5 Content Marketing Strategies that will

Skyrocket your Engagement and Conversion

By

Hephzibah Asaolu

www.hephzysocial.com

Content marketing as we all know, is the art of creating and distributing valuable

content to attract and convert potential buyers into customers. Now, for this

system to work properly, you need to design a content marketing strategy .

Having a concrete content marketing strategy will enable you to get inbound

traffic to your website, build brand awareness through engagement, generate

natural link popularity for SEO, open a channel of communication through social

shares and comments etc.

In this book, I will be looking at five (5) great content marketing best practices.

These are practices that will help you to create a winning content plan and

focused execution. You need a strong foundation of content that attracts

prospective customers at every stage of the buying circle.

Below are the best practices:

1. Know what your audience

The best way to get results from your content marketing efforts is to know your

audience and deliver what they want for them. In my post on content marketing

strategy checklist, I enumerated steps to know your audience and take them

through the buying stages.

You need to know what your audience cares about, what their interests and

motives are and their pain points. This will help you to know the type of content

you need to create for them. For example, the content a new visitor will need is

different from the one you will create for a prospective buyer who is getting

ready to make a purchase. You need to design content according to their buying

stages. Below is an image of your audience's journey through the buying stages.

There are four stages highlighted in the diagram above. When your audience first

comes to your website, they are like suspects. They want to know all about your

products and services. It is at this stage, you need to provide insightful

information about your products. For example, you can write how-to-guides, how

to articles, etc. These information will educate your audience about what you

have to offer them.

The second stage is the prospect stage. They have read your content and

understood your product or services. They are seeking for more information to

enable them make informed decision. This is where you can create e-books and

free reports.

When they are sure you have what they need, they will start interacting with your

business. They can sign up to your email list or contact you directly.

The last stage opportunity is when your audience is ready to make a purchase

based on your contents so far.

These are the stages you need to take your audience through with your content

marketing. This is a great content marketing strategy best practice that will

greatly help you to attract and retain your prospects.

2. Create a Content Formula

Content marketing is all about creating content that will help your audience solve

their most pressing needs or problems. To do this, you will need to create a

content formula that will help your customer make an informed decision. Above, i

made mention of the kind of contents that will be suitable for your audience at

each buying stage. Here you will see the formula to create those awesome posts.

Below are three foolproof formula you can use:

i. Use a List post

In a research carried out by OkDork and Buzzumo, it was discovered that list posts

receive most social shares after infographics. List posts are very popular and can

easily go viral. So, how do you write a great list posts:

a. Use the right number of items.

Ok Dor and Buzzumo analyzed 100 million articles and discovered that the most

popular form of list post that receives the greatest share are the ones with the

number 10,23, 16 and 24.

b. Make your list post easily digestible.

c. Include an introduction before you start creating the list just like I did above.

d. Add pictures

e. Write a conclusion

ii. Select a Viral Topic

The reason why most people don't succeed in content marketing is simply

because of the topic they use in creating content. In those days, you can succeed

with any topic you want. But nowadays, competitions are stiff and a lot of people

create content on a daily basis. So, your content needs to stand out. You need

create a topic that will make people want to share your content and that will

interest your prospects. The best way to do these are:

a. Look at what works for your competitors

There is no point reinventing the wheel. Check out your competitors websites

and look at headings that are creating a buzz on their websites. You can use ahref

or buzzumo to find it out. You can then model your topic after their own. For

example, if you are in the dog collar business and you are looking for article ideas

that work. Go to www.buzzumo.com and look for articles that are receiving high

number of shares.

In the image above, you can see different topics that are receiving a high number

of shares. Look at the topic "22 adorable dog collars every dog owner needs". You

can decide to make your own "26 adorable collars dog owners can't do without"

b. Use Quora to look at the questions your prospects are asking. This will give

you a clue as to what your audience wants to know. For example if you search for

dog collar, you will see different topic ideas you can use for your contents (as

shown below).

c. Copy your competitor's URL to google keyword planner tool and look at their

keywords. You can get an idea of what is working for them. For example, one of

the top dog collar website is http://www.petsmart.com/. So, go over to google

keyword planner and type in the website.

Click on "get ideas" and you will see lots of keyword ideas you can use (shown

below)

iii. Create the post, publish and promote it

Now that you know what type of content you want to create, you can create a top

quality list post on your topic. After you publish the post, you will need to

promote it effectively. If you do it well, it will go viral and you will have several

eyeballs on it.

3. Create an editorial calendar

In my post on how to create a marketing content editorial calendar. I provide

useful tips on how to create a winning content calendar.

A content calendar is more or less the same with the calendar you are familiar

with. The only twist to it is that you schedule your content creation, publishing,

promotion and measuring around specific dates.

Content marketing calendar helps to simplify the process of content creation,

plan and organize content publishing around events,dates and launches and gives

you enough time to create your content.

There are many content marketing calendar tools you can start with on the web.

Find some of them below:

1. Google docs

This is created by google and it looks just your Microsoft Excel. You can use it to

create your content marketing calendar.

2. WordPress Editorial Calendar

This is a WordPress plugin you can download and install on your blog. It provides

an overview of your blog and tells you when you need to make a post. It has

different features such as post dates, publish post titles, contents and times etc.

3. Hubspot editorial calendar

This is good for business owners who are just getting their feet wet in content

marketing.

Other great ones are Coschedule and Kapost editorial calendars.

4. Create Search Engine Optimizated contents

SEO is not dead as some people make us believe. You still need to attract search

engine traffic to maximize your earnings online. In order to create a content that

will benefit both humans and search engines, you need to:

i. Use one keyword per page - Choose relevant keyword for your content and

optimize it appropriately

ii. Use your keyword four or five times in your content. People who visit your

website through search engines will want to read about what brought them there

in the first place.

iii. Use a minimum page length for your post. It is discovered that longer posts

(1000 +) get more shared than shorter ones (300-500).

5. Measure Your content marketing ROI

After putting your best effort into content marketing, you need to measure your

results. In my post on "how to measure your content marketing ROI". I provide

specific insight on what you need to measure. The first one is the reach

(measured by impressions, traffic, subscriber/audience size, share of voice,

audience penetration across organization). You need to measure your reach by

the channels you are using for content marketing (website, blog, social media

channels etc.)

You measure page view, unique visitors, average time on page, engagement,

conversion. etc. I recommend you read the post for more insight.

Above are the five strategies that will help you skyrocket your content

engagement and conversion. Put them into practice today and see the level of

success you will achieve.

What other content marketing strategies do you think is necessary to attain

success in online marketing?

I invite you to check out my blog www.hephzysocial.com and read interesting

posts that will help you to skyrocket your business to the next level.

ABOUT HEPHZYSOCIAL

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Here's the deal:

If you need contents to:

* Generate leads to follow up by sales and marketing teams

* Help your sales team close sales more quickly

* Generate interest in your products

* Build and repair public opinion about your brand and products

* Develop friends and fans who interact with your brand socially

* Help customers get the most from your products

Then you are in the right place.

HOW HEPHZYSOCIAL CAN HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

I'm a big believer that every online marketer must master the art of content

marketing and promotion. But with the increasing amounts of information out

there, how can you find practical techniques that will help you to achieve the

goals highlighted above?

That's where Hephzysocial comes in.

Hephzysocial has grown into one of the most popular content marketing sites on

the web for one simple reason:

Everything I publish is super actionable and designed to help you get more leads,

customers and sales.

You can get in touch with me through my contact page or send a mail to

hephzysocial@gmail.com.