Content marketing gets a lot of talk, but many small business owners still aren’t sure exactly how it works. They might try writing the occasional blog post, but when they don’t see immediate results, they get frustrated and give up, convinced that content marketing doesn’t work after all – or, at least, it doesn’t work for their business.
In general, the inefficiency of their content marketing efforts is a result of one of two mistakes: either their content is too salesy and it turns people off, or it’s not salesy enough and fails to convert the leads that find their website and like the content. An effective content marketing strategy walks the fine line between too salesy and not salesy enough, but rather than addressing these mistakes, most small business owners will simply give up and let their blog go dormant.
This is a big mistake, because if you aren’t blogging on a consistent basis, you’re missing out on opportunities to get in front of your target audience. The more content you have on your website, the more content Google has to index your website That gives Google a better idea of what your website is all about, which means it can do a better job of matching your content with the people who are looking for it. If you don’t publish new blog posts with strategic keywords regularly, you’re missing out on opportunities to get in front of your target audience.
But getting in front of your audience is just the first step. Once you’ve succeeded in getting their attention, your content has to engage them and then lead them through the buyer journey.
The secret to engaging your audience and convincing them to work with you is to develop a comprehensive content strategy that makes the most of your content marketing efforts. If you have no idea what we’re talking about, don’t worry because we’re going to take you through it, step by step.
Table of Contents
- Develop Your Marketing Personas
- Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
- Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
- Know Where Your Audience Is in the Buyer Journey
- Lead Your Audience Through the Buyer Journey
- Conclusion
1) Develop Your Marketing Personas
The first thing you need to do is develop your marketing personas. A marketing persona is a way of making your target audience come to life. You draw a picture of what they look like, use a stock photo, or even use a picture of one of your existing customers if they’re OK with it. Give them a name, a gender, an income level, some interests, and some of the challenges they face that you can help solve for them. If you’re in a B2B industry, you’ll also want to include their job title.
The number of marketing personas you create depends on the variety of your audience. Most brands should have at least two marketing personas: one for each gender, unless your company only serves one gender. You could also create different personas for different races, different income levels, etc.
Try not to come up with more than two or three personas. If you try to make your target audience too broad, you’ll end up with lower rates of engagement and conversions because your content isn’t speaking to their specific needs. The ideal target audience should be an inch wide and a mile deep, meaning identifying a narrow target audience allows you to dive deep into their problems and concerns, which makes your content more effective.
2) Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
The difference between content marketing and content strategy is the difference between throwing darts in the dark and throwing darts in a well-lit room with a clearly visible target. With the first, you might hit something, but will it be the thing you were hoping to hit? With the second, you know exactly what you want to hit and where it is, at which point hitting the target is just a matter of skill – which is where a professional content strategist with the right software can help.
Developing a content marketing strategy means doing keyword research to identify the search terms your audience is looking for that haven’t already been covered to death by your competitors. Finding the questions your audience is asking without finding answers is key to both showing up in online searches and converting leads who find your website.
3) Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
Most of the time when we talk about keywords we talk about two kinds of keywords: short tail and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords tend to be just 1-2 words, and while they might get a lot of searches, they also tend to have a ton of competition, making it impossible to rank for them.
By contrast, long-tail keywords tend to have a lower search volume, but also much less competition. They also tend to have a higher buyer intention, which means, when someone uses a long-tail keyword to find your website, you’ll have a better chance of converting that lead into a customer.
For example, someone who uses the keyword “financial planning” is probably just looking for general information on financial planning, which means they’re unlikely to be ready to hire a financial planner right now, even if they love your content. On the other hand, if they search for something like “financial planning for women”, they’re searching for something more specific, and if your content can convince them that you have what they’re looking for, you’ll have a much better shot at convincing them to hire you.
4) Know Where Your Audience Is in the Buyer Journey
Every time you create a piece of content, you need to know where your target audience is in the buyer journey when they encounter that piece of content so you can effectively lead them through the buyer journey.
For example, most blog posts should be full of actionable tips your audience can use in their day-to-day lives. These are the how-to posts, full of content and keywords that people tend to be searching when they want to know how to do something for themselves. As a result, your goal for that content shouldn’t be sales, but it might be something like getting them to follow you on social media or sign up for your newsletter.
Similarly, newsletters should also be full of valuable content, but you’re sending it directly to people who have already expressed an interest in your content. The effectiveness of newsletters tends to be measured by open rates and click-through rates (CTRs) rather than sales.
In general, your sales should be left to your sales pages. Each product/service you offer should have its own page, and that should be the only place you go for the hard sell.
There are some exceptions to the rule. For example, you can announce a new product or service, or a sale or special promotion in a blog post and/or your newsletter, in which case going for the hard sell at the end of the announcement might be appropriate, but the vast majority of your blog posts should provide value your audience can use on their own.
Another exception is if you’re in the retail industry selling small things that don’t cost much, in which case selling in newsletters and directly on social media is completely appropriate because your audience doesn’t need to spend much time deliberating or weighing the cost against the benefits.
5) Lead Your Audience Through the Buyer Journey
Identifying where your audience is in the buyer journey for each piece of content is key to converting those leads into sales because only when you know where they currently are in the buyer journey can you successfully lead them to the next stage.
For example, rather than a blog post that ends with a contact form telling people to reach out to you for pricing information, most blog posts should end by asking readers to sign up for your newsletter and/or follow you on social media. This is because they are not yet ready to buy, and asking them to do so will just prompt them to click away.
But by matching the call to action with their current position in the buyer journey, you’ll have a better chance of getting them to take the action you want. Once they’ve signed up for your newsletter and/or followed you on social media, you can continue pushing great content in front of them and letting them know you’re still around and doing great things for your customers. When they are ready to buy, not only will your brand be at the forefront of their minds, but they’ll be more likely to trust you over your competitors because a) they’ll be more familiar with your brand, and we tend to prefer the familiar over the unfamiliar; and b) you’ll have demonstrated your expertise again and again so they’ll know you really know your stuff.
6) Conclusion
Too many small business owners hear over and over again that they need to be blogging for their business, so they try to do it on their own, but too often they’ll just post sporadically, and when they do post, they write about whatever they’re thinking about at the moment, rather than first taking the time to research keywords and topics to make sure their content is relevant. Those who don’t take the time to develop a comprehensive blogging strategy first end up wasting a lot of time and energy on something that doesn’t work because they haven’t taken the time to go through the five steps listed above.
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