Inbound marketing is growing in popularity for its unique ability to focus marketing efforts on a specific, ready-to-buy target audience at a comparatively affordable price. In fact, (compared to outbound strategies) an effective inbound marketing campaign can increase sales without affecting the amount spent on advertising. One of the most critical pieces of any inbound strategy is content. Things like blogs, infographics, and the words used on a website are individual pieces of a written brand image that can either build or destroy a brand.
I believe that the key to a content strategy that grows brand image and improves revenue stream is documented. Content strategy is not just about getting enough content for your website, but also getting the right kind of content. Timeliness and quality are therefore crucial for a well-built content strategy. Today, we’ll discuss the four ways a documented content strategy can boost your SEO and create an attractive brand image.
1. Map Content Types and Topics
Recently Google confirmed the two most important ranking factors and one of them is “Content” as well as the links that point back to your site. You also want to provide content that answers questions that are searched for on the search engine. Without a written content strategy, it’s difficult to create a consistent theme and track the results of your efforts. A documented plan, however, gives you the insight to do several things, including:
- Target specific audiences
- Research keywords for SEO
- Research facts and information to produce higher-quality articles
- Spend more time on quality checking for technical errors
- Design graphics and visual components like images, videos, PowerPoint presentations (PPTs), infographics, PDF documents, etc. to complement your content
By mapping the specifics of each piece of content you release, your company will be more organized and better able to track the results of your efforts.
2. Compare Your Content to the Leaders in Your Industry
No matter what size your business is, knowing who the leaders are in your industry (and how they drive sales) is the first step to increasing your competitiveness in the market. Keeping a documented content strategy enables you to compare your content ideas and originality against the material your competitors have already published. Not only will this keep your content original and exciting, but it will also allow you to see what kind of content is engaging the consumers in your industry and compare those results to your own.
3. Creating a Schedule Keeps You Consistent
Let’s be honest — one of the toughest things about content marketing is publishing things like blogs and social media posts consistently. Because consumers prefer brands that are consistent with brand image and marketing campaigns, publishing on a strict schedule can make an enormous improvement to the number of brand followers your company has. By creating a schedule for your content, you will be able to effectively manage different content streams and post more consistently.
4. Sync Content with Your Inbound Funnel
Any marketing strategy works best when it is synced with your company’s overall advertising goals. A documented content plan makes it easy to compare how your general marketing approach fits into content strategies. Syncing your content schedule with your business’s ebb and flow will allow you to coordinate blog and social media releases with things like upcoming trade shows and product releases.
Outstanding content in 2016 digital marketing is often the key to a more successful inbound marketing campaign. Whether your company only publishes blogs, or coordinates everything from e-books to YouTube videos, documenting your release dates, topics, keywords, and target audience is a great way to start driving more sales with your inbound content strategy.
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