the time to understand what you are trying to achieve with the content.
- Find someone who is familiar with your operating market
- Find someone who has good knowledge about keywords and SEO
Why do you need a professional content marketing team?
At the end of the day, you want to find what works best for you and your team. If working with freelance writers generates the desired results, this model works for you. But, if it is not, you might need to look for other solutions, such as hiring a freelance content marketer or agency.
At Vantage, whether you want to beef up an existing website or create an entirely new platform that helps your business drive growth, Vantage is here to help you to enhance your web presence. Implementing these trends like social media marketing, content marketing and blog posts can help you guarantee results.
Using suitable media can help you build brand equity and increase engagement with your target customers. If you are looking for expert advice on brand development and building brand identity, email us at info@vantageites.com and know more about our services.
Content writing mistakes to avoid
After hours of pain and sweat writing your article, there it is – a troll screaming at your virtual face just a second after you hit ‘publish’.
I bet you go through the same feeling at least once, right?
But this is the only scenario showing up down the writers’ road. You would not believe how often writers make the same mistakes when creating content for their audience. With that in mind, we have compiled a list of common writing mistakes businesses should avoid before they embark on their next piece of content.
Not knowing your audience
It is completely okay to write about something you like, but that does not mean your audience will be interested too.
If you want your audience to read your articles, you need to know who you are writing those articles for. People are reading articles because of 3 things.
- To find a solution to the problem
- To get familiar with the latest trends
- Emotional connection with the article
To find your target reader, you must create a profile that depicts the desired readers’ main interests. For starters, you can start by setting up a couple of questions.
- Where is the target audience from?
- What are they doing for life?
- What problems are they facing?
- What is the most relevant solution to the problem?
Knowing your audience will help determine the content they want to read and how it should be presented. This will help increase the reliability as a content writer, attract more visits to your content and even increase the sharing rates.
Poor research
Poor research is the sneakiest writing mistake because writers often overlook how much authenticity is relevant to readers. To overcome this, take some time to investigate the subject you are writing about and learn more about it.
Even if you think your idea is strong, it is worth developing it further than rushing through the process and putting out something that is not up-to-par. Follow this step-by-step guide to keyword research.
- Understand different types of keywords
- Discover new keywords
- Understand the keywords metrics
- Find your seed keyword
- Study your competitors
- Pick and apply the chosen keywords to your content
Not only will your readers recognise the unique piece of content, but your knowledge and experience about the subject will help you write similar topics in the future. If you are looking for expert advice on web content writing and social media content marketing, email us at info@vantageites.com and know more about our services.
Poor or no planning of your content
Professional writers plan their content before starting, while many others do not. This is one of the most usual content writing mistakes that can mess up the entire concept of your article and make it even harder to write.
To resolve this mistake, you must set a goal for your article – focus on a single problem or solution relevant to your audience. You can break your topic into chapters that will cover all relevant parts of the overall idea or solutions to the problem you are writing about.
Divide your content into three major points.
Introduction – hook your readers by showing that you are aware of the problem
Body – provide solutions to the problem
Conclusion – convince your readers that these solutions will fix their problems permanently.
Planning your writing can be very simple when you figure out what topics you will write about in the next weeks or months.
Forgetting to proofread after publishing
As a content writer, there will always be people that judge your work and those who appreciate it. On the other hand, if you publish an article with grammatical errors and typos, you can permanently demolish your reputation and question your content’s credibility.
Sometimes, it is difficult to identify grammar errors in the first draft of the writing. Therefore, it is important to proofread the content before publishing. You can also use AI tools like Grammarly to catch errors and fix the content without compromising quality.
Not paying attention to the platform
Content writing professionals and businesses must ensure that using the same copy on every social media channel will not bring leads for your business. Customers expect variety from each social media channel, so why not mix it up?
To improve content marketing strategy, businesses can focus on the importance of social media channels and how content can be tweaked to create a lasting impact on customers. If businesses are focusing on brand development and networking, the tone should be formal. LinkedIn and Twitter can be useful social media platforms to generate sales and build professional networks among businesses. Content that is entertaining, niche-specific and motivational works well on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
If you are looking for expert advice on content creation strategies and building brand identity, email us at info@vantageites.com and know more about our services.
Start your content journey today!
Remember that your business goal is to be helpful and informative and everything you write is for someone else’s benefit. With that in mind, you want your articles to send the right message – to get all your points across and to represent your credibility and dedication.
Everyone wants extraordinary results! To achieve such results, businesses and their branding teams need to think specifically about their positioning and how to leverage themselves – and rapidly execute. Vantage offers tailored, strategic solutions to meet specific brand needs.
You need flexibility (reasonably priced) to stay competitive in a changing market. Vantage offers a wide range of services to cater to your changing needs. At Vantage, we help every client chart a unique path for their brand. Take a look at our ad-hoc services and build a compelling and unforgettable customer experience.
Frequently Asked Questions About Content Marketing Strategy
1. What are the 6 steps of content writing?
Here are the 6 major steps of content writing.
- Prewriting – jot down the little ideas and research gathered
- Planning – outline the content and plan the structure
- Drafting – complete the first draft before final submission
- Revising – edit the content and prepare the final content for publishing
- Editing – walk around the content and focus on creating crisp content
- Publishing – publish your content for the readers
2. What are the four pillars of content writing?
Following are the four pillars of content writing.
- Originality
- Relevance
- Engagement
- Relevancy
3. How do you avoid grammar mistakes in content writing?
Following are the 7 pro tips to avoid grammar mistakes in content writing.
- Learn basic grammar mistakes
- Write clearly and concisely
- Proofread your work
- Write and review at different times
- Use a spell checker
- Put your work to Grammarly
- Manually check your content
4. What are the four mistakes to avoid while writing any kind of content discussed?
Here are the 4 mistakes to avoid during content writing.
- Lack of research
- Poor or no planning
- Grammatical errors
- Writing content that does not add value to the products or services