Content Marketing Series: Creating Content That Converts
This article is the fourth in a series on how to create an effective content marketing strategy for your business.
Content marketing has gotten competitive in recent years. With more than 91% of brands creating and sharing content, companies need to make sure content is compelling enough to stand out. This is especially important if the content is part of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy to generate demand for your product or service.
Over the course of our content marketing series, we’ve helped you build a strong foundation for your content creation efforts. Now, let’s take it to the next level by showing you how to come up with ideas for content that converts.
What Is Content Ideation and How Is It Done?
Content ideation refers to the process of generating new ideas for content. These ideas might come from brainstorming with team members, analyzing data, or having inspirational moments.
The goal is to get as many ideas as possible, then pick the best ones to anchor your content. Once you get ideas, you can narrow them down based on what the company needs and what your audience will find most relevant.
How To Choose Content Marketing Topics
Once you have a list of ideas, your next priority is to choose the most relevant ones to fuel your content creation. Many companies we work with jump into creating content they *think* will be interesting to their audience. Most of the time, sadly, they are wrong. There is both science and art to creating great content that audiences engage with. Here are a few ways we tackle this challenge..
SEE WHAT’S TRENDING
We’re a big fan of data driven decision-making at Prime 8, so the science based approach to choosing content is the approach we lean on heaviest. Tools like SEMRush, BuzzSumo, Google Trends, or Trends.co can help you discover what your target audience is talking about online. These tools look for mentions of particular keywords on social media as well as search data, shares, and engagement to see what people are interested in. From there, you can create content around popular topics while providing your unique perspective.
ANSWER QUESTIONS
If you’re collecting sales data, you’ll have an idea of the most common questions leads ask during the sales cycle. Is your target audience turning to Google with questions you can answer? If so, these questions provide a strong go-to market strategy for your content. Create content that answers these questions better than any other resource. Not only will this create relevancy and provide real value to your audience, but it can also help you earn backlinks from other sources.
ADDRESS YOUR CUSTOMERS’ PAIN POINTS
In a previous article, I talked about the Messaging and Positioning Framework (MPF) that captures key customer pain points. Here is where that work starts to pay off. Your customers’ pain points can give you an endless supply of content ideas. When you can solve real problems for your customers, you’re supporting a robust lead generation and demand generation pipeline for your sales team.
Addressing problems that people are actively looking to solve can also help you improve your organic search rankings. Customers are already searching for that type of content, which can help you get in front of a targeted, ready-to-act audience.
4 Steps to Content Creation
Once you decide on a topic, you can start to build out your content. Let’s take it step by step:
1. CHOOSE YOUR CONTENT TYPE
Content marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all. Different content formats work for different audiences and goals, so it’s important to connect your content type to the desired outcome.
For example, a case study might not resonate with someone who has no clue what your business does. But it might just tip the scales in your favor to a hot lead who’s ready to make a decision.
We shared a great breakdown in Part 2 of this series of how to align content format with your goals and the stages of the marketing funnel.
2. SELECT CONTENT KEYWORDS
Keywords support an effective content strategy by helping your content appear in relevant search results. When a user types a keyword or key phrase into Google, the search algorithms will display results based on the user’s query.
Including relevant keywords in your content will improve where you appear in the search results (ranking) when your audience searches for those terms. This helps search algorithms “learn” what your content is about so it can display your pages to the right audience at the right time.
You can use free keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest to find keywords that relate to your topic. If you have a budget, SEMRush and AHrefs are also great tools. Ideally, you’ll want to choose keywords that have a high search volume and a low difficulty rating. This helps you to rank higher in search and get in front of more potential leads.
3. DRAFT YOUR COPY AND CREATIVE
With your keywords, goals, and content format in mind, you can start crafting your copy to share your ideas. Certain content marketing formats will require more copywriting than others. For example, a blog post might be anywhere from 500-1000 words or more, while a white paper is usually twice this length. On the other hand, an infographic might only need a phrase or two per element.
Each content format has its own rules for copywriting. When starting out, a lot of companies will develop their own content internally, drafting staff experts to do the writing. This is a great way to get started, but it’s a terrible way to scale. Over time, you’ll likely find that juggling writing responsibilities with a ‘day job’ means content often gets pushed to the back burner. If you don’t have the budget to hire writers, hire external help that specializes in B2B copywriting, can adapt the writing to each type of content, and can keep your content on a predictable schedule.
4. EDIT AND REFINE
Even skilled writers don’t get everything right on the first try. Let the first draft simmer, then review it with fresh eyes. Copyediting your content can catch small errors, or inconsistencies that might not resonate with your audience.
Once you’ve perfected your copy, share it on your desired channels and start tracking its results.
How Prime 8 Marketing Consultants Can Help
Content marketing can play an important role in a GTM strategy. Your content helps to make your brand unique. It adds a human element to your corporate image and helps people get to know your capabilities, culture, and personality beyond your name and tagline.
At Prime 8, our marketing consultants can help you develop and implement an effective end-to-end content marketing strategy. Our consultants bring diverse and well-rounded backgrounds in sales, marketing, and branding to ensure every aspect of your marketing funnel works. By offering expertise at the macro level (strategy development, branding, marketing funnels, etc.) and the micro level (content ideation, choosing formats, drafting copy, etc.), we can help you develop cohesive content campaigns that work.
If you’d like to explore how we can help, reach out to us. If you’d like to explore consulting as a career, check out working with Prime 8 to learn more.
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