Building a high-converting content marketing campaign should start with a clear objective, i.e. what do you want to achieve?
Providing high value for free is the way to building trust and credibility. How? The more educational content you give away – from webinars, white papers, eBooks, guides and blog posts – the higher of a chance you will have of gaining quality subscribers. The other great thing is that content marketing really enables you to take the organic route, especially if you’re on a bootstrapped marketing budget.
Therefore, setting expectations right up front is imperative. It takes time to build a loyal readers, to proliferate your content and most importantly, make money. So, know that you’re running a marathon, not a sprint.
Be Relevant
Knowing your audience is one thing, but writing content that they actually care about is another; marry the two. Build out an editorial calendar at least thirty days ahead so that you put yourself on a schedule to pushing out content on a consistent basis. Doing so will loop you into the 82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing. Also note that creating just 15 blog posts per month will average out to generating 1,200 new leads per month. (Source: HubSpot)
Quality Trumps Quantity
Implementing an editorial strategy comes with taking the time to do research on topical trends and content types, so you’ll know where to spend your time to obtain the most amount of engagement. From there, you can map out your editorial road map to be a part of the conversations that are happening and also write an original piece to input thought leadership. Don’t focus on pushing out content just for the sake of having something new up. Focus on how the quality of your content can provide a meaningful connection with your audience.
Push Visual Content
Face it, we live in a visual world now. Incorporating visuals into your content marketing efforts are bound to have a positive outcome. As such, it’s no surprise that content with visuals get 94% more total views. Here are a few visual content pieces you can publish:
- Infographics
- Memes
- Gifs
- Slideshare
- Videos
Successful Content Marketing Examples
Here are three examples I pulled from TopRankBlog where content marketing provided a positive ROI for the following companies:
- Limelight Networks – Implemented a “For Dummies” themed education campaign drawing attention to success and failures for companies and their digital presence. The campaign gained exposure through nearly 10,000 social media and news release views and $200k+ worth of sales opportunities.
- Logicalis – Using content assets such as emails, microsite and ebook, Logicalis developed a thought leadership effort that supported sales teams by enabling custom messaging based on the prospects interaction with the campaign. With a target audience of about 2,000, nearly $8 million in new pipeline business was closed.
- Demandbase – This education campaign was designed to help B2B marketers make the right content technology investment by using a white paper, infographic, webinar, Slideshare and a live presentation to spotlight tools that can maximize the power of content. The results of the campaign included 1,700 leads, 125 webinar participants, 5,000 views on Slideshare and $1 million in new business.
Let the Stats Speak for Themselves
- 57.4% of B2B businesses say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation goals.
- 46.1% of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of the company.)
- 90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them.
- Content marketing cost 62% less than traditional marketing
- Per dollar spent, content marketing generates approximately 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing.
